Last visit & bye bye party

Sitting here in the bus from Cameron highlands to Penang, looking out on beautiful coconut trees and Malaysian sunset, thinking back on Bali and our goodbyes…

The last weeks were different than usual, Rino was practically finished, we were packing for the shipping of our stuff and we slowly started to plan our travel and we had a fantastic goodbye party! Especially our last week was fully packed with appointments and plans. Judith, our friend from Groningen, who’s traveling in Indonesia, was visiting us for a couple of days just before we left. She joined our bye bye party and Iris went one day with her to Ubud, for the last time.
Angeline and Berry, the friends Iris volunteered with at Sjaki, were in Bali again for a couple of weeks. It was so good to see them again and meet up a couple of times.
The rest of the week was packing and planning and doing the last shopping before the boxes were closed for shipping to Norway. The boxes (1 cubic meter) are now nicely packed and are going to be shipped to Oslo, where we can pick it up when we arrive in Oslo in august. It will be like Christmas Eve when we unpack them again! :-)




Our boxes :-)

The bye bye Bali party!
We had planned a bye bye party with Samson on the beach, this way we could invite everybody, included some of our friends with less to spend. The beach is also our main hangout spot in the afternoons so it was natural to give the party there. Samson was the happy boss and could earn some extra money this evening, as well as joining some fun with us of course! :-) We picked up Indonesian food on the street and we shared arak with everyone as well as beer. It became a memorable and very cosy and fun evening with a good mix of our new and not so new friends here in Bali. It simply couldn’t be better! It was so much fun that we never wanted the night to end. Together with the small group that stayed till the end with us, we went to Cow bar and had the usual fabulous fun there with jamming, singing and talking! We had to leave the bar at a certain time and we STILL didn’t want the night to end. The beach with a beer, a guitar, good musicians and gooood company was the solution, we sang old love songs and enjoyed the moment until the dawn broke through and we finally went happy and fulfilled to our beds to sleep. <3



The last day!
The last day we really had to say our goodbyes to the last people. We had promised to come to the beach and see Samson and of course Fais, so a quick visit to the beach and some minutes melancholic walking in the sand and water and we said goodbye! Rino still went by work to shake some hands and he still got a present :-) We had planned to have our last lunch at Warung Sobat, our absolute favourite on Bali where we have been 2 times a week for the last 9 months. Rino eat more onions rings than he could bare and we even got them for free since it was our last time ;-) The lunch we enjoyed with Carla and Vincent. Now the very sad moment came to deliver our beloved scooters. We kissed them goodbye and headed of to pick up our backpacks and leave the magic island. Putu, our housekeeper was the absolute hardest to say goodbye to, she cried and begged us to stay, it was such an emotional moment and we promised to keep in touch! And of we were and the Bali chapter came to an end….. The new one may begin!

Bali bye bye!

Ngurah Rai Airport 1/7/11 18.00

So we are sitting on the airport waiting for our flight, the end is here our 10-months on Bali are over. The questions are “do we look forward to our travels? Do we look forward to go home after such long time?” Well, we are not really looking forward. Wow, 10 months passed so quickly everybody says, luckily for us this doesn’t feel this way. We have experienced our time here on Bali very intensively; it feels like three years ago that we arrived. Especially the last couple of months have been so good for us, we had a lot of friends over for visits and the weather was so great, Bali really showed itself from the most beautiful side.

So what makes this island so special and our experience of it, why did we enjoy our time here as much as we did? To sum it up:
• The best beach parties at La Plancha
• Always smiling Fais, our ice guy who became a dear friend
• Putu, our lovely cleaning lady, who Iris always had so much fun with
• Our two Honda Vario’s, they gave us freedom and brought us everywhere we wanted to go
• Yeni and Ella, the sweetest girls in Bali, we are so happy to have met you
• Samson, our always friendly and great beachboy, who would go out of his way to make us happy
• Ronaldgang, the best band in Indonesia :-)
• Chalie and Roger playing their tunes at Cow bar
• The most amazing rice-fields you can imagine
• Deep rooted and very old jungles and rainforest
• The hard hard rain downpours, which makes you just laugh
• Ibu Made Janurine who was always willing to show us important Balinese ceremonies and culture
• Pak Goesde, Rino’s GM, who liked to share everything about Balinese business live
• All colleagues at Puri Saron who were always so friendly to Rino
• Our Italian house boss Jacopo, who simply just sucks in FlightControl ;-)
• The great snorkelling spots all around the island
• The best place to learn surfing and the best place to watch and spot the pro surfers
• Warung Sobat, our favourite place to eat with the best price-quality in the world and onion rings that Rino will dream about for the rest of his life
• Sari Organic, the most beautiful place in Bali to eat with lovely lovely organic food and drinks
• THE PEOPLE!!!
➢ The openness and friendliness
➢ The fascinating religion
➢ The balance and awareness about good and bad
➢ The honesty and trustworthy
➢ The wisdom
➢ Their innocence
➢ Taking it slow and mellow with everything, meaning never having any sort of stress
• Climbing the mother –and holy mountain Gunung Agung, with all the spirits which you can really feel and experience
• 30-40-50 meters waterfalls
• White, black, grey and yellow sand beaches
• The FOOD!!!
• Ubud, the cultural hart of the island
• The kids, teenagers and teacher at Sjaki
• The hiking trips
• The arts and crafts
• The cheapness
• The shopping
• Feeling safe everywhere
• The ceremonies!!!

Probably we have a lot more things that made Bali so special, we have to let it all sink in and we will realize what these 10 months really did to us! <3

Thank you Bali, thank you people and we will see you again some day! :-)

Uluwatu with friends

Let us introduce you to Fais, our dear friend. We met Fais many months ago on the beach while he was selling ice cream, he walks along “our” beach selling ice out of a cool box he carries around. There are many guys like him selling ice, but soon we made friends with Fais and he always stop for a talk and a break if we are on the beach. He is from Java, working in Bali because here there are more jobs then in Java. Oby, Fais’ girlfriend was also coming over to Bali some weeks ago, she had just finished high school and also wants a job here on Bali. At the moment she doesn’t have a job yet. Fais told us that she wants to see more of Bali, so we suggested going together to Uluwatu temple in the south. We still had to go there ourselves and would like to show them some of Bali. This was of course our treat and we enjoyed doing something nice for and together with Fais and Oby. After some convincing he accepted the invitation and we had a fabulous afternoon and evening!

After Rino finished work we met Fais and Oby on the scooter and made the one-hour drive to Uluwatu. Arriving at the temple area it was like all tourists suddenly came out of the ground, it was so crowded. Uluwatu is also famous for its monkeys, just like in Monkeyforest in Ubud. The difference was that they steal and pick more from people, so be careful with anything in your pocket or anywhere. We saw monkeys grab several pars of glasses from people and happily chewing them to pieces. Uluwatu temple is laying on the very tip of the big cliff that goes out in the sea and is not open for the visitors. But there are some amazing viewpoints where you can look down in the sea and out over the ocean south of Bali, and of course you can watch the huge cliff and the temple from a distance. The perfect view is with the sunset. It sadly was cloudy this afternoon, so the sunset wasn’t very clear, but it was still beautiful and the view is still breath taking.

Every evening at 6 they show the Kecak dance at Uluwatu, this is a very special Balinese dance, performed by only men. Instead of the usual gamelan orchestra, the voices of the men are the music accompanying this performance. In Bali there are not many places the kecak dance is shown commercially for tourists, but Uluwatu shows it every day. We didn’t see it yet, so this was a great opportunity. Fais also had heard about it and was so happy to be able to experience this show. The sunset was also still beautiful when the show started, couldn’t be better!

The show was impressive, the choir of the men’s voices is incredible to listen too and the dance performance and story that is told by the dancers makes it even more beautiful. It is a story about Rama & Sita, a Hindu love story between a King and his princess. To get a slight impression of the sounds here is a video we took:



After the show it was dark and we took the scooters to go home. On the way we stopped at our favourite Vietnamese small restaurant to eat. Oby and Fais had never had Vietnamese food so it was nice to try something new. The whole evening was so much fun for all of us! Fais told us that for him the show was like in his dreams or on TV and he enjoyed everything a lot together with Oby. Then we realize that we do this things every weekend, sometimes every day. We see the world, we eat food from all corners of the world, we do what we want when we want. We enjoy and we are impressed but at the same time we are used to do all this... When you enjoy and experience through the eyes of Fais and Oby one afternoon in Bali....then you realize how magical and beautiful all this is, to be able to do all this all the time for 10 months! Thank you Fais and Oby to let us be your friends and see the world the way you see it sometimes! :-)

Traditional fighting

It is already a half-year ago since we visited Tenganan village, the village in east Bali belonging to the Aga people, descendants from the original Balinese people. The people are known for their conservatism and resistance to change. They have traditions and rituals that are different from the rest of Bali Hinduism and culture, as an example, they bury their people instead of cremation and they have a communistic system which does not recognize individual ownership of property, they share everything.
Talking to some people in the village in January, they told us there was going to be a certain kind of ceremony/ritual in June we should come and see. It was going to be men fighting each other with thorny pandan leaves. We memorized the date and promised to come and see it.

Tuesday 15 June it was time for the ritual in Tenganan, Rino asked to leave work early and off we went on the scooter. We had seen in a magazine that the start time was 4pm, we wanted to be in time and well aware of the "elastic Bali time", we were not sure the time in the magazine was correct. Driving up the last kilometers to the village we saw people, cars and scooters going suspiciously much in the opposite direction of us, we knew that both thought the same...it is already finished. But after a 1½ hour drive you don’t just assume, you check for sure. We parked on the extremely busy parking lot and walked into the village. It was almost not recognizable from last time, packed with Indonesian, foreign tourists and locals, it was a busy atmosphere with food stalls and marked stalls selling all kinds of stuff. We quickly asked a girl if the fight was over, luckily it was not! :-) It was just lasting for many hours and therefore a lot of people already went home. We were so relived and hurried up the village to where the fight was taking place.

The fight is known as mekare kare, the ritual blood sacrifice. All men in the village get involved in the ritual, using thorny pandan leaves to draw blood. The men are carrying weapons of a rotan-woven shield to protect themselves and a bundle of the thorny pandan leaves, used to scratch the opponent's skin until it bleeds.
Before the fight begins, participants drink rice wine or arak, local palmspirit, to symbolize brotherhood and sportsmanship. But when the Balinese music fills the air, a volley of fierce jeers, insults, cheers and shouts are thrown to instil fear. And the fighting begins.
The fighting is judged by a mediator, mostly a prominent figure of the village, and usually lasts for 5 to 10 minutes. The first person to draw blood with the thorny weapon is the winner, and the person he draws blood from is the beaten. Both winner and beaten are broken apart by the mediator as soon as blood is drawn.
As the injured are treated with traditional liquid medicines, and all fighters recover their strength, the whole village prepares food and drink for a big feast, which must follow the Balinese sacrifice of human blood.

To us it looked a bit chaotic, a lot of people standing on and around the stage where the fights took place, and each fight was directly followed by the next. We could imagine that people left after half an hour looking. Bur it for sure was an interesting happening and it was fascinating to look at the men and boys fighting and how they came down with blood on their backs and chests. It was for sure real battles, but luckily a lot of laughing all the time. They clearly had a lot of fun together despite all the wounds and blood. A fighting for the ritual and tradition, but still very friendly somehow because of all the smiles and laughs.

We are happy we went to see. See the pictures for an impression of the happening.



This is not our video, but its on youtube, you can see how the fights go.
YOUTUBE

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 :-)

Nearly graduated :-)

Since this is only my (Rino) third blog post about my internship it is clear that it was not as interesting as the rest of our adventures here on Bali ;-). Last time I explained that I kept myself busy with guiding the process of the practical training for the students of Stenden Bali. Well, that has kept being my main focus during the past few months. Furthermore I also did my research project about this practical training and I have been active finishing the project as well. This has kept me much more busy compared to the first half of my internship. I will not bother you with all the details, since these are just boring, but I ‘nailed it’ and received only very positive marks for both my internship as my research project. This means that I just have to work until the first of July and then I will receive my Bachelor of Business Administration in International Hospitality Management :-)

Overall looking it has not been the most interesting internship, but if I had to do it all over again I think I would still go for this hotel. To work in a completely Indonesian/Balinese hotel was a great experience. The benefit of this is also that everybody is very relaxed, which meant that I could give my own twist to the internship (manage my own working hours etc.). My General Manager (Pak Goesde) is also a Balinese and he really liked to talk to me, so I have learned a lot from him about the very interesting and complex (say corrupt) Indonesian hotel/business industry.

So this is probably going to be my last blog post about my internship, because I don’t think there will be happening so much more ;-). I will never regret making the decision to do this internship, since it was the reason for us to go to Bali for 10-months and I can say it was an experience of a lifetime.

To all my Puri Saron colleagues, thanks’ for having me :-)

Barry Doesburg (my internship coordinator) on the left, Pak Gusti Kade Sutawa General Manager and my internship supervisor in the middle and me on the right :-)

Sarah's Bali memories

Sarah has been so sweet to write us a guest blog about her Bali experience. We are happy to share it with you! :-) Here we go:

It is now two and a half week ago I came home from visiting Iris and Rino in Bali. I still think about the island every day… Bali has it all!
When I arrived I noticed that everything is so green (and I didn’t see that much of Bali yet)! There are palm trees at the airport, beautiful flowers are growing outside, which you can only see in man-made botanic gardens in the Netherlands, blue sky and really nice heat. The heat on Bali is a really nice one, it is really warm, not as sticky and muggy as the heat in the Netherlands.
I didn’t mind that I was completely wet and sweaty when we arrived at Iris and Rino’s, because WTF I’M IN BALI!!!

The beaches in Bali are beautiful! Even the Seminyak beach is NOT the same (no Iris, it is not the same!) as a beach in the Netherlands or in any European country! There are many different kind of beaches in Bali; beaches with dark sand and high waves, beaches with fine white sand and really calm water, beaches with fine white sand and the most beautiful blue-green water you have ever seen, beaches with lovely fishermen boats and ‘never-ending’ swimming pools... do I have to go on? The sea is never too cold to swim in, but always a nice refreshment after laying in the warm sun for a couple of hours or playing tennis at the beach. And hell yeah, I’m good at playing tennis at the beach! ;)
As said the nature in Bali is so green! There are many different kinds of tropical trees, plants and flowers I never saw before. Everywhere you go you see palm trees in all kinds of forms, heights and with different kinds of fruit in it. The palm trees gave me the ultimate holiday feeling!
The small yellow and white flowers you see everywhere on Bali are so beautiful! Iris called them prefect and I think she is kind of right! Besides all the beautiful natural vegetation, you have the Balinese rice fields. Wow, they are stunning!! All the different kinds of green, young rice is intense green, older rice is more yellow-green. It was so nice to drive and walk through it! I saw rice fields before in Nepal, but the Balinese fields won by far!
One of the fine things about the Balinese nature is, that it is not only lovely and sumptuously beautiful, but it can also be rough and raw beautiful! One weekend we climbed mount Agung, the highest and most sacred mountain of Bali. The walk up (and the walk down as well) were tough, but so worth it! The first part up was vegetated, with a lot of trees and plants, the second part were only stones, sand and rocks. And when we arrived at the top at 6 in the morning (full of adrenaline, we made it we made it we made it AAHHH!!) we saw a beautiful sun rise! What a fantastic experience was that!!





The Balinese culture and people are so nice. Bali is the only Hindu island of Indonesia, the rest of the islands are mostly Muslim. The way they practice Hinduism is different than other Hindu countries. They’ve add some part of Buddhism into their way of practicing Hinduism, what makes them really open-minded to other people, cultures and religions. They bring offerings all day, for good and bad spirits, for family, neighbors and tourists, for good business, a wealthy harvest, for everything! Every morning Rino and Iris’ neighbors bring an offer for them, so sweet!

I can go one for ages writing down all the good things about Bali. I can write about the delicious food, about a 2 hour all-you-can-drink for 5 euro, about beach parties and peeing in the sea, about all the shopping you can do in Bali (shopping in Bali is really dangerous, everything is so nice and cheap, you want to buy everything! I think Iris and I became addicts...), about driving scooter with or without lots of goods, about swimming pools with the best sea view of the world, about watching the sunset when you lay on your sun bed, thinking about how good you life is...



But I think the best part of being in Bali was seeing Rino and Iris again! It was so nice to see them again, after such a long time and find out that they are luckily exactly the same as 8 months ago!
Dank je wel voor alles lieve schatten!!

Alone again but not for long…

Blog writing has had low priority lately with a lot of visits and active days and nights. But we have not been doing nothing, so we will try to catch up some on the posts before the next visit already arrives…in 2 days already ;-) Welcoming Anneloes and two days later Marloes! :-)

Nusa Lembongan
With Sarah we have been doing and seeing a lot. One weekend the three of us went away to Nusa Lembongan, a small island close to Bali. Just for some relaxing, sun and snorkeling. And that we did! It was a slight disappointment at first, we expected a bounty island and came to a not that nice beach with a lot of fishing boats along the whole coastline. Besides that they were drying seaweed all over the place in the sun, and it doesn’t have the most pleasant smell you can imagine. After finding and bargaining on a room and settling on the sunbeds, we took a new look around...and it seemed as if it was nicer everywhere than when we arrived. With the low tide coming the beach turned out to be pretty nice and the atmosphere was good. The water and was clear and turquoise and we had a beautiful swimming pool at our bungalows. Sarah’s conclusion was that Rino and I are spoiled after 8 months of beautiful nature and beaches everywhere we are at any time. Our norm and expectations have grown to illogical proportions, haha! But it might be true, we enjoy every sight, smell and feeling every day, again and again, absolutely. But still we unconsciously get used to all this in a way I guess.
The snorkeling was fantastic and especially for Sarah who saw this kind of tropical waters for the first time. We also hired bikes and saw some of the island. See the pictures :-)



Iris birthday :-)
I was turning 29 a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day to start my last year of my happy 20s! :-)
Sarah had brought colorful flags, which hung in the living room when I woke up in the morning. We started the day with my yoga class and enjoying a couple of hours at the pool there. Lunch was Norwegian salmon on the beach. And later Sarah and Rino surprised me with beautiful banana cake with candles on the beach together with the beach boys on “our” beach. Thank you guys! <3 Later on we went out for a good dinner with Carla and Vincent and I had a wonderful Bali birthday! :-)

Sarah and I did sightseeing and other fun stuff with and whiteout Rino. In stead of more stories of all sorts I let the pictures speak for them selves this time. Enjoy!

Gunung Agung

We had been thinking about climbing the holy mother mountain, Gunung Agung already since we came to Bali. Because of the rain-season we waited until the end of our time on Bali. As a “warming up” we climbed Gunung Batur link to see how we would like it and how fit we are. Rino has no real climb/hike experience and Iris a bit more from Norway, but climbing experience you can barely call it. After Batur we knew that we are absolutely fit enough, Iris is a bit scared sometimes of the hights, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to climb more.

Sarah had already said yes to the challenge and at a beach party we met Claas, a Dutch guy who also would like to climb with us. Team Mount Agung was formed! We started making plans together with our guide, whom we also used for Batur, but faith wanted our plans to change. A few days before the climb an uncle of our guide died, this makes him (our guide) impure and unable to climb the holy mountain for 12 days according to Balinese Hinduism. What to do...? We made contact with a good rated guide in the Lonely Planet, he replied and wanted to be our guide. He asked for our experience and made the suggestion that we maybe should not take the longest track to the very top, but a little shorter track to a top on the east-side of the volcano crater. 150m lower than the top and no 360 view, but according to him still fantastic view and good view on the crater. This track was 4-5 hours instead of 6-7. It also had been raining on the mountain a couple of days, so we decided to take his advise. Now nothing could stop us anymore.

We were picked up outside our house at midnight so we could start the climb at 2am. We had all been sleeping a little bit earlier that evening and eaten a big meal to build up some energy to stay up all night. With our backpacks and pockets full of snacks we cheerfully started the hike to the top of Bali. The starting point was at 1600 meters, almost as high as the top of Batur. It didn't take us long before we absolutely loved and trusted our guide Pak Gung Bawa. A tiny build Balinese with tons of climbing experience and a open and heartwarming smile and spirit. And smiling he did, all the time, jumping up the mountain with quick and light steps. He referred to the monkeys as our masters, light steps and using both hands and feet for walking up the steep mountain. It did help and made the climb easier. Keep smiling, think about noting else than right now and the goal of coming to the top and feel the energy from the mountain. Hug and embrace the mountain when you climb up a steep part, it will recharge your batteries, he said. We did, and we felt it. “We don’t concur the mountain, we concur ourselves” were his wise words. Especially for Iris, who gets afraid once in a while when its steep, learned a lot from Gung Bawa that night and morning. You have all the power to decide how to feel and think at each and every moment, as long as you’re aware of it. It is all in the mind!

We had brought snack with us for the walk, but at each short break Gung Bawa offered us snacks of all imaginable sorts, bananas, Oreo cookies and all kinds of small energy boosts. The climb was hard but we were in good shape all of us and it actually went very well the whole way up to the top. Gung Bawa had a perfect tempo and was a great motivator and company to walk with. Showing us how the continues smile from the inside and out can help you in reaching a goal. And we reached our goal, after around 4 hours we saw the top and made a monkey sprint up the steep big rocks. Full of adrenalin and out of breath we reached the top of 2890 meter.

Together with other people we watched the sunrise and just took in the impressions of being on the top of Gunung Agung and the breath-taking view. Gung Bawa made a prayer and an offering while the sun was rising. Adding a beautiful extra dimension to the whole experience, considering how holy and important the mountain is to the Hindus.



On the way up as well as the way down, we met a lot of Balinese people, aged teenagers to old men and woman, in traditional clothing and flip flops, climbing to the top to do their offerings. Gung Bawa told us that they also once in a while bring a cow or a goat alive up to the top to sacrifice/offer it into the crater. How do they do it??

After the prayer Gung Bawa pulled more stuff out of his magic backpack, this tiny man carries a lot of kilos up the mountain for his customers. We drank coffee and thee and enjoyed fried bananas and delicious cakes. We realized again that we had hit the best guide we could get, nobody else on the top were spoiled so much by their guide as we were. Besides that we also had a lot of fun together, which made everything feel easier than it maybe sometimes was. Here a short clip from us having fun on the top, Iris explains a song to keep warm from Norway :-)



On the way down, all of us could physically feel it ace more than on the way up, in the knees, hips, shoulders and feet. Gung Bawa kept the spirit high and we slowly made our way back down to starting point. 11am the broken but happy team arrived back at the car to go home, take a loooong massage, order pizza and zzzzzzzz! :-)

Thank you Pak Gung Bawa and thank you Gunung Agung for this experience! And thank you Sarah and Claas for the great company and the shared experience!

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

Time for friends and travelling

1½ week ago Mailiss & Erling arrived from Norway, for a 2-week holiday on Bali. And they brought the sun and good weather with them. The last 2 weeks before they came it had been raining a lot every day, more than we have seen in the 8 months we live here. Luckily it stopped and Bali shows its very best side to our dear visitors. The first 9 days we spend time together and at the moment they have some romantic days on their own in a beach hotel. Last week we were hanging on different beaches and just relaxing, showing the good, slow Balinese life. Iris also took them on a daytrip to Ubud, showing the foundation she worked at and just to see Ubud, which is our favourite place in Bali. Both Mailiss and Erling practiced a couple of times on driving the scooter in Bali traffic and after a couple of days we drove easily around both to Ubud and to Balangan beach in the south. Especially Mailiss just loved it. After driving scooter for many years in the past, it was a familiar and fun activity for her! For us it is fun to have people over and see Bali through new eyes again. Even though we highly appreciate our blessed everyday life here and enjoy every second. It is good to see how others react when they see things, realizing how easily we actually adapt and get used to things, we almost forget that all this wasn’t to natural when we first came here. We probably get a new culture shock when we come back home to Norway and the Netherlands…



Mailiss & Erling have a camera with a good function for panorama pictures, which we miss a lot, with all the nature and beaches we photograph here on Bali. We are so happy to have some panorama pictures now from this paradise island!

Van week 16 Bali, Mailiss& Erling

“Our” beach in Seminyak

Van week 16 Bali, Mailiss& Erling

Beautiful Geger beach with seaweed farming in the water

Weekend trip
We had booked Nyoman, who was our guide once before, to be our guide together with his driver Komang for 3 days in a row this time. Nyoman is a good guide and good company to travel with and Komang is a humble and good driver that makes us feel safe. We wanted to show Mailiss & Erling a variety of the beauty of Bali, a mix of things we had seen before and things we also still wanted to see or do. One of those things was to climb Gunung (mount) Batur and see the sunrise. Saturday at 8am we were picked up and started our journey. The weather was beautiful, we were excited to show Bali we have learned to love so much and
M&E were excited to see so much of Bali’s other beauty after a week enjoying the beaches.

We headed to the north with a waterfall, rice fields and a couple of temples in mind. We visited the royal temple Taman Ayun in Mengwi. When you think you have seen all kind of temples in Bali, you get to see a new one that looks again different than the ones you saw before. Again a beautiful temple to see and to photograph without it looking just like our other pictures. After this we drove to the UNESCO world heritage nominated rice terraces in Jatiluwih. We had been there before and we really want everybody visiting Bali to see this almost artificial landscape and magnificent rice fields. We would like to see it with newly planted rice once, but just like last time the rice was already high now. Beautiful, but the view is probably totally different with young rice, we hope to maybe see this one time before leaving Bali.

Van Week 16-17; Bali; the trip

Panorama view on Jatiluwih

Close to Jatiluwih the public temple Pura Luhur Batukaru is laying on the foot of Gunung Batukaru. Today there was an important ceremony going on in whole Bali, especially for all school kids and students, Hari Raya Saraswati. A ceremony to thank the Goddess of learning, science, and literature through offerings and prayer. In and around the temple we saw around 1000 children and teenagers in Balinese clothing bringing their own small offering to the temple. We had never seen such a massive ceremony with so many people waiting to make their offering. Teenagers were actually standing in line to get in to the praying area. Just like back home we stand in line for a concert or something else, laughing, talking and just being like teenagers are. It looked and sounded so familiar in one way, but then again so different.
We took of over the mountains and towards Singaraja. On the way down we still had daylight and time to see Gitgit waterfall. A nice short walk towards and a beautiful waterfall, but too many souvenir shops along the path and too much “cheap, cheap”, “1dollar, 1dollar”, “yes, please shopping, shopping?” We stopped in Singaraja to eat some food and watch the sunset from the nice warungs on the old harbour front.
It was getting dark and we were tired and full of impressions from the day. Komang drove us safely to Kintamani, the village in front of Gunung Batur, the mountain we were going to climb at 4am next morning….

After the climb on Batur (see further down) it was still morning and we wanted to take it easy the rest of the day, after a volcano climb you are not taking inn so much more that day. Amed on the east coast was the destination and relaxing and snorkelling was the plan. Nyoman and Komang once again drove us safely and were great company. We booked a nice and clean hotel with swimming pool for the night. After some snorkelling, swimming and beers we were more than satisfied of the day went to bed early.

Monday late morning Nyoman and Komang picked us up and we slowly headed to the west and back home with a couple of destinations on the way. Tirta Gangga water palace is one place to be if you are in Bali, it is a peaceful and beautiful Royal palace and temple and most of all a big garden to explore and admire. The restaurant with view over the garden is slightly expensive, but highly worth the money. The food is fantastic, the service is good and the view is rewarding.

Van Week 16-17; Bali; the trip

View on Tirta Gangga

Back in the car we made a route through Sidemen road which one of the most beautiful valleys to drive through in Bali. We had a few stops, a small traditional Ikat weaving factory and we also made a visit to the only resort in the area, just to have a look. If you want to experience peace of mind and harmony just by staying at a place, you should stay a night or more at Surya Shanti in Sidemen. We are thinking of it, even though it’s quite above our budget (donations are accepted ;-) ). Combination of the amazing rooms, interior, atmosphere, swimming pool and not to forget the indescribable view, makes it just an oasis in the middle of Bali.
To end our day and long weekend with almost overkill in input we visited Gyanyar evening marked, which is supposed to be very nice and cosy. Erling and Rino tried to eat Babi Guling (suckling pig) and burned their mouth out of the spicy local food and we walked through the marked and just experienced the Balinese roaring marked life. We went home and let the weekend and all the experiences sink in on us.



Gunung Batur
We have been looking forward to climb a volcano already since we came here. But in the rain season its not really recommended and often the passes are even closed. Now the wet season is slowly ending and with all the visits coming up we wanted to finally go for it. Gunung Batur is a 2-hour hike up the 1717m high mountain and you see sunrise from the top. M&E were also excited, none of us had ever seen or climbed a volcano.
After a banana pancake and coffee at 3.30 in the morning, Wayan, the guide picked us up and we started the hike in the dark with flashlights and enthusiasm. Through forests in the beginning, followed by steep and curvy paths up the side of the mountain. We took a few small drinking stops and admired the dark valley of Kintamani and lake Batur beneath us under the stars. Slowly a tiny hint of purple light was coming up on the east horizon and we continued our climb up to the top. Wayan, our guide is a highly experienced senior guide, born and raised in the area. He made us feel safe and always on ease and had a perfect tempo for the 4 of us. Sweaty but not too exhausted we arrived on the top op Gunung Batur and together with a few other groups and guides we could take in the stunning view, while the sun minute by minute made its entrance on the landscape around us. The big crater and all the details of the volcano slowly became visible for us. It was such a rewarding feeling to stand there together the 4 of us at 6.30 and look at the beauty around us and smell, see and feel the volcano we stood on. The steam poring out everywhere, the hot stones we could touch and the fact that we could boil eggs in the steam in the mountainside was so fascinating! Breakfast on a volcano: Mountain steam boiled eggs and mountain steam cooked banana sandwich, yuuummmyyy!! :-)

Van Week 16-17; Bali; the trip

Van Week 16-17; Bali; the trip

The sun is entering the landscape :-)


The rest of the journey was to walk around parts of the big crater and then slowly go down on the other side of the mountain, seeing a smaller, but more recently active crater and walking to a point were we would be picked up by our car.
Mailiss and especially Iris were finding parts of walking on the (sometimes narrow) crater edge a bit too exciting, but with lots of adrenaline, positivity and sometimes a steady hand from the guide we all had a trip and experience, which we find hard to describe in words. A tear in the corner of an eye and goosebumps are some of the ways to explain the beauty. It is on top of our experiences and places to be on Bali.



After this trip we have decided to also climb the highest volcano in Bali Gunung Agung (3142m) together with Sarah, which we picked up from the airport yesterday. WELCOME SARAH! We want to climb Agung together with Wayan, the guide we also had for Batur. We are excited about how that is going to be, harder for sure but maybe twice as rewarding…you have to wait and see. We will tell all about it when the time comes.

Van Week 16-17; Bali; the trip

Gunung Agung in the very back, our next goal :-)

Planning new adventures!

As we say in Dutch ‘the bullet is through the church’ we have booked our journey out of Bali. Of course we still have three months on Bali left to enjoy paradise, but flight tickets get expensive quickly so we had to make some plans for our trip. Our flight back to Belanda, I mean the Netherlands, is on the 28th of July from Bangkok and Rino’s internship finishes on the 1st of July. We look forward to travel south-east Asia, so we decided to hit the road already a few hours after Rino finishes his last day. We will also celebrate our second anniversary on the 2nd of July and we would like to do something special of course. We now have booked two flights, one from Bali to Kuala Lumpur and one 12 days later from Phuket (Thailand) to Udon Thani (Thailand) near the border of Laos. So we have planned to travel parts of Malaysia, south Thailand, Laos and finishing with Bangkok and its surroundings.

But first we still have lots to look forward to in the coming months with many visits and hopefully loads of trips around the island. At the moment we are in a quieter period with Iris her dengue fever and we are saving money for the visits. So it has been nice for us to talk and plan about our trip in July. Especially Rino is looking forward to that time as he then finally finishes his internship and hopefully graduates. ‘The last mile is the longest’, this definitely counts for his internship.

Iris is making good progress in recovering from dengue fever and is feeling better every day. The energy is slowly coming back and the blood levels are back to normal. She only has to come back to the hospital to check her liver functions. She slowly builds up energy as the virus really cuts into your immune system. We are using more of the mosquito spray nowadays, as we now know what a terrible virus this is.

Dengue Fever

The fun
It has been a while since our last blog post. The weekend after Iris returned from Singapore we stayed at home and on Sunday we went to the Waterbom Park in Kuta, which is a very touristic but fun park with many water slides. We like these kind of parks, because you can act as a child again, especially the CLIMAX water slide, where you are standing on a ledge that at a certain moment just disappears under your foot, was a huge adrenaline kick. On the Friday before, Iris had an extended lunch with Carla, an Indonesian friend we once met at one of the concerts of Ronaldgang. Together with her boyfriend we had diner in Cafe Bali, one of the better and restaurants in this area (see here Rino’s review). We had a great evening with Carla and Vincent and look forward to spend some more time with them.

The next Thursday we gat to see how small the world can be. In Singapore Iris was hanging out with a group op different travellers, also Monaliza, a Swedish girl. By crazy coincidence we were eating at the same tiny, cheap warung in a unknown back alley here in Bali. After some chit-chat Iris and Mona-Liza exchanged phone numbers and we met again the day after for a party at La Planche, a very cool beach bar/lounge in front of Rino’s hotel. Together we had a good time this evening and we enjoyed going out partying again for once, we don’t do that so often.

No more fun
The next morning Iris woke-up with a huge headache and soon she also got a fever. This day we had planned to go to a yogathon and another full moon celebratioin organized by Desa Seni, the village resort Iris does her yoga. But unfortunately Iris was not getting any better and we stayed at home. The yogathon was also a pre-party to a big yoga festival, which is in Ubud at the moment, the Bali Spirit festival. Iris had applied as a volunteer and was looking forward to work there. The next day the fever unfortunately rose up to 39 degrees. We soon thought of going to the doctor, but the Balinese doctors are not always really to be trusted, so Iris wanted to wait a little while.

After a couple of days with changing temperatures we finally decided to go and see a doctor on Wednesday. We were advised to go to one of the international hospital, as they have international service. The doctor Iris saw was very professional and he did a thorough examination. He concluded that Iris her blood needed to be tested against several diseases, including Dengue fever and Malaria. Yesterday evening Iris already got the results back and unfortunately Iris has Dengue fever.

Dengue fever is a virus which is spread by the infected dengue mosquito. The virus has four levels and luckily Iris has one of the milder levels. Until now there is no cure or medicine for dengue fever, you just have to rest and wait until it gets over. At the moment Iris still has a low fever (around the 38 degrees) and is very weak. She sleeps most parts of the day and is hardly able to do anything else than laying down on the bed or couch. She also is supposed to only rest and do nothing more, drink a lot and wait till it gets better. The doctor says dengue can take 7-10 days, but how long you will be weak is not sure. She is really ‘sick’ of it, as she would be volunteering at the Bali Spirit Festival. Tomorrow we are going back to the hospital and they will do more blood tests. As far as we know Iris can stay at home as long as it doesn’t get any worse. Every other day we have to go to the hospital for new blood checks. Tomorrow is also Iris her 7th day, so we hope she will improve from that moment.

Balinese New Year, part I Melasti ceremony

Balinese New Year is called Nyepi and is celebrated every March or April according to the Balinese Saka calendar. It includes several rituals and ends with Nyepi day, a day of silence, fasting and meditation. On Nyepi Day total silence prevails. The airport and harbors shut down, shops close, traffic is forbidden and nobody leaves their compound. It is forbidden to turn on electricity, cook or light fires. Balinese radio and television stop. The Balinese people fast for 24 hours. There are 4 basic restrictions: no fire, no working, no travelling, and no leisure activities. More about Nyepi and how we experienced it in our next blog post.

Melasti ceremony
The Melasti ceremony is performed 3-4 days before Nyepi. Every village in Bali will go to closest temple at preferably the ocean or otherwise a lake. Here they will pay respect to the gods of land and sea by sprinkling water over status (sacred objects) from each family and village temple.

We were invited to join this ceremony with Janur (a colleague of Rino) in her village close to Tabanan. During this ceremony everybody is supposed to wear a white shirt (for men)/kebaya (for women), so we also dressed up as we were supposed to. The ceremony included a 1 hour walk to the beach (Tanah Lot Temple) were all the status were blessed. Several villages joined this parade and in total it included up to 2000 people. We joined the parade to the beach. After taking some pictures Janur already asked us to walk back to her village temple to wait for all the status to come back. After the blessing at the beach the gods are present and will take place inside the bodies of several people she told us. The statues and people have to get back to the village temple as quick as possible. They actually run all the way back!

While waiting for the status to come back a group of young girls danced Legong to welcome the status. Priests were sitting on the street at the entrance of the village temple praying and we were holding our breaths while waiting for what to come. When the status came it all went very fast. Before they entered the temple they were hold up for another offering done by the priests at the entrance. The gods also need food and therefore a small pig was offered and killed. After the final offer it all went very quickly, everybody hurried inside the temple with the status, barongs and the people taken by the gods. Especially the people that were taken over by the gods really made an impression on us. We could see different people suddenly change in appearance and behavior, in different ways. Some looked very peaceful and happy while dancing like in a trance and others had big scary eyes and strange chaotic behavior. All these people were closely watched and guided by others. Janur could tell us that this was because their mind was not in control over their bodies. After receiving holy water this people will become themselves and back to normal again.

It was an impressive, beautiful and sometimes a bit scary experience for us. Hopefully our explanation and the movie and pictures below can give you an idea of what we have experienced.




This video gives an impression of the ceremony when the statues came back and some people that were taken by the gods. (sorry for the quality, we have no edit experience ;-) )

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 :-)

So Iris, what are you going to do…?

I get this question a lot and I guess I will have to answer it a lot more. What are you doing every day, the whole day? Aren’t you getting bored? Are you going to look for a new foundation or something?

No, I’m not going to look for something new, just looking what is coming on my path. This is the island of the flowing river, and I am trying to learn to be aware of my own river while I’m here.
No, I’m not getting bored and my days will be filled in some way until the day we leave Bali that is for sure. At this point I am very happy to have found the opportunity to use the second half of our period here just to- and for myself. Like mentioned before I am very happy to have been at Sjaki and learned to know different people, volunteers, locals, children and teenagers. It has given me and us a fantastic opportunity to come inside the culture differently than when you are a tourist. We both feel we are settled more here and that’s a good feeling. The days of excitement of that everything is new and interesting is replaced with excitement of feeling home. Knowing more people, our favourite beach boy giving us cheap sunbeds, knowing all the cheap, good eating-places in the area, good markets. We have some kind of routine in our adventure, which feels good! I read, walk on the beach and enjoy life.

Since we decided to go to Bali I knew I wanted to do yoga. I tried it a few times back home, but here is the perfect opportunity to take classes for less money, with great teachers and the perfect environment. Meditation has drawn my attention as well already for many years, but just like many things, I never had the discipline to really try to learn it. Now I do! It already interested me, it would be crazy to not explore this on THE island of spirituality! I am not only lucky to be here, but also lucky to have the opportunity to spend time only on myself and what I would like to do. I am well aware of my fortune and opportunities! And I AM STIFF, unbelievable! So that alone is a great reason to do yoga, to loosen up some muscles before they start getting too old!

I also found a centre for holistic care L’Ayurveda, I had already read books by the founder of the centre and I could relate very much to his thinking and ways of looking at life. His name is Anand Krishna, he has (luckily for me and other foreigners) also some books translated to English. I am doing some treatments at this centre, one of the things I learn is different meditation techniques. I was right…this is good for me!

In the truthful and authentic surroundings of Bali, were respect of nature and spirit is the most important, I am slowly able to find my own peace of mind. This is where I come from, this is what I learned as a child in school and from my parents and its what I always believed in. And on Bali I am finding back to these insights and giving it some focus. Together with yoga and spending afternoons and weekends with Rino this all makes my life complete.

Sometimes I feel like Elizabeth Gilbert from “Eat Pray Love”, if you didn’t read it yet, you should! The movie just came out, it is good and shows nice shots from Bali, but the book is 10 times better! The book inspired me absolutely, in many ways I don’t recognise myself in her at all. But on the way to find peace within herself and how she feels on Bali I can relate A LOT.

But here it’s easy. The challenge will be to come home and maintain and keep this state of mind and meditation back in the fast, western culture… But I will! I am also thinking of how I can take the holistic view into my work as a nurse. The view of course already is there and was already along time ago. But I more and more want to be able to really use holistic nursing in my work. A good goal and dream to stretch out to when I come home!

So this is what I do and why I don’t have the time to get bored, life is too wonderful to be bored at all.

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 :-)

The Internship part II

So, it has been a long time since I have written anything about my internship. You might have been wondering if I stopped as well ;-). Well, of course I didn’t because that would be very stupid. I still go to my internship 5 times a week, but for a long time it was not that interesting, so I didn’t feel like writing about it.

Since my last post (in the beginning of October) I have had training in the Front Office and Food & Beverage departments. Actually it has not been so much training. I had the feeling that the department heads didn’t really know what to do with me and let me work most of the times on my own. I required training from them, to follow them in their job and assist them if possible, but unfortunately they didn’t want to involve me in many of their tasks or didn’t follow appointments with me. The other problem is that although we are fully booked it is never really busy in the hotel and they have enough staff to cover all the work, so there is not really something I could do either :-( The guests in this hotel only stay here, because of the location (close to the beach and outside the hassle of Kuta) and the nice pool. For a few months it has been quite boring and I started to get really lazy.

Now it is different. As I explained in my previous blog post, students from Stenden Bali (a campus site from my university here on Bali) do their practical training here in Puri Saron, like I have done in the Stenden university Hotel in Leeuwarden (NL). Last year this was done for the first time and it didn’t run that smoothly. Stenden Bali has asked me to help them to improve the program and I have designed a new program for them. Currently the students are doing the module called ‘Rooms Divisions & Facilities’, so they work in the Front Office, Housekeeping, Reservations, Security and Maintenance. In this module every other week 10 students (3 resiters who did the same module last year as well, but didn’t pass) are coming to the hotel and I guide the process. Last week the students came for the first time and the program ran quite smoothly :-). It doesn’t all have to do with my program it’s also because these students are more motivated than the students last year, but I am happy to see everything is running well. The staff here and the lecturers at Stenden Bali are very happy with the program, so I even receive some compliments ;-)

I also write my Business Improvement Plan (kind of thesis) about this project, so at the moment this project has my full attention. Here at Puri Saron they give me complete freedom to work on my project and help Stenden Bali, so the other departmental training I leave for now. It is nice to see these students doing the same as I did 4 years ago and I enjoy the interaction with them. They come from all over the world, with different backgrounds and all have different reasons why they are on Bali.

Next module is also a practice module at Stenden Bali and than the second year students will have their practical module as well. To let those modules run as smooth as this module is doing until now, a lot more preparations are needed. So there are enough challenges that I can face :-) although I honestly doubt if Puri Saron is the right hotel for the longer term. It doesn’t have enough potential to provide training to larger amounts of students, but that is probably going to be one of my conclusions/recommendations :-)

From now I will try to write more about my internship, as that is the main reason why we are on Bali :-)

Wild Water Rafting :-)

Saturday we have been rafting in the Telaga Waja River. Sevti (Rino’s colleague) had arranged the trip for us. We were picked up at 8am and after an hour search (typical non planning Balinese mentality) for the resort of our two fellow rafters we headed up to the starting point in the East of Bali. Nyoman our guide gave us instructions and of we went. Main instructions:
“Bamboo” lean backwards to avoid getting hit by a bamboo bridge
“Boomboom” hold tight and don’t fall out of the raft, we will crash!!!
…and sometimes “Bamboo Boomboom” hold tight, don’t fall out and lean backwards we will crash and will hit our head :-)

It was a two hours ride 12 km down through beautiful nature and spectacular flowing passages. The complete ride ended with a 5 meter jump down a waterfall :-). We definitely had an experienced guide as we passed many other boats. Overall the ride was full of adrenaline, laughter with our nice company and perfect weather.

After the ride we were starving, but had to climb up many stairs before we came to lunch place. The lunch was included and we all enjoyed it very much. We were brought home safely by our friendly driver. For this complete package we only needed to pay Rp 180.000 (€15/Kr120) per person (thanks Sevti) :-)


The final 5 meter jump before the finish line :-)

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 :-)