Not many people know that in-between our 2 weeks in the Philippines we flew over to Bali, Indonesia and spent a week exploring the city and relaxing at the pool. We stayed at the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. We had our own private pool, an amazing view of rice fields, huge windows, and delicious free breakfasts every morning.
Our first evening there we walked around Sanur Beach. It's nice if you like the whole being surrounded by hundreds of people thing. The beach was nuts and so was the little city area. There are SO many tourists in Sanur... and well.. Bali...
We decided to take a private guided tour around Bali and Ubud. We saw a ton of things and it was really fun (and hot). The first stop was to see a waterfall (duh) but I can't remember what the heck it was called. It was a cool waterfall but it was definitely a tourist trap - I mean spot.
Have you heard about poop coffee before? It's made from coffee beans that an animal called a luwak eats and poops out. It doesn't taste like poo, don't worry. The luwak eats the whole pod and it gets washed a buncha times and they pick the beans out and then they do whatever else they do to make coffee. As you can tell, I didn't really pay attention to the process, but I did take a couple pictures!
We stopped by a temple - called Goa Gajah, I think - and at temples in Bali you have to wear a sarong wrap and you can't enter if you're menstruating or pregnant. It was fun feeling a bit Balinese wearing a sarong, but man it was flipping hot! It reached 39°C that day! The temple had statues that were hundreds of years old although some of them were destroyed by weather throughout the years. The stone carving are so intricate and pretty insane.
The Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud is a very well-known tourist spot. There were lots of people, tons of mosquitos, and like 400 monkeys. I love animals, but these monkeys are actually a bit scary. You can buy bananas to feed them and they'll full out climb you to get it.. and our guide said not to look the monkeys in the eyes because they'll become aggressive and attack you. There were stone sculptures of monkeys, dragons, and beautifully detailed stone bridges.
We spent a lot of our time in Bali relaxing in our villa and swimming in the pools. One of my favourite things about Bali was the food. We got fresh local fruits everyday like dragonfruit and mangosteen, we tried babi guling and nasi gureng (ugh gimme), and every morning I ordered miso soup that I've been dying to have again.. One thing that totally threw me off though were the green oranges. I feel like I always say this, but little known fact about me: for as long as I can remember I mix up the colours green and orange... I have no idea why, but I've always confused them! So of course I had to take a picture of the fruit nightmare.
Every night we would have the mosquito nets drawn with a citronella candle burning as we watched the sky turn to a beautiful pink.
Sorry that this post was pretty long.. Once I get writing these things all the memories hit me and I can't wait to read these posts back one day in the future and feel like it was only yesterday that got to experience all of this.
x Melissa