Bali the Beautiful

While most of the world is on holiday for spring break and Easter, we have just had a week off for Khmer New Year.  April you say? Yes, you can read more about it here if you'd like.  We've been working hard this year and it was time for some teachers to get out of Dodge, to breathe some fresh air and see some beautiful sights.  So we went to Bali, just a hop, skip and a jump away from Cambodia. 

Here's a map of our journey.

First stop was a layover in Singapore.  My first time.  Let's just say that this little island-country blew my socks off.  Remember I'm traveling from Cambodia now. It was safe, clean, beautiful and an architect's dream city.  We walked all around the city shortly after we arrived.  This picture was taken from Marina Bay.

Fun fact about Singapore... they have lots of absurd laws here.  Here are a few:

1. It's illegal to buy chewing gum.  You can chew it, you just can't buy it.  And whatever you do, you better not spit it out anywhere but in the trash.
2. It's a crime to not flush a public toilet after using it.  (My question is, what if it's a faulty flusher?  Do you have to stay and fill out a report?  I would probably run for my life and hope the officials couldn't track me down)
3. You can't walk around your house naked
4. You can't talk about religion in public (straight from the cabbie's mouth)
5. Littering is an epic offence punishable by fines and community service.  On your third offence you have to pick up trash around town wearing a sign labeling yourself as a litterer.  LOVE this one.  
6. Lastly, it is illegal to pee in elevators.

Sounds a little absurd right?  Cambodia could certainly use #5.


We stayed in a hostel, because coming from Cambodia, Singapore seems a pretty pricey place. This place called The Plot was very cool.  Ashleigh and Rebecca are peeping out from their pods.

But this post is about Bali, so let's move on.

After a stop in Surabaya on the island of Java, Indonesia we landed in Bali.  Our first destination is a town in the interior called Ubud.  We hired a driver for the day who spent about 6 hours showing us around.

And this was the first thing we saw: the rice terraces.

I'm telling you, it does something in the soul to see colors so pure and sights so beautiful.

Next we visited a coffee plantation.  They make the most expensive coffee in the world here.  A possum-like creature eats the coffee berries, then poops out the bean.  Sorry, there's no better way to say that.  Then they clean, dry and roast the beans, and it goes on into coffee from there.  Evidently when the luwak is processing it in its tummy, it does something wonderfully fantastic to make the beans special.  I guess I'm not a connoisseur, because I couldn't taste anything spectacular.   It was an interesting tour, especially to hear the word pooh fly around so many times in the most sophisticated and natural way.  

We got to sample teas and other flavors of Bali coffee.

Here are the girls trying the Luwak coffee.  I love the sequence.

Ashleigh going for the first taste.

Rebecca giving it a go.

You can imagine the jokes that were flying around...  "Bottoms up!"  "How was the pooh coffee?" "It was craptastic!"

We also visited two temples.  Bali is a Hindu country, which was another first for me.  This was at the temple of the holy springs.

The water bubbles up from a natural spring.  You see people using holy water around town in their offerings. I'm not sure if it all comes from here or from other temples.

Part of this temple was roped off.  There was prayer going on inside.  There was incense and ringing of bells.  Around the side you could see the object of their worship, this ornately carved dragon.  Same same but different around different parts of Asia.  Snakes and dragons abound in Asian temples, Buddhist and Hindu alike.

We had lunch overlooking the volcano.

The Monkey Forest was about a block away from where we were staying.

It was a beautiful walk through jungle-lined pathways.

A temple in the heart of the monkey forest

Moss covered statuary

And of course, monkeys everywhere.

This fellow was just as bashful as I was.

One night we went to see traditional Balinese dance.  All I have to say about that is that they did crazy things with their hands and eyeballs.

After a few days in Ubud, we headed to Sanur on the coast.  We spent one whole day on the beach.

There was a 7 km pathway right along the beach.

Perfect for exploring on rented bikes.

We came across this little hidden gem on our ride, called Sweet Magnolia.  It was the perfect place to stop for an icy drink and cool down a bit.

 Another day we took a boat out to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the east side of Bali.

  

This is what the water looked like when we pulled into the harbor.  Can you imagine our squeals of delight?  Like kids in a candy shop, or teachers on holiday.

This is the first beach we swam in, called Dream Beach. 

 This is the water we came to Bali for.

We rented motos and drove around this little island. Becca was the navigator.

Becca took this one while we were driving over a little bridge.  This was my favorite day in Bali; driving a moto on narrow roads through lush jungle and views of the sea. 

Then we went cliff diving.

Into this beautiful blue lagoon.

The water was incredibly beautiful, but the currents were strong.  The highest jump was just over 13 meters (about 42 feet).  They let us do the smaller jump closer to the ladder so wouldn't get sucked out to sea.

Here is Mount Agung in the distance, one of Bali's volcanoes.

I'll leave you with one last picture.  I'm calling it 'Boats in the Bali Sea'

Living in Cambodia has its perks, and being able to travel around Southeast Asia on a teacher budget is just one of them.  If you're ever in the neighborhood, I highly recommend a visit to beautiful, beautiful Bali.