And now, the end is near…..

....and so all the visits were already gone and before we knew it we have 2 weeks left on our little paradise island! We have had a (for what we were used to) busy couple of months with almost constantly friends staying in our house and in the middle of it Rino had to finish his thesis. We had a lot of fun with everyone, have seen and done new things in Bali and seen a lot for the 2nd and 3rd time, which was more than worth it every time! Amazingly we don’t get tired of beautiful rice paddies, Bali jungle and cruising around on the scooter. Because of the seasons of the rice fields it looks different every time and every stage of it is stunning again in different ways. The fields just filled with water, the newly planted baby rice, farmers standing to their knees in the mud planting the rice, the growing green rice, the yellowish rice ready for harvest, the harvest with all the farmers together in the fields and then the fields right after harvest. It all makes the landscape look different and it all has its new beauty!


Pictures of the stages of rice farming :-)

The last visit was from Anneloes and Marloes. There was a lot of partying, scootering and enjoying all aspects of Bali together, beach by day, beach by night, snorkeling, trekking and experiencing the culture.

Weekend trip
In the weekend we went together exploring parts of Bali. We did Ubud and surroundings, went by scooter through beautiful central Bali to the east, where we did a 4 hour trekking route in Tirta Gangga. Seeing the fantastic rice fields, some viewpoints and a perfect route to see some of the real Bali and how people live, outside the tourist areas. Sunday after Tirta Ganga Rino went home to work on Monday. We three girls went further east to Amed to snorkel. We found a bungalow on the beach for a really good price including dinner and breakfast. Snorkeling right out of the beach, Amed is simply fantastic, now in the dry season the water also was incredibly clear. Monday we took the fantastic route to Ujung along the coast and slowly back home again. On the way we stopped for lunch at the beautiful place Kebun Impian , where Rino and I stayed once before. We also stopped on White sand beach for a swim before heading back to Seminyak.



Spa & fun
The girls and I didn’t meet since our unbelievable experience with our thesis last year, winning two money prices. We wanted to spoil ourselves one day and we sure did. I’m spoiled every single day here of course, I am well aware of that. But the girls are hard working nurses and could really use a treat like this. 3 hours spa: body massage, facial and pedicure & foot massage. Ever going to Bali? Take a lot of spa treatments, it is SO cheap! After the spa we walked to Cocoon, a luxury looking club/restaurant down at the beach, with a swimming pool, big comfy beds and gooooood (read: expensive) food and drinks. The beds are free if you have food and drinks, so its not too bad, but you feel like a spoiled rich kid, but hey we actually were this day ;-)
We ended this fantastic day with the best party in Bali: the beach party at La Plancha, which we enjoy every three weeks. And it was a success as usual, as much fun as it could possibly be! :-)
Siv Hege, our friend from Norway stopped by Bali for a couple of days on her 12 months around the world trip. She timed it perfect and could join us for the beach party. Check out her travel blog (its Norwegian) on siviwonder.com.



Friends & fun
We have been partying more than usual the last weeks, because of visits of the party girls Sarah, Marloes and Anneloes ;-) It has been a lot of fun and we have been getting to know more people because of getting out more. Our new favourite, despite that we don’t like Kuta, is Cow bar. Its not so much the bar, but because of Chalie, a friend playing there on Wednesdays with our new friend Roger. And because of the girls, Ella and Yeni, who work there. Within 10 minutes the first time we came there we noticed that these girls are too much fun. Such sweet, genuine and funny Balinese girls, we are so happy to have the pleasure to have met you Asbak & Rekening! ;-)

One more thing: you all should check out Nok La Fiesta, a Thai girl we met here. She is a huge talent with her guitar, rhythm and voice! She travels around playing and saving money to someday be able to go to South America and play her music. We just love her. Check her out on youtube and facebook :-)

Visit continues & shopping

Sarah is here and Mailiss & Erling are back home in Norway. We hope Erling feels better since he wasn't feeling too good after the suckling pig on the night marked in Gyanyar! Luckily most of the holiday wasn’t ruined for him, except the last days and unfortunately they couldn’t join the party we had in mind as their goodbye on Friday evening. We still went out with Sarah and it was a great night. We are not used going out anymore in our easy and slow life, so we looked forward to party ;-) Skygarden is one of the biggest discotheques in Kuta and for our taste nothing worth writing about at all. But we like the beer garden they have: 2 hours with free flow beer for around the 4 euro's, once in a while that’s a fun thing to do. After all the beer we went to a beach party at La Plancha in Seminyak, the best party in the area, it takes place once every 3 weeks and is so much fun! Good music, good atmosphere and good people. We had a lot of fun and felt the hangover big-time the next day, but it was worth it though. We also met a Dutch guy who wants to climb mount Agung with us, money saved and more company found, always nice.

With our hangover we relaxed some hours on the beach with Erling & Mailiss before they took of back to Norway. We on our hand took our stuff and scooters and headed to Ubud for a weekend of shopping, more shopping, some sightseeing for Sarah and another party. The party was for Kadek, old colleague from Sjaki, it was his birthday and it was nice to see and talk to friends again :-)
With our hangovers and big shopping plans we went to bed on time in our beautiful homestay in Ubud.

Time for the shopping we had planed for months, we had saved up money and we were waiting to buy most stuff till the end of our period in Bali. Of course we had seen a lot of the things we would like to bring home, now it was time to buy it. We will ship 1 cubic meter box from Bali before we leave :-) Bali has so incredible much art, woodcarving, stone carving, clothing, silver and all the stuff you can imagine. You could shop beautiful things until eternity! And then for prices that are unimaginable to us back home. Sometimes with a bargain and sometimes they start so low that you just don’t even have the conscience to start to bargain on the price. We came home happily with fantastic things and still money in the pocket.

Besides shopping we also showed Sarah the beauty of Ubud, the center and the surroundings. Iris is slowly becoming a pretty good guide in many places, seeing it for the 2nd and 3rd time, and still enjoying the never tiring Bali nature and sights.

Now it’s far past midnight and its the 5th of May, day of liberation in NL and my (Iris) birthday! I will enjoy the day with yoga and beach with Sarah and diner later on, I look forward to it, so nighty night good folks all over where you all are! :-) <3

Relaxing, Sightseeing and Adventure!!!

Last Friday we joined a full moon celebration at Desa Seni, a wonderful village resort where Iris has started doing Yoga classes. We had no expectations regarding the event, so we came there with an open mind. We only knew it was a celebration with meditation. Well, it was one of the strongest spiritual experiences for us so far on Bali. It entailed dancing, special breathing techniques, unique feelings in our bodies and special kind of ‘couple meditation technique’. For both of us it was a unique experience in different ways, but we both really felt the energy from such an experience shared with so many people. We are definitely going also the next time.

Gunung Kawi, Tirta Empul & Goa Gajah
Saturday morning we packed our bags and drove to Ubud area. There are still a lot of sights in the Ubud area, which we would like to explore and besides we just love Ubud. First stop was Gunung Kawi, age-old stone carvings graved into mountainsides. There were many stairs down to the sights passing 100 stands with sarongs, woodcarving and drinks. Down in the valley it was beautiful, rice fields surrounding the area and the stone carvings, well worth the visit.
We continued to Pura Tirta Empul, which is close to Gunung Kawi. Iris had recently been at Tirta Empul with the kids from Sjaki (see blog), but Rino had to see the place too and off course take a bath in the holy water and by the holy springs. It’s such an impressive place somehow, with the springs and continuingly people coming for the holy water.
After this Rino still had the energy for a 3rd tourist site, it was a beautiful but also a very hot and sweaty day. But on the way back to Ubud we stopped at Goa Gajah, where Iris also was before with the family visits while Rino had to work. Instead of hiring a guide, this time Iris could do the guiding.

In the evening we eat at Nomad, which is one of Ubud’s most famous restaurants. They have a great organic concept and we enjoyed 12 delicious Balinese tapas (Rino’s review). The evening continued with some Arak and beers with Iris’ former colleagues from Sjaki.

Wild Adventure
In our Lonely Planet there are a few walking tracks in the surroundings of Ubud and Sunday morning we headed up to one of them. We heard about one place called Sari Organic, which we wanted to pass for lunch on our track. The beginning of the track was really easy and nice, but at a certain point we couldn’t find the path, which we should take. We asked a local who explained us we had to go through the rice paddies, follow a small road which could be a bit slippery and than we would come to a bamboo bridge…
So, there we went. The rice paddies were easy, but after that there was only an almost invisible tiny path through the jungle. We heard the river flowing around 100 meters beneath us. Our flip-flops were maybe not the best tracking shoes for this path, but we wanted to have our lunch at Sari Organic and this seemed to be the only route we could take. While climbing down we asked ourselves continuously if we should go back. Iris tried to explain the Fjellvettreglene (Norwegian mountain safety rules) to Rino (from the flat country) and reminded about rule number 8: ‘it’s no shame to turn around’…. But we continued down the crazy path.
Certain parts of the path were quite dangerous and steep and at some point we had the feeling we even would not be able to climb back up if we had wanted to.

Finally we arrived at the bamboo bridge, which was 5 pieces of bamboo over the river. We looked at each other and going back up seemed impossible, so “yes we are going to balance over!” Luckily bamboo is really strong and therefore crossing over the bridge was easier than it looked like. Climbing up the mountain was almost as dangerous as going down, but finally we saw some agriculture and it really felt like coming back to civilization :-) We had to go through some great rice paddies, high on adrenaline and proud, before we finally reached our goal: Sari Organic :-)

Sari Organic
Sari Organic (review) is an organic farm with restaurant in the middle of the rice paddies. If you would take the simple route it would only take 20 minutes to come there, but our more dangerous route took us about 2½ hours. We were exhausted and still shaking from the adrenaline, but still very impressed by the beautiful surroundings and the lovely organic farm with its restaurant. This is definitely our new number one restaurant of Bali. It serves great food directly out of their garden, with reasonable prices and great drinks as well, perfect for breakfast or lunch.

After our relaxing lunch at Sari Organic we walked the easy route back to Ubud and didn’t have any energy left to do something else than driving back home. Rino’s hotel now also manages another property, which is close to our home and we are allowed to use their pool :-) We relaxed the rest of the afternoon at the pool and took a well deserved foot massage :-)

No more Sjaki

Since this week I don’t do volunteer work anymore at Sjaki. Already since November I was thinking about not working until the end like the original plan was. I decided to finish the things I had promised to do and what I had started and then stop. The 2 hours on the road 3 times a week to get there and back are very exhausting It’s always busy in traffic here on Bali and there is just unbelievably much pollution when you are on the road on a scooter. My skin is black when I arrive, I can only imagine what comes into the lungs, even though I wear a mask. My time on Bali is supposed to be fun and good and I am free to do what I want. To want to sit on the scooter in this traffic 2 hours on a regular basis it has to be for something that is really motivating and worth giving everything for.

I have had a good time with the other volunteers and I also have good contact with some of the Balinese employees. For the children and teenagers I could have given everything and I love to be around them. And I would love to help with more if the conditions were good and if I was asked by the Balinese for something specific. At this point I anyhow feel happy with what I have been able to do for them and I certain that my decision is right.

Besides the fact about driving a distance there has been a lot of internal problems and conflicts at Sjaki, between the board and the volunteers. For me it has been problems outside my business because of my different kind of role at the foundation. I was there for 10 months with no other conditions then that they paid me the petrol for driving and they fixed my visa. I was going to make the first aid conditions better and furthermore help where needed. The other volunteers had more specific tasks and also had other conditions. Angeline and Berry were only 4 months and did some very good and important things and left again in January, we all missed them very much! The conflicts have not become smaller during the last couple of months and for me this was also a big motivator to be sure of my decision that I wanted to stop. I finished my first aid tasks and other things and told everybody that I would stop. Meanwhile my friends, the other volunteers, also decided to stop for reasons of their own related to the conflicts the last couple of months. I hope Sjaki will stay and survive for the children and teenagers, they have such a good place with dedicated teachers. Without a place like Sjaki they have no place to go.

I am very happy I started these 10 months with doing volunteer work. It was a great opening to get to know locals and it was wonderful to get to see the children with special needs here in Bali and have a chance to do something for them. I have had some great moments with them, the teachers and other employees and volunteers. I have seen more of inside and real Bali and behind the tourism because of Sjaki.

So now by coincidence we all stop at Sjaki at the same time almost, so we decided to end it with the great valentines event, which was planned already a long time ago and the other volunteers had already done almost all preparations for it. It was a big event organized together with the CP lounge, Sjaki’s neighbor and with a local band. Lots of sponsors, food, drinks, raffle, performances of all kinds and sharing love for and together with disabled children of Bali. All money was going to Sjaki and two other foundations for disabled children. It was a great day and evening and I was personally really touched by all the performances by the children. Deaf children dancing different Balinese dances, with a wonderful woman who guides them with sign language and teach them to dance to the music. A big group with blind teenagers performing with their band and choir, which also touched me to tears, all the joy and talent they were able to show to us. One young lady with a physical handicap read two poems written by her, translated by someone after she said it. I cannot express it in words, everybody should have been there to see her perform it and hear how it is to have a handicap on Bali…

See the pictures of a great valentines day <3


One of the dance performances by deaf children and their teacher :-)

Cremation ceremony

10 February there was a big cremation in Ubud. Ubud still has a royal family and when somebody of this high cast dies, the cremation is very big and well prepared and it is also a huge event for the people and the tourists in the area.

Cremation is one of the important ceremonies in the life of a Balinese person, together with 3-month ceremony, teeth filing ceremony at age 17 and marriage. The upper priest decides when the cremation will take place, it has to be on a certain kind of day according to the Balinese calendar and it costs money for the local community, so often the cremation takes place months or years after someone’s death. The body is buried and the bones are taken up again for the cremation. The ceremony is including a procession through the streets of the village with the body/coffin inside a creation made for the occasion, woman with offerings and gamelan orchestra.

This special ceremony in Ubud was for 3 members of the royal family, they have died in the past period and when the last one died they planned a cremation for the three of them together. The procession was going from center of Ubud, about 1 km down the road to the Ubud temple were the cremation was taking place. The 3 coffins were placed inside 2 enormous towers (2 in one and 1 had a tower by himself) carried by men down to the temple, accompanied with gamelan orchestra and all the people participating in the ceremony, all the tourists and locals in the area. It sure was a spectacular sight and event! Respect to all the men carrying the towers and unbelievable that everything is going ok every time. There is a lot of security and police but everybody does what they want and walk were they want while the procession is going on with the huge creations balancing through the streets, there are not really rules or restrictions on were to walk or what to do. When the men carry the towers they make a fast move, almost running down the street, after about 100 meter they stop for a short brake and continue the run. The gamelan orchestra is playing loud music and dancing and singing.


One of the towers taking of, but first they take a dance running round and round with the tower, this is to mislead the bad spirits so they dont follow the dead bodies to the final destination.


The boys from the orchestra with their load music

Arrived at the temple the bodies are taken out of the towers and placed into 3 cows that were standing on a platform at the temple, the cows are made of wood and different material, hollow inside for these bodies. A lot of men worked on getting the bodies inside the cows and all the offerings brought by the woman. When the bodies were inside, the gamelan orchestra stopped and most people left the area. Probably the ceremony at that point is over and the burning part is not interesting to them. I’d like to stay, but had been standing there for so long already and rain was coming so I also left before they started the burning. Anyway it was a real unique experience! :-) Now we would like to witness a marriage and a 3 month ceremony :-)

School trip, reports and holy water

Friday last week everybody at Sjaki-Tari-Us went together on a school trip to Pura Tirtha Empul, a Hindu temple in the Ubud area. The reason for the trip was that all the children and teenagers were getting their reports this day, and for this nice event we went to the temple. Pura Tirtha Empul is one of the important temples for the Balinese, because of the holy spring water and the public baths connected to the springs.

It was a sunny and nice day and we went with buses a 45 minutes drive to the temple. Teenagers, children, parents, teachers and volunteers, a group of almost 80 people were all dressed in their beautiful traditional clothing and we also brought an extra sarong to be able to swim/bath. We arrived happily with food, drinks and reports and headed for the entrance. But when the guard saw some of us were white people he stopped us immediately and he wanted us to pay…we had stopped at the local entrance, but he was not happy to see white people there too, in his eyes a bule (white person) is always a tourist I guess. So a big discussion later between the guard and our headmaster at Sjaki, the guard left angry and we continued and went inside.

After changing as discreet as we could in the unisex changing room we started the bathing experience. It was very refreshing in the burning sun but for sure also a special ritual, everybody goes in line to clean themselves under every spring with a certain kind of ritual. The grownups took all the children also under the springs, which was quit a challenge, many screaming kids for a moment there ;-) After a “trying to discreet change clothes session” again back to my kebaya we joined in with the prayer inside the temple.

After a welcoming meal for everybody made by our warung the day was ending with the children and teenagers getting their reports and a gift. It was such a beautiful moment, seeing them one by one proudly getting the reports from Guru Ibu Iluh.

I had a wonderful day with the children and teenagers this day!

Family visits

Since December 11th we live back in our house in Seminyak and that was also the arrival date of Els, Loek, Marion and Jort (Rino’s family). It has been a busy month, because one week later Julia, Sofie and Roger (Iris family) arrived. It were interesting and active weeks for all of us.

The first week only Rino’s family was there. Rino arranged an airport pick-up from his hotel and they were still quite fit after a 28-hour trip. Once they saw our house we went to the beach and had an early diner. At 20:00 it was quiet in the house and everybody slept already. The next day we spend the whole day on the beach and Rino tried to teach Marion and Jort some surfing. Two scooters arrived, one for each couple. It was nice for us to show were we have lived in the past 3 months. Unfortunately the next day all of them got the ‘Bali belly’, except Els was still feeling quite fine. During the next 4 weeks there was a lot of Bali belly’s going around the group.

In the next days Rino had to work like normally and Iris also went to Ubud for a few days. Els and Loek joined one day to Ubud. Els found out that she didn’t like to sit on the back of a scooter for one hour in this kind of traffic, while Loek actually loved to drive the scooter, he liked to drive every day. Marion and Jort travelled around the east coast of Bali for almost a week.

The Ubud Trip
One week later on the other part of the family arrived. Unfortunately Iris got sick on this day and was not able to join in picking up her own family. The Norwegians were a bit tougher with the whole jet lack, they stayed up until late and didn’t seem to have any problems with the time difference. Els, Loek, Sofie, Roger, Julia and Iris had an overnight stay in Ubud in the beginning of the week. We did some sightseeing in the Ubud area and Iris combined it with going to the foundation and of course showing Sjaki-Tari-Us to the family.
Rino sadly had to work and Marion and Jort were still on their trip across the island. Here a slideshow with the highlights of the Ubud trip:



For Christmas at the Gili’s see our next blog post.

Banyan Tree Bike Tours
Marion, Jort, Els and Loek stayed for a few days longer on the Gili’s and between Christmas and New Years Eve Rino had to work, as usual. Iris and Julia went on an arranged bicycle tour in central Bali, picked up in the morning and brought back in the afternoon. It was a spectacular beautiful trip with lots of breath-taking sights and good guides telling a lot about culture. In the underneath slideshow the bike tour is shown and explained and here is Iris’ review on TripAdvisor.



New Years Eve
For New Years Eve we made a reservation by our number 1 favourite warung “Warung Sobot”. We had planned to walk on the beach after dinner and arrive at the ‘place to be’ around midnight. Unfortunately it was raining and therefore we decided to take a taxi to the beach. After some hassle we arrived 2 minutes before midnight on the beach and enjoyed the great view with lots of spectacular fireworks from the expensive hotels in the area :-).
We really would like to pledge to all governments and local governments back home to don’t let private people shoot fireworks and instead invest some money in real and nice fireworks for everybody to enjoy!
Loek didn’t feel so great and had his first New Years Eve without alcohol since…… ever. Together with Els and Julia he left at around 1am. So the young generation stayed and got a bit drunk at a beach bar with some dancing and some deep and intense family conversations ;-)



Departure
The first of January was the day of departure for Julia, Sofie and Roger, Iris brought them to the airport. We were supposed to go on a trip with Els and Loek and a private driver, but Iris got her strange extreme stomach infection for the 2nd time. Els and Loek decided to go first to the national park of Bali on the west side of the island, Marion and Jort and joined them. In the afternoon they all came back and now Els was feeling sick. Rino had to work the rest of the week and Iris also promised to go to Sjaki for two days. Luckily Els got better and the two of them still went for a trip for two days to east Bali.

So overall we had a good time with our families. With so many people together there will always be some irritations and unfortunately we also infected each other and several people got ill, but all in all we had great time together!

We are truly happy to have the house for ourselves now and finally really make the house our own. It will take a while before the next visits come so we can explore the islands further on our own again. Underneath a slideshow with the highlights from the past weeks.

Trash = Cash

Last weekend (27nov) we were in Ubud again, this time mainly because an event at the foundation. The 2 weeks before we had a big group of American students doing a project with our teenagers at Sjaki. The students are coming from a university in California and are traveling around the world for 4 months in 10 different countries. In every country they did something good for people. And on Bali they were spending time with our teenagers and us making a lot of stuff. The project slowly took form prior to the time should come. It became a project were they made different items out of all kind of trash that we and others had saved up the last couple of months. The two weeks ended with an event/thank you party with the students and teenagers. All kind of people were invited to come and all the children and parents also. The items made during the two weeks were sold this day by the American students, there was a band playing and there was food and drinks for everybody! :-) It was a great success and the teenagers, children, students and other guests were dancing for hours during the middle of the day in a HOT HOT Ubud. Everybody was sweaty and happy and Sjaki made a lot of money during the day! :-) It was a fantastic experience seeing all the children and teenagers having such a great time dancing and jumping around to the music with all the other happy people. The Americans were great, they loved the teenagers and the children and were very enthusiastic. They also gat a lot of trust from the teenagers witch also is a big complement to them.

In the evening we made plans to eat with one of the girls we had talked to the most and from there we headed over to a lounge/disco where we partied together all of us to celebrate the successful day and as a goodbye party for the Americans who were leaving for China last Monday.

It was a great weekend but also really cool getting to know the group Americans, I must say I admirer the way they travel, their university has made a programme/semester about seeing the world and connecting it to a number of subjects they have in school. They visit Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Kenya, India, Indonesia and China. This all in 4 months. The students are all around 20 years old. What an experience it must be! They enjoyed it that’s for sure, and we enjoyed them:-)

Sunday we finally bought our sets with traditional Balinese clothing, so now we can join all kinds of ceremonies here and look completely like we are supposed to here :-) Iris’ blouse had to be made by a tailor, because it should be custom-made, the sarong and Rino’s clothing we bought at a marked. Picture will come later.

To see the products made with the Americans and pictures from the weekend see here. (Because the blog is available to everybody I exclude pictures of Sjaki’s children and teenagers): I dont know why but some pictures are not uploaded well on the webalbum, so they look damaged, sorry about that.
http://picasaweb.google.com/fromeynfotos7/TrashIsCash?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrg6Oulr8bo6QE

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. :-)