We left the chill atmosphere of Amed after about four nights and headed back to the madness and excitement of the big city, Kuta. My main goal there, outside of avoiding the hawkers and not getting run off the road by a motorbike, was to learn to surf…and surf I did. It took three separate lessons to be able to stand up consistently and with any amount of confidence, but I finally did it with the help of my awesome surf instructor, Agung. He insisted on giving me the second lesson for free because he wanted to make sure I could stand up properly. After those few days surfing, I usually hung around Agung’s umbrella with a few other folks, just chatting and occasionally having a yummy Nasi Goreng from the beach vendors and of course, renting a board for a few hours at a time and practicing what I had learned. One afternoon Katy and I went down to the beach with all intentions of renting some boards and trying our luck with the surf that day, but instead we ended up getting sucked into an awesome beach party separating Linda’s birthday (an awesome Indo girl trying to start her modeling career in Kuta). My good friends Jim Beam and Bintang came along…oh my, what a fantastic afternoon. One guitar, a few drinks, multiple sing alongs, good company, and drunk surfing at dusk…what more could you ask for?
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| Beach party clan, Agung is the one with the guitar (he played as beautifully as he sang) |
I am trying to upload a video of an Indo girl (I forget her name, thanks a lot Jim) who has a power house voice and sings with some real soul. Anyway, moral of the story is that the video won't upload, so use your imagination and I'll try another time or I'll just show you when I get back if you're interested enough to ask me.
Moving on...
After Kuta, we headed to Ubud, which is the artistic center of Bali, not to mention a yoga and meditation sanctuary (you could call it the Eat, Pray, Love city, they actually sold little Eat, Pray, Love statuettes haha). It was a nice place, kind of ritzy and overpriced, but nice nonetheless. There was one café that I loved in particular, it’s called Kafe and it totally sent my café senses haywire. Marcelle and Katy were always laughing about how happy I got over a really good cappuccino or the fact that I needed to take pictures of everyone’s dishes because they were so delicious looking and well presented. I definitely snagged a few good café ideas from this place to add to my mental Rolodex of my one-day café.
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| Ubud is a barrage of beautiful store fronts and works of art |
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| Pinky out when you're eating street food. I should have taken a picture carrying a huge basket full of different types of food on her head. |
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| Meg's Big Bowl at Kafe. Om nom nom, it was just as yummy as it looks. |
Aside from the obvious good eats, the other highlights of Ubud were the monkey temple forest and the white water rafting trip. The monkey forests is just as it sounds, a forest/park thing with a big temple and a shit ton of monkeys. There were big monkeys, baby monkeys, obese monkeys, monkeys sleeping and swimming and hugging, monkeys flying from trees, and stealing bags of bananas from out of your hands. It was a cool experience, to say the least.
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| Obese monkey (banana belly?) |
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| This monkey just stole that bag of bananas from a full grown man |
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| Just taking a little dip |
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| Monkey on a shrine |
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| A wet monkey eating a banana (you get the idea yet?). |
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| Baby monkey dangles while Mama monkey gets her butt cleaned. Isn't it just darling? |
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| Monkeys hugging. It's amazing how the similarities shine through in moments like this. |
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| Monkey shrine. |
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| Intricate carvings. |
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| Just monkeying around (a tired joke that had to be made) |
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| Did I mention there were tons of monkeys? |
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I should have stopped there but this one is just adorable.
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While monkeys are cool, nothing compared with white water rafting on the Ayung River through terraced rice paddies, under waterfalls and over four meter high drops off a damn. I was a bit to chicken to risk my camera's life during the actual rafting so here are a few before and after shots.
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Free Bali coffee pre-rafting
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| Getting stoked |
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| Looking down on the take-out on the Ayung River. |
And here are a few pretty pictures of the rice paddies that are everywhere in Bali.
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| People are always carrying impressively heavy loads on their heads. |
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| Motor bike is hands down the best way to get around Bali. |
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| Katy looking pretty in the rice paddies as the sun falls low in the sky. |
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| Some terraced paddies on the way to the Ayung River. |
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