Mia and I booked tickets a few days prior to our arrival in Bali. We are staying here for two weeks as a holiday from our holiday. It is so cool to be in a country that is so different! Australia is becoming quite familiar. It's a first time to Asia for both of us and so far we have not been disappointed.
This will sound funny, but I was actually glad that they drive on the left side of the road here because I reckon that if I needed to switch back to the right....it would've been disastrous. However, it might not of been that big of a deal as the road rules are basically nonexistent :) The first day, we got a free scooter hire from our guest house and took to the roads. Passing cars on the side walk or other side of the street = okay. Honking just to honk = fun and funny. Running a red light (on accident) = okay because there were no cops and it also = lucky because the cops tend to peg tourists. :)
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| Good evening from Bali. |
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| Tanah Lot Temple. This temple was actually out on the ocean and this pic is near the entrance There was a lot of temples within the Tanah Lot. |
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| Bali is made up primarily by the Hindu religion and they have temples everywhere. Apparently, each Hindu person has a temple. I think they usually build it in their homes (not sure on that) and their homes are all constructed the same according to Hindu/Balinese culture. |
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| Getting cultured at the Good vs. Evil spirit dance. It's about a fight between the two. |
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| The music players.....criss cross apple sauce. |
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| Everyone had on quite colorful costumes, which were neat. In this scene the girl on the ground is begging for pardon. In the end, I still didn't quite understand what exactly they were trying to portray. Still not sure if it was the good or evil spirit that won. |
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| Statues dressed for a ceremony. This particular flag symbolizes security. |
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| Making silver jewelry. Silver is this villages economy. Other villages might be wood items, while others might be paintings. It just depends on where you are. |
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| Batuan Temple. This is the only temple in Bali that tourists are allowed to enter. This is a temple for two gods. The god of sun and another god. (I forgot which one it was). |
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| Statues and carvings all over. |
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| Putu was our guide for the day. He's the manager of the guesthouse we stayed at. Here he's explaining the temple. Likely telling us about the gold statue in the middle of the temple that they believe the god (of whatever it may be) lives. He told us how last year some Italian tourist stole the statue because it is made of 100% gold. |
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| Each statue or carving means something. |
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| There are these types of trees all over in Bali. I asked Putu what the name of the flower was, but it seems to have slipped my mind :) |
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| Driving through another village. This temple is dressed for the sun god. That's what the yellow and white flags mean! |
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| The next stop on our tour was the Sacred Monkey Forest. We walked around checking them out as they roamed freely. One even jumped on my head....haha! They try to steal things from tourist, such as kleenex, flip flops, and sunnies. In other words, hang on to your stuff ;). |
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| Cute! Even baby ones :) |
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| The outer temple wall. We weren't allowed inside but the architecture is quite cool! |
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| Monkey see, monkey do! |
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| Curious creatures.....examining the plant. |
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| There were a lot of baby monkeys around. Learning to be a monkey :) |
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| Monkey business |
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| Observing the chaos! |
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| Need a broom, grab some dried grass. A common sight. |
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| You see more scooters cruising around, but an occasional push pedal will be spotted loaded with stuff! |
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| The rice terraces. Tiered fields with the irrigation system dialed in to ensure all rice paddocks are receiving adequate water. |
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| Ahh, a beautiful day! |
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| They have such a manicured look. |
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| To the engineers.....do you like this bridge?! |
From the rice terrace, we ventured to the coffee plantation. Here we got a free tour and free samples of coffee and teas. Good stuff for sure. The best part....we got to try Luwak coffee. Luwak is the local for the Paradoxurus. I am trying to think of what is looks like but can't quite come up with another animal. Regardless, the Luwak eats the ripe coffee cherries and then eventually evacuates the seed. The coffee seed is collected, cleaned, and roasted. From there they make coffee. I will mention that it tasted great. Who would've thought that coffee coming out of an animal would be good? It was!
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| Ginger plant |
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| Drying of the Luwak coffee bean after they've been washed. This is a several day process. |
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| The roasting of the beans over a fire. |
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| Coffee options along with tea. |
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| Green coffee cherries. |
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| The bunsen burner coffee maker. I felt like we should've been in a science lab, except we were on a beautiful hillside instead! |
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| Samples of teas and coffees. Yummy (at least most of them)! |
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| Eugene and Nicole, with whom we did our day trip with. Eugene is from Germany and Nicole from Austria. Some more awesome travelers! |
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| It's blurry but you can kinda see the Luwak here. They are quite small animals and are nocturnal. |
