Between South East Asia and Australia I planned to have Bali as a decompression period. I needed to change my travelling style from totally crazy everything everyday and constantly on alert to a much more chilled outlook because finally in Melbourne I wasn't going to be alone, so everything could be a lot more relaxed. Bali kind of worked out as planned... But mostly not quite!
The Ceking rice terraces were awesome to see, mainly just for the sheer feat of scale agriculture looking so pretty. Unfortunately, everything is a trap. Farmers physically block paths with their bodies and, in my case, even push you off the path until you paid them a "voluntary donation for which they are so grateful for any amount" - a compulsory donation of minimum 5,000IDR per person. It really frustrated me because there was no way to tell who was legit (whom I'd happily pay) and who's exploiting the attraction, and because everyone there had already paid the entrance ticket fee. Yay rice corruption.
Sacred Monkey Forest was an... Interesting experience. I love monkeys, but monkeys which have been trained to jump on foreigners so that they then buy bananas to distract the monkeys from their bags are not the kind of monkeys I like. Also didn't like that the people selling the bananas were the forest custodians, all of whom were handing out maps which said explicitly "DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS". Especially didn't like the group of American spring breakers who were feeding the monkeys beer and, when I politely reminded them that beer isn't part of the ideal diet for a monkey, one of them took me aside to inform me that he was the godson of a US senator and therefore he could do whatever he liked in Bali. Question marks for you too? Yep. I did like the baby monkeys though, I liked them a lot. I also liked the monkeys who jumped on the people being mean to them once I had gotten over the fear that they might jump on me as a stepping stone.
The absolute highlight of Bali for me has to be Mt Batur, the active volcano just above Ubud. The route to it, however, was less than simple... It's every travellers' worst nightmare. Except for the whole 'losing passport in a knife fight with a rabid macaque' and 'realising at immigration that the passport number on your visa is not yours' catalogue. The night I was due to climb Gunung Batur, all hell broke loose in my dorm room. A scratch here, a little shuffle there... A dot in the corner of your eye, no big deal... Then I went to the bathroom and BOOM my back and legs display the evidence that I had just provided a bumper buffet meal to a hoard of greedy gross bedbugs. Worse than the bed bugs though, the staff: "one of you must have brought them in, we didn't have this before you", "no refunds, paid is paid", and the classic "those aren't bed bugs, just flies". Whilst this was all being hashed out in my dorm room at 01:00, I was putting on my hiking boots and running away with the Malcolm Tucker school of I'm-not-dealing-with-this:
FUCKITY BYE, I'M OFF TO CLIMB A VOLCANO.
The climb itself was steep but nice - I love climbing in the dark because you only deal with what's in front of you and there's no point in speculating about where you are or how you're going to get there, you just climb. Our guide didn't like my group so much when we said we'd like to be at the summit for sunrise, as per the tour we had purchased, and he started kicking off with the usual "I do this every day and you will have a sunrise on the volcano" rant - very nice, love, but I'm doing this once and I want to do it as I've arranged to do it kthxbi. He then proceeded to literally run up the mountain and when we caught up to him each time he would say "not fast enough to get to the top though, are you" - all together now... RUDE. Eventually we got to the viewing platform which is about half an hour from the summit and our guide left us high and dry. With the sun already rising our only option was to absolutely peg it up the volcanic scree in order to get there before the sun peeked over the mountains on Lombok! We got there just in time and the reward was just incredible.
The way down was like skiing on your boots which turned out to be really fun! I got a bit too cocky though and forgot to put a turn in which resulted in me slamming into the corner of the lava flow at speed, scraping my butt like deli meat. The Irish Catholic guilt complex kicked in and I lifted my feet up so I wouldn't kick any rocks down to anyone underneath me, earning me the nickname of 'SpiderPig' for the rest of the descent!
By this point it was holiday time. All 3 days of holiday time, but holiday time nonetheless.
Gili Air was everything I wanted it to be: blinding sunshine in the morning, shower to clear the air in the early afternoon, and everything dry again in time for a spectacular sunset. It hits the perfect shipwreck island without any effort. It's 5k in circumference with her main visitor accommodation on the coasts and the local village in the middle of the island. It's like somebody gathered all the components of a beautiful postcard ready white sand island and shook them in a dice cup, and then threw it randomly over the land. Inconsistent, a bit shabby, and just brilliant. The big brother Gili T offers party after party, and baby Gili M is practically deserted having become the rubbish tip for all the other islands. Turtles, beaches, and incredible food was all I wanted, and I got it all. I even managed to get my backpack fumigated just in case any of the bastard bedbugs had nestled inside - like hell am I taking those things anywhere!
Ubud has some insanely cool restaurants, but I stuck to the simple foods. Given that my travel journal in Asia has basically just been a list of all the amazing food I've eaten (good job you don't have to pay excess baggage on your butt... Yet), these are the highlights from Bali:
Nasi goreng: veg and often seafood fried rice
Gado gado: mix of fresh and fried vegetables covered in a spicy peanut satay sauce and basically a dish of rainbows and smiles
Olah olah: coconutty curry with either fish, chicken, or mystery meat
Masakan Padang: the best way to eat in Bali hands down! Walking down the street you'll see all these windows with bowls of food on cake stands - go in and it's Willy Wonka's factory of the local foods. Tourists very rarely go inside because of the whole 'the food has been cooked in the morning and sits until it's eaten' thing, but thankfully the stomach of steel lets me explore these places a bit more. It's the cheapest and best meal I've had in all my travels, with fish, chicken, rice, spinach, tofu, veg... everything in huge proportions and coming in at a grand total of under £2.
The main annoyance in Bali was how much effort it was to get anyone to do the bare minimum of their job requirements. The other annoyance was bites. It has now been established that everything in Bali bites (except sea turtles, thanks Tom...). The ants bite, the flies bite, the beaches bite, the monkeys bite, the midges bite, EVERYTHING BITES. My legs are an encyclopaedia of the varieties available to visitors, and prove that 100% deet does not in fact work well and that it's always better to grab the local stuff!
I've already planned my 2 week return trip to do Bali and Lombok properly: a week of mountain climbing in Bali followed by collapsing in a heap on the beaches of the islands and then a trundle around Lombok with a couple of mountains for good measure. Sorted. Lush.
Monkey forest: 40k
Balinese dance: 80k
Ceking terraces: 120k
Mt Batur: 300k
Gili Air return boat: 600k
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