Weekend visit

Last weekend we had Anders (Iris’ brother), Aina and Tonje over for a 3-day visit. They came from Perth, which makes it possible to come for only 3 days, its about 4 hours flight. Now they are hopefully back safely in Norway.
The weekend was great, although the weather did not spoil us that much, like the last couple of weeks. But still we had enough sun and almost no rain and of course we had fun just hanging out together! Especially for Iris it was really nice to see Anders again, not seeing him since the wedding. Really cool coincidence that he could visit us here on Bali through Aina and Tonjes stay in Perth.
Friday and Sunday we spent time seeing the area, walking and sunbathing at the beach, talking and catching up.

Saturday we had booked a car, driver and guide to take a Bali tour from morning till evening. Sounds really expensive, but here on Bali you can get a driver/guide for only Rp 4000.000. We were lucky to find this guide, which took a driver with him so he had all the time to explain the Balinese culture. We were picked up at home 8.30 and first went off to see a Balinese dance/theatre show, it was a story about a fight and the balance between good and bad, told with Barong and Keris dance. It was beautiful but difficult to follow the story. The Keris dance was very very impressive, this is a trance like dance with men using a keris (kind of sword) to stab into their chest and stomach, screaming and stabbing. But no wounds and no blood.

We continued to see a temple we didn’t see yet, Pura Batuan, it was beautiful as all the Balinese temples are. Most interesting was that our guide was explaining and telling a lot about things inside the temple. Mostly we don’t have guides when we enter temples and most important, our guide Nyoman Gede is really dedicated and professional and has much knowledge.
We went through Ubud to the stunning rice fields in the village Tegallalang. Just when you think there are no more new rice fields that can blow you away, we arrive at one that again is too beautiful to capture on photo. All of us were just taking in the view and trying to avoid all the vendors selling everything for "1 dollar".

We left further north and up to Danau (lake) Batur at the volcano Gunung Batur. We look forward to hiking the volcano one day. But for now we were satisfied with having lunch at the lake and seeing the hot springs. We were a bit disappointed about the hot springs; it is just luxury swimming pools with hot water, Rino said. We maybe had expected more like a wild hot spring like pictures from Island. We enjoyed lunch with fresh caught fish and kept dry because swimming would cost us Rp 80.000, which we find a bit too expensive.
On the way home we visited a Balinese family compound and had a look around with a friendly local girl.
After this is was already evening and we were ready for dinner and our beds.

We had a great weekend! Sunday night we already waved them goodbye.

Until next time :-)