Picture link and address

Here the link with the pictures of last weekend:
http://picasaweb.google.com/fromeynfotos7/PadangbaiWeekend?authkey=Gv1sRgCOXGm-Lq-ZuTGw#

Our house here on Bali does not really have an address, therefore we us the address of Rino's hotel. So underneeth our address for if you want to send something:

Puri Saron Seminyak
attn Iris Frohe & Rino Romeyn
Jl. Camplung Tanduk
80361 Seminyak
Kuta-Bali
Indonesia

Ubud and Padangbai weekends

The last 2 weekends we have spend in Ubud and Padangbai. Here our story's:

Ubud (12 – 14 November 2010)

The foundation of Iris (Sjaki-Tari-Us) was hosting (their building) to Bali’s International Meditation Festival, with the motto: “Living life in peace, love and harmony through mediation”. Therefore Iris was scheduled to sit by the booth of the foundation for half a day. This was a good opportunity for us to explore Ubud some more and maybe find our inner self’s ;-) Besides we could participate for free at all workshops and seminars because of them using the building :-)

On Friday night we arrived by our home stay and went out for some dinner by the Warung of Sjaki, called Sjaki’s Warung. Iris knew that one of the teenagers was working and wanted to see how he was doing. He was doing very well and we had a lovely and cheap dinner. Afterwards we had some drinks with Dutch and Balinese colleagues of Iris. The Balinese drink (spirit) arak was having its effect on us this night, haha, we don’t drink much alcohol here. And when the Balinese drink, its mostly the strong arak witch goes around the table in 1 shot glass.

The next day was the first day of the meditation festival and while Iris was sitting at the booth of the foundation Rino joined some workshops. By the booth Iris had some very fascinating talks with some interesting visitors of the festival and Rino tried to meditate… One of the workshops, Rino joined, was held by an Indonesian women and the other by an American. Especially the workshop held by the Indonesian women was hard to follow while everything had to be translated, but still a nice experience to try to meditate. At least it was very interesting to witness all the meditation around us and all the knowledge and experience of the people coming there. And last but not least the vibe and atmosphere that was hanging around the place. It’s sounds “flying high” and dreamy, we know, but this were mostly down to earth people with a message how we all can live more balanced lives and contribute to world peace. So guess its good for all of us…

In the evening a ceremony was planned and we decided to see what it entailed. It was a wonderful evening with lots of Balinese dance -and sing performances, we both enjoyed it very much.

Sunday we both joined two seminars, with discussions about meditation and Balinese culture. This was again a bit hard to follow while the Balinese speakers had to be translated and sometimes they where so caught up in their story that they forgot to pause and wait for the translate. Although this fact we still enjoyed hearing these great speakers talk. Later on in the afternoon we joined a workshop about meditation from an American lady, which was a special experience again.

In between we walked around the city Ubud and saw what attracts people to this village, while walking you can feel the Balinese culture. The village is full of creative souls, arts & crafts and environmental friendly alternatives. There are also so many great shopping places and nice restaurants. It is a great alternative to Seminyak and Kuta, which is made for mass tourism. We decided that we would go for some more weekends in Ubud in the future.

PadangBai (19 – 21 November 2010)

We wanted a chill-out weekend and chose to go to Padangbai, which is a small harbour and backpacker town located on the east side of the island. Rino had read a nice story in the Bali Advertiser (a local paper, with advertisements and some stories) about a hostel in PadangBai and that same hostel was the ‘Our Pick’ of the Lonely Planet, so the choice was easy. The hostel was called Topi Inn and owned by a Dutch man. It had a great atmosphere and was very cosy, read more about the hostel in Rino’s review on TripAdvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g1078452-d1656115-r87818781-Topi_Inn-Padangbai_Bali.html. In the evening we went out for a drink in a local bar and there we could really feel the backpacker vibe.

Saterday morning we rented snorkelling gear and headed up to the near Blue Lagoon beach, which would be a great snorkelling beach. The snorkelling was great and we saw our first tropical fish and corals of this trip. The beach however was very small and not a good place to swim, so in the afternoon we decided to go to the other beach of PadangBai. That beach was amazingly beautiful. White sand, turquoise waters and some real warungs (small kitchen made out of some bamboo sticks). It was a great spot and we loved to hangout on this beach. To come to the beach we had to climb a small hill though, but that made the beach even more idyllic. We loved the beach so much that we spend the complete Sunday over there. On Saturday night we went back to the Babylon Bar, where we were the day before as well. They had live music planned for the evening, the band was great and we had a real good time together and with some of the local boys working in the bar.

All together it was a very successful and relaxing weekend :-) It may be a place were we return once again :-)

If you are not jealous yet from the story, check out the pictures:

Link didnt work right now, but check out our facebook and we put the link on the blog a.s.a.p. :-)

Munduk

Seminyak, October 31, 22:30

This weekend we went to Munduk, a small village up in the central mountains of Bali. On Friday afternoon the journey started and was partly the same as to Lovina, except for the last 45 min. Even though we where better prepared this time it was still very cold when we came high in the mountains. We had booked a room at Puri Alam Bali Bungalows, which supposed to have good views (according to the Lonely Planet), well the view was absolutely stunning, what a panorama! And this for the nice price of 200.000 rp (16euro) a night. Rino now finally has his KITAS (workingpermit), witch gives a lot of discounts/local prices on many many things. We are very happy with this little passportlike book! :-)

The next morning we had lovely breakfast at the rooftop restaurant of our hotel and we headed up to Jatiluwih, another small village where we should find one of the most beautiful rice terraces of Bali. The rice terraces spread out over 18km up in the mountains and it was wonderful. We could drive through with our scooter and we also took a walk to see the fields and the rice closer. It was fantastic and definitely one of the most gorgeous places we have seen on Bali until now. From the end of the road through the rice fields it was not very far to the temple Pura Luhur Batukaru, one of the holiest Hindu temples of Bali.

Unfortunately it started raining very hard when we arrived at the temple, the rain didn’t seem to stop but with a borrowed umbrella we walked through the temple and could take a closer look. The road back took longer then we thought, mostly because it rained so hard. We even warmed and dried up at a restaurant with a nice fireplace and hot chocolate and tea. :-) It’s funny, we felt really cold and were happy with this fireplace, as you are in the winter back home after skiing in Norway or skating in NL, almost forgetting that it was maybe 20 degrees. No! we are not complaining, it was just an unexpected experience on Bali ;-) In the evening we had diner at another close by hotel and played some cards and red a book in our room. Munduk is a very quiet, small village with nothing further happening at night and no streetlights. We had a very nice time until Iris saw a huge spider, which Rino could not kill because he climbed al the way up to the roof. Luckily our room was a family room and had 2 bedrooms, so we moved to the other one.

The next day we arranged a guide who would bring us to 2 waterfalls. The first waterfall was 30m high and the second 50m. In total it was a 2 hours walk through a beautiful forest, with lots of interesting plantations. Cacao trees, avocado, banana, pineapple, Balinese fruits and many more. The waterfalls where spectacular and we where both very happy we took this trip. It was good for body and soul and for the eye. We needed a weekend like this now, to see and explore a bit and get some exercise. When we arrived back to the hotel we where exhausted and took an early lunch. Unfortunately it started raining again very hard and very long so therefore we decided to go home directly instead of taking an alternative route, which would have taken us through rice fields, coffee plantations and another 2 waterfalls, but we will take that route next time. The great thing is that we still have so much time to see everything we want of the island!

When we arrived back home we could finally switch to the room we wanted in the villa. Rino was trying whether the locks worked and eventually it ended up that we locked ourselves out of the room and we had to break the window in the door to unlock it, not so smart! But luckily these thinks don’t costs much on Bali ;-)

See here our pictures of the weekend on our Picasa. http://picasaweb.google.com/fromeynfotos7/Munduk?authkey=Gv1sRgCLqu-9zC4IWnEw#