Coming from Perth (~4 hour flight) we arrived late at Denpasar International Airport. Visa was easy, you don’t need one when staying less than 30 days. We took a Grab Car to our stay at Ubud, central Bali.
There was lots of traffic on the 25 km road to Ubud, so it took us about 1 hour to go by cab. Indonesian driving is different to recent Australian driving, i was happy not to have to drive a car in the night on these narrow roads.
Ubud is the Yoga capital of the world, as it seems. Lots of single women in their middle-ages seeking for their inner peace of mind. Vegetarian/vegan food is the common food in here in addition to healthy fruit-shakes detoxifying your guts … so you get the power for the next yoga session. Ubud is also the cultural centre of Bali, with the famous dancings and shadow puppet theatres. Overall it is very calm besides the traffic, only disturbed sometime a little by the gongs and singing of gamelan orchestres with their , to our ears, “arhythmic” music. Bali itsef is mostly hindu, while the rest of Indonesia is muslim.
We stayed at a small hotel called Griya Kartini, one evening the owner’s mother introduced us and another couple and invited us to some balinese tea-ceremony in the evening. Madame Kartini told stories about her life, her lovers , her businesses, … a 82-year old dame with style wearing her colour-matching gems with nails and Chanel’s No. 5.
She named her first dog “Dollar” , when Dollar get pregnant, the puppies were called Euro, Rupie, Pound and Yen.
In Ubud we rented a scooter, just to go to the rice fields north of it. Which was disappointing, as the rice-terraces seemed to be constructed for the sole purpose of tourists shooting themself swinging the terraces and shooting photos for their instagram followers. Sooo touristic… rice-terrace disneyland.
After our 4 night stay in Ubud, we took bus-ferry ticket to Gili Islands in the east, to be precise, Gili Air next to Lombok. The boat was full, lots of party-people most of them heading to Gili Trawangan, the party island of the three islands. Looked like Ballermann in Mallorca, gladful that we moved on to “our” Island – Gili Air.
On Gili Air ( “Air” means water in Indonese) there are no scooters and cars, just bicycles and horse-carriages pulled by Ponies. Crossing the island takes 30 minutes by feet, surrounded by crystal clear waters , excellent for snorkelling. Underwater-sight is about 10 meters, we saw lots of colorful fish, soft corals, but unfortunately no turtles yet.
