(we've done everyone a huge favor by keeping this entry as concise as possible)
KUTA (Southern Bali)
Near the airport, and by far the most populated tourist city in Bali. Amanda and I enjoyed the beautiful beaches while experiencing culture shock with all the chain restaurants that we hadn't seen in months: McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, Hard Rock Cafe. The town resembled an Australian spring break, so we had some fun and then left a couple days later.
UBUD (Central Bali)
The cultural capital of Bali with it's galleries, museums, posh restaurants, spas galore and dance/theater performances...we had a great time with daily massages...a visit to the Antonio Blanco museum...a great local jazz club with artists from all over the world...and even bumped into Michael Franti (Spearhead) from San Francisco in a small cafe!
GUNUNG BATUR (Northeastern Bali)
We stayed in the town of Kedisan, which sits on Lake Batur adjacent to the profound volcano of Gunung (Mount) Batur. Amazing sunrises and sunsets and great for swimming in the 'holy' water from the lake. The volcano is perceived as holy as well which inspired us to hire a (required) guide and climb to the top, around the rim and then back down. The rim was pretty precarious, though exhilarating, and the views were spectacular. This 4-hour climb was a nice warm-up and prelude to an insane 3-day climb we did a couple weeks later on Lombok (see Rinjani below). While in the area, we swam in some natural hot springs and stumbled upon a huge annual religious ceremony. We wound up sitting down with the singers of the ceremony as they were performing and shared tea and snacks with them until the wee hours of the evening. Hundreds of people listened on the loudspeaker as these men chanted away until their voices turned sour.
AMED (Eastern Bali)
This town was the ultimate in paradise. Very remote, great scuba diving/snorkeling, very few tourists (maybe 200 in the entire greater area), excellent food and exciting cock fights (of course we disapproved of this ancient form of entertainment...but couldn't help but watch). We had the pleasure of scuba diving in and around a 300-ft. sunken US WWII cargo ship called The Liberty. Tons of coral and fish, it was an honor to be there and take in all the mature plant life. Amazing snorkeling all around the area, including the Japanese ship wreck which had amazingly colorful fish zooming all around us. Our most genuine travel experience was hanging out with a group of 12 young local men on the beach as they (we) drank a local beverage which comes from the palm tree called tuak (palm wine, similar to the toddy of India). They caught fish nearby, cooked them over the fire, then everyone used their hands and dug into the whole fish like wild dogs. Very primal, yet damn tasty! The adventure then took us to the local cockfight where a friend from the beach was fighting one of his own. He unfortunately lost, but the event was one to be remembered in any case.
GILI AIR (off the NW coast of Lombok)
Just when we thought Amed was paradise....then came Gili Air.
Picture this: small island, far from civilization, can walk around perimeter in about 1 hour. About 800 residents living in the interior, about 200 tourists spread across the east coast in ~15 different lodgings (ie. huts, cabins, bungalows, etc). Several restaurants, several bars, amazing snorkeling & scuba, everyone is relaxed.
Snorkeled Gili Meno (an even smaller island next door) and came within 10 feet of about 8 huge sea turtles. Every day on the beach/snorkeling, every night trying a different local eatery (for the standard $2 meals). Such fresh fish and fruits. It took us about a week to tear ourselves away from that island.
MOUNT RINJANI (Central Lombok)
The longest & most strenuous hike we've ever done in our lives. And also - the most SPEACTACULAR.
Stats: 3 days, overall elevation gain of 11,000 feet over a distance of only ~20 miles. Yikes.
Really steep and really long.
Day 1: Hiked up to the lower volcano rim.
Day 2: Hiked down to the lake in the huge crater, hung out by the waterfalls, swam in the hot springs, swam in the lake, then hiked up to the base of the highest rim (our base camp).
Day 3: Woke up at 2:30am in order to climb to the tallest rim summit in time for sunrise at 6:30am. The last two hours of the climb were extremely steep and slippery from small/medium rocks and sand....but we fought through it in the dark (with headlamps) and made it to the top just in the neck of time to see the stunning sunrise over the horizon. Our group of 4, with one guide, were the only people to summit that day - the other 25 people scheduled to summit whimped out (bummer for them, they missed out!). We made it down to base camp for breakfast and then walked downhill for what seemed to be many many hours....our legs complete jelly from 3 days of exhaustion.....but SO WORTH IT.
Did I mention that our required guide and two porters (sherpas) wore FLIP-FLOPS almost the entire trip?!?! Absolutely amazing. We were slipping and stumbling the entire hike while they bounded along, carrying 80 pounds on their back with nothing but a thin pair of sandals on. We still can't believe it.
SANUR (Southeastern Bali)
Not too much going on there other than a few delicious restaurants and low-key bars. Many years ago it was a major tourist hub, but those days are long gone. There was an international surfing competition going on there while we were around which was pretty cool. Laid on the beach some more...got more $5 massages....ho hum....so routine :)
NUSA LEMBONGAN (Island off the southeastern coast of Bali)
Mostly known for it's scuba, surf and strong currents (which makes for challenging scuba).
The major reason we visited Nusa was because we heard (from our Finnish friends in Gili Air) that there were a huge amount of large manta rays off the coast. That's all we needed to hear.
Next thing you know, we're diving at "Manta Point" and saw about 6-7 giant manta rays (5' wide and 5' long) from only 5-10 feet away. Awesome. Such unique and beautiful animals, it was pretty exciting getting so close.
We stayed at a really nice group of bungalows called the "Secret Garden" which had a huge round bed, private outdoor shower and a hammock on our porch. The $12 per night (including breakfast) was well worth it!
From Nusa, we went back to Sanur for a night, flew to Bangkok for our last few days of shopping, a dinner cruise, the zoo and amazing street food. Then it was back to our wonderful home of San Francisco. Of all the places to come back to 'reality' to....life could be a lot worse :)
Thanks for reading our enormous novel of a blog. It was fun having you join us on our adventure.
~T&A
