Bali, or as also referred to by the name “The Island of the Gods” is one heck of a paradise! I was so happy to be able to make it to the Southern hemisphere at last.

The majesty of the nature in Indonesia is grandiose, from rain forests to furious volcanoes and to the infinity of your vision rice paddies and terraces. Traveling on the road from Kuta to Ubud, we had the chance to team up with other travelers on this rough ride through the jungles of Bali. Transport in Bali is not top notch, I would say, Indonesia after all is a bit isolated and having such a huge population makes things hard to be organized. Bali though gets the biggest part of the pie being renowned as the major tourist destination.

The trip to Ubud gave us an overview on one of the most fierce volcanoes in there, we crossed the area of Mt. Batur and its caldera lake, and see how harsh nature can be sometimes, and how small we are in the face of our planet. The volcano was resting at the moment though it’s still active and attracts many tourists to watch it. It erupted the last time in 2000. You can read more about it here. Not to forget to mention the beautiful rice fields that gave us an outlook on how hard it is to do that kind of jobs, it requires time and patience and lots of energy to be able to get the final stage of the rice. The rice terraces we visited were so green and lush and dipped in water as if it was grass growing out of a river.

Ubud, the cultural center of Bali was one of the most relaxing place in our stay. Religious Hindus are living in harmony there and religion sounded as an important daily task. In Hindu tradition, they put a leaf basket full of rice, flowers and a burning scent daily in front of each house and each shop, so streets are full of these small offerings every day. Someone put that every morning in front of our door in our home stay accommodation, a place called Brata 1. The accommodation itself, was a small heaven, small cottages with lovely Hindu designs surrounding a family temple. They used to be a family house where the whole wide family would live next to each other but times have changed, families moved and now some houses are rented for tourists.

Staying in Ubud, made us discover a totally new culture to both of us. Maiku has been to India and Nepal, but Hinduism in there was totally different she said. We saw lots of art and even had the chance to see an event where all scooter drivers from all over Indonesia met to hang out, that was the most hippie scooters we ever seen. They were like straight away from a Mad Max movie.

The visit to the popular attraction called Sacred Monkey Forest was a must, even though Maiku’s love to monkeys is as much as my love to snakes: we are not best friends. She thinks they are dirty thieves (fact is that they are tricky nasty little devils). The forest has a few small Hindu temples, and we had the occasion to be visiting on the same date when a holy ceremony was taking place, once every six months. Ladies were all dressed up in their batik outfits on their best, carrying a food basket for the Gods on top of their heads, and walking in groups of family members, friends and neighbors. It was impressive how the colors mixed with the surroundings of the jungle. It was just magnificent!

Leaving Ubud was really sad, we found peace and harmony there (no wonder that has been a hot spot of hippies since 60′s) and good food and cheap accommodation and nicest people ever. We left on our bus trip to Lovina, the so-called dolphin heaven, but unfortunately after taking the morning boat for 2 hours in a lovely ride, sunny but windy, I didn’t have a chance to see any dolphins. Lovina was our New Year’s destination. We spent the event teaming up with other travelers in the pool. Literally IN the pool. That was coolest ever, swimming in a pool drinking gin and tonic. What more could you do in The Island of the Gods!

The trip of course, had to continue. The packing has to be done, and it’s always due to our little budget that land transport as our main choice. So we took a bus to Java island, the most populated island of Indonesia and the center of it all. Our destination was Yogyakarta, a student city located nearby the Borobudur Buddhist temple and Prambanan Hindu temple, where we did a day trip to see the majestic holy sites of two biggest religions in Asia.

On the way we saw the other fierce volcano, the mighty Merapi. Puffs of smoke circled over its top, when the monster was snoring in its sleep. The sleep can be easily disturbed, though, and we had a bit shivery feeling of that. I can’t understand how people live so close to these live volcanos and don’t give a damn.

Yogyakarta was awesome. Our accommodation was a hostel where all the rooms had a painting of a different color, pictures of animals and mostly the popular Gekko lizards. We also teamed up again with our new friends after a few days separation. They brought with them greetings from our lovely new young friend Afrika. She missed me so much she emailed a drawing of me. I think its quite alike, especially the hair.

Sasi by Afrika

Sasi