Bali
Hello friends and family! Apparently it's been too long since I wrote my last blog post, so here it goes.
Bali, Indonesia
On June 10th we continued with our theme of meeting up with our sisters around the world. We flew from Australia to Bali, Indonesia to meet up with my sister and Nick, somehow convincing them it was a good idea to book 24+ hours of travel time in order to meet us there. For sister bonus points we even added a final 1 hour flight from Bali to a nearby neighboring island called Lombok. It's unclear if Nick truly knew what he was getting into flight wise -- sorry Nick!
Flight number 3, or something like that
Bali is a wild and crazy place. Its economy is over 80% tourist based and it has become a sort of mecca for instagram influencers. We were hoping to start a little out of the crowds by heading to the more relaxed surfing town of Kuta.
Incredible artwork and beautiful temples all around
Balinese family temples are at the entrance to each house/compound. These are private temples.
Peekaboo views of a family temple
Offerings for the Galungan Balinese Hindu holiday.
Even the scooters get offerings for the holiday.
The US dollar stretches quite far in Indonesia so my sister found us a gorgeous villa in Lombok with glorious AC and gasp a private pool! A wee bit different than our bunk we called home crossing the pacific.
Living the life of luxury
We quickly set to work trying to eat and drink our body weight in coffee and delicious food. In case you didn't know, my sister and I share our hobby of eating. A hobby I highly recommend to everyone. We ate the first of many nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), and crispy chicken with all sorts of sambal (chili sauces).
Mie Goreng, plus one of countless fresh juices
Mmm...Indonesian food
Eating all the tropical fruits
To go along with our hobby, and try and increase our appetite, my sister convinced Dirk and I to join her for a day of surfing lessons. As you might imagine, this was a humbling experience.
Smiles of joy that we survived
The next day my sister convinced me, her gullible sidekick, to join her for day 2 of surfing in which we were to go out to the larger wave break, having "graduated" from surfing near the shore. I not only failed epically at the surfing part, but also got humbled by becoming so tired trying to swim the surfboard back to the start line that numerous onlookers inquired as to my well being. You might be surprised to learn I didn't sign up for day 3.
Day 1 surfing. Thankfully no action shots available from day 2.
Other highlights from Lombok included Dirk and Nick heading to the Mad Chicken bar several times for world cup matches, including a 6am Australia vs Turkey match. I made the difficult choice to sleep in instead. Go sportsball.
Home of sports, and delicious chicken.
Soon we headed back to Bali to meet up with two of my sister's long-time friends and former college roommates, Sana and Ayshaw. They are two of the loveliest, livelist, and most energetic gals I know.
Roomates - plus me, the little sister
Cooking class, who wants chicken satay when I get back to Roslyn?
They both decided that 24 hours of flight time on both ends was totally worth 5 days in Bali (Angela, if you are reading this, they are totally your people) and they managed to fit weeks worth of adventures into that time - from snorkeling to sightseeing to shopping to cooking classes to massages to sound healing to...did I mention shopping?...to a professional friends photo shoot. Yes, that happened. They might have questioned Dirk and my outfit choices, but when you're travelling around the world with a carry-on, this is what you get.
Sisters
Plus the photo shoot gave us the chance to view up close the wild and crazy world of influencers. While we were taking our photos we had a backdrop of people getting dressed up in long-flowy silk dresses, strapped into harnesses, and swung out into the air while having their photo taken to create a swooping effect of the dress trailing behind them. I tell you, it was a cultural experience of a different sort.
An influencer action shot
Dirk withstood 5 minutes of photos before wandering off for a cold beer. It was more than I expected.
Dirk 2.5 seconds before running off to get a beer
Joining Dirk for a beverage
After having to say goodbye to Ayshaw and Sana all too soon, we headed for the mountains to the land of glorious cool refreshing air and waterfalls. No AC required.
Rice fields
Rice harvesting
We went canoeing and hiking. We went to hot springs and temples.
This is before Dirk snuck off to the surprise owl exhibit
Channeling my inner Tarzan
Pura Dalem Tamblingan, a hindu temple
A buddhist temple
We also tried luwak coffee which is coffee made from beans that have been eaten and subsequently pooped out by a civet, a native cat species. Uh huh. It was in fact a tasty cup of coffee.
Petting a local cat, not the kind of cat that defecated the coffee beans
Apparently I've already rambled on too long - and Dirk tells me I can't keep avoiding our jogging attempt - so I will leave things off there. In the meantime, please send cooling thoughts our direction as we recently flew onwards to Spain and are experiencing the unseasonably warm 104F temps without AC. You might think we adapted to managing heat after sailing across the equator, but you would be wrong.
A final food pic, because why not
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