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Indonesia - Kuta beach

I didn't see the value in taking a tour of the highest quality coffee producer in Bali, but I went with an open mind and learned a lot about coffee and the processes involved in preparing the beans.

When we hit the beach we waded through Indonesians selling everything from ice cream to henna tattoos, and renting umbrellas and surfboards, until we found a place where the waves were decent. They were big, and closing out quick, so they were hard to ride. I rented one board with another guy for two hours. It was 70000 rupiah, about 3 dollars an hour. I got a really bad rash on my belly and chest. I flat wore out my arms. The surf was really rough. I rode a couple waves.

We wandered down the street to find lunch. Then I played in the water for a while again before we left.

For supper I found a tiny tiny place that made legitimate local food for a good price. Everything around here is a good price compared to American markets, but overpriced from the local perspective. I had a good dish of fried rice and vegetables for less than 2 dollars.

Indonesia - Monkey Temple and Shopping

Got a long nights sleep, and woke up before my alarm. That is the perfect start to a day. The gourmet breakfast helped too.

Our first visit of the morning was a local community temple. Each community has a place of worship, and they are all similar. A large courtyard with stone figures and an ornately carved temple. This is all fenced in by stone walls with more figures and ornation. Yea, I'm pretty sure I just made that word up.

Next we visited a temple that had been dug up in the last hundred years. It had a cave, carved tunnel, with ancient relics. One of the relics was an elephant idol. I guess that's why it was called the Elephant cave. We also saw a fallen and broken Buda, and another cave.

The real highlight of the day was the Monkey forest in the town of Ubud. It was really funny watching the monkeys play on a dead tree over a water pool. The big ones would climb up and shake the small ones off by bouncing the tree. Then the little ones would cause a skirmish and the big ones would slip and fall into the water as well. I honestly couldn't keep the grin off of my face as monkeys started crawling all over me when I sat on a railing. They loved chewing on my phone, and gnawing on my elbow. The checked out all crevices, one even grabbed my lip. It was a great reminder of how much I love animals.

We spent the last part of the day shopping in the market. The town of Ubud is the art center of Bali, some say Asia. That's all cool I guess, but I was interested in the ENO style hammocks. I bought 10 for Kevin's family and 3 for mine. They were about 10 dollars for the double nest ones, a little less for the single.

Lunch was amazing. I followed Dr. Snyder and his family to a little hole in the wall. Down a little side street a few houses, and the prices drop 50%. The food was genuine Indonesian food. It was the best meal I have had this trip. And it cost less than 5 dollars.

Indonesia - Bird and Reptile parks

Breakfast came too soon after a short night. The dining area was on a sort of veranda. You could choose from a few different fruits and pastries. If you wanted eggs or pancakes you just asked for them and they cooked them up fresh however you wanted them. The pancakes were more like crepes...

After breakfast, worship, and a discussion on eastern religion and dances, we went to see another dance. I honestly don't apreciate these things very much.

The bird park was really cool. We saw a birds of prey demonstration. They flew Eagles, Kites, Owls, and even some Macaw parrots. I've never seen macaws fly before. They were stunning. The kites flew low over our heads and one came close enough to me that I could look at it in the eye. They even brought a lady up front and put food on her head and the kite snatched it from her hair.

The reptile park was lower key but they had some iguanas to hold, and some big salt water crocs, not to hold.

Lunch was a sampling of many local dishes. I liked some and didn't like others. The ones I liked the best were based off of rice and vegetables.

After lunch we went to a market. This market had sections that looked like a legitimate local market. The rest was very touristy, down to the guys with sunglasses to sell following you everywhere. I bought a pair of fake Ray Bans and a pair of fake Oakleys both for less than 10 dollars, and I still paid too much.

We were on our own again for supper. We stopped at our bungalows for worship and to get our allowance. After much deliberation I, Ivan, Katherine, and Krista sat down at "Vegetarian Paradise." We ordered from a wooden table on a second floor loft with a breeze and city sounds wafting through. Reminded me of Gainsville, especially when I typed in the wifi password "tahini1234." The expectedly overpriced "Lemonana" drink hit the spot by means of lemon, mint, and honey served on ice in a Mason jar. Yes yes, no ice in a foreign country. I'll go get some rice stuck to my head tomorrow and hope for no diarrhea. That would be an unfortunate ending for such a phenomenal falafel sandwich.

Indonesia - Bali!

3:00 am is too early to be awake. Despite the drowsiness and late night packing, we made it to the airport with time to spare time catch our flight to Denpasar via Makassar. I was disappointed to have to use a squat toilet for the first time. I thought it would be simple, but honestly going in the woods is a lot easier and more comfortable. Everyone seemed to love Bali as soon as we got out of the airport. It is very popular for Australians and American tourists, so it has more of a Western feel than Sulawesi. Our vans are nice and new and have air-conditioning. They are bigger too, which means no more being cramped into the back seat in a steamy van that sounds like it is going to fall apart.

The first place we went in Denpasar was a really fancy restaurant. There were some American dishes and lots of folks ordered those. I'm tired of local food, but I know I won't have the chance to eat it much longer so I got a Indonesian dish. It was tofu and tempeh skewered on bamboo dowels and covered in a peanut sauce.

Next we went to a store that sold lots of cheap souvenirs. After that we saw the Hindu Culture Park where we saw huge statues of Garuda and Wisnu. We had to wear skirt thingies... And they were put on us by a guy working there. It was kind of weird.

Our next place was the Uluwatu temple. The view from the rocks out to sea was amazing, and the monkeys hanging around made it super cool. At the temple we gathered in an amphitheater as the sun set and watched a Fire Dance. I was hoping for lots of flame, but there was only one firey scene. It was mostly some weird people making weird movements around a bunch of chanting, shirtless, tattooed, men. For an entire hour. 

We drove a long way to our new bungalows. It was worth the drive though. All our rooms have A/C and face the pool. After checking in and having worship we were given money to go find food. 

At too-late-o'clock we hit the streets, hungry. A few of us blew in at an open air restaurant with a guitar man and some decently priced food. As we waited for our dishes we cleaned our faces with cold, moist, scented towels and grooved to American folk music strummed by Indonesia's version of John Denver., 🎶 West Virginia, Mountain momma, take home.. The high class service cost less than 5 dollars. I spent fifty thousand rupiah. 

I rewrote this post the morning after. Google lost the first one, which I happened to be quite proud of. A long day fried with sweat and sightseeing, seasoned with late night adventure and savored over excellent chopped sui lended more flavor to my writing than my early morning brain.

Google is still not cooperating, so pictures will be uploaded later. 

Indonesia - Mount Lokon

Today we hiked another volcano. This one was called Lokon. It was a long walk from the vans to the rim of the crater, but it was all in a dry stream bed / lava flow so it was not very strenuous. This crater was huge and had a lot of sulfur smelling steam coming out. You could hear the bubbling and belching of the vents several hundred feet below. All. Around you could find cracked rocks. They had been launched into the air as molten balls of lava and then hit the ground and partially split, kind of like cookie dough that is too dry.

After the volcano we visited another market. Again we saw cooked dogs for sale. This time I also saw a cage with a bunch of dogs in it. There must have been 10-15 dogs in a tiny cage. All of them looked sick and half dead. We were given toys again to interact with the people. I gave the little rubbery squeeze ball to a little girl, but she was too scared to take it.

Tomorrow we leave at 4 am to fly to Bali.

Indonesia - Mount Mahawu

We drove through lush farming areas, up winding mountain roads, close to the top of Mount Mahawu. The flora around this mostly dormant volcano was the object of our study today. We hiked completely around the rim of the crater. The pool at the bottom sometimes bubbles and spews steamy gasses. Today it was calm and we only saw one small wisp of steam.

After the volcano we stopped to see some prefabricated houses. They are all hand made one piece at a time. Then we went to see tunnels that the Japanese had dug here to hide in and fight out of during the war. We saw freaking huge spiders, crickets, bats, and birds inside the caves.

On the way back to Klabat we stopped to see some ancient graves. The youngest of these graves were from the early 1800's when they stopped using this method of burial because of cholera spreading by it. The older graves were from 800 BC.