GLOBETROTTER - BALI

Our destinations:
                     Legian/ Seminyak/ Kuta - Ubud  - Amed - Gili Trawangan - Sanur - Kuta

Legian/ Seminyak/ Kuta

When we arrived in Bali our first destination was Legian. We had quiet to walk a bit to get to the beach, therefore it welcomed us with a beautiful sunset and life music in sandbags. Walking just along the JL. Legian Street we found ourselves again just being in Seminyak and then in Kuta. The street is perfect to watch the souvenirs, finding some nice places to have dinner and going to Party in Kuta afterwards! The only one we visited was the Skygarden, because everybody told us to go there. It was awesome being in this big location with three floors playing different music – and the welcome cocktail included in the entrance fee of 100 Rp was yummi!! Staying awake until morning and seeing the sunrise at pretty Kuta Beach was absolutely worth being tired the next day - and was a good excuse for a little nap in the sun at the beach.:P

Also for little trips like with the shuttle bus to Denpasar and with a rented scooter (60 000 Rp) to the Temple Tanah Lot and Changgu Beach (good for surfers!) was Legian a good place to begin our journey to gain a first insight into the balinese people and culture (...smelling and seeing incense sticks and little gifts for the god everywhere for e.g.). Otherwise Legian&Co. were very touristic, of course.

Tips - food:

• Legian Waroeng Tan Poh: we ate a big plate of fried noodles with vegetables for 20 000 Rp.
• Stark's House: the Stark House sells its own brewed beer and food for every taste. Being right in the “Party Street” it's location is awesome for a little dinner and a beer before stumbling into Kutas nightlife. Good food&good prices!

-Legian,Seminyak,Kuta-

 

-Denpasar-

-Tanah Lot-

-Canggu Beach-

-Uluwatu Temple-

-Random pictures first&last days-

Ubud

Next up on our list was Ubud, the cultural centre of Bali. Arriving there was awesome because it was just so different from the coast. The city all in all just looks very special and gave us like a second feeling of “Welcome to Bali”. Although most faces you see are the ones from Tourists the whole place just kept it's pretty and traditional charm.

The Monkey Forest was so much fun (for me – Laura was afraid of those cute buddies) and afterwards we walked around in the rice fields at Jl. Kajeng street and even tho we didn't see such a pretty picture as on our “Stefan Loose” guide book it was a nice and impressing walk.

Before leaving Ubud to go to the Ocean to get a boat to the Gilis we decided to book a tour to walk up on Agung Batur (... we decided Gunung Agung was definitely too much of a volcano for us from-time-to-time-Sports fans:P ). Starting at 2 am to walk up on the volcano to have breakfast on top and waiting for a spectacular sunrise (which was less spectacular because of the clouds that just let us guess it's morning by changing from a dark mix of blue-black-grey into, well, lighten grey and fog.) And the wind was awful and cold! By walking down the sun came out. Finally. Unfortunately too late... so, whatever you do – just be smarter than us and check the weather forecast before deciding to do such a thing.:P It was a cool adventure anyhow!

Tips – food:

• Confiture Michèle: Once good old Stefan Loose led us to this cute little Crêperie in JL. Gootama. Homemade Marmelade in lots of different exotic flavours and made after french recipe you can try before ordering your crèpe - my favourite: Mago-Vanilla!
• Gelato secrets: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream! We just fell in love with the passion fruit one! Nothing left to say.
• *Unfortunately we didn't write down the name* sooorry #worstwannabebloggerever: ...but call it Gado-Gado with a view. Walking in direction of kinda like a forest you can choose to even walk up a view stairs for having dinner in tailor seat on a little platform and watching down on the trees. Laura also enjoyed her Nasi Goreng! Prices okay – just realized at the end again that tax & service fee wasn't included in the prices in the menu. For your orientation: it's located on Jl. Raya Ubud, the entrance is on a picture following.
• Warung Lokal: Not really looking like a typical restaurant where people would usually choose to go this kinda open place with white tiled floor and like 4 big tables out of wood this place serves very good and big portions for a small price! It's in the same street as Michéles Crêperie.

Amed:

Amed is just a little place, but perfect to take a boat to Gili Trawangan – at least we thought so as it is the closest connection. Unfortunately the small place does also only have a small harbour where the small speed boats can't start if there are too heavy waves. That's why we had to spend one more night in the community. But that wasn't bad as we had the nice black beach to take some pictures at sunrise time, a pool to relax at, a good book to rad and even cheaper prices than we saw before.

Tips – accommodation/food:

• Sunrise Cafe&Bungalows : simple cheap rooms we unfortunately figured out about too late (-not the one with pool). But we tried the food. It was awesome! And it's where Laura found out about her passion for Tempe & Peanut Sauce!

Gili Trawangan:

When we finally arrived on party Island Gili T we immediately fell in love! Beautiful bright blue water, (almost) white sand like in magazines and: no annoying sound of honking scooters and taxis anymore!

You can walk around the Island in about 1 ½ – 2 hours or rent a bike. The best point to see the sunset was on the little mountain located like in the middle/bit south of the Island.

And after having seen the day saying goodbye in such a pretty way you can do it like us and just buy instant noodles (they taste good!) Beer & Sprite to mix a good Radler and prepare yourself like this for the Beer-Pong bar where we always started the night (turned out that Laura was pro, I was a Looser haha). The Sama Sama Bar, just a couple houses away from the Evolution Bar was always filled with people and is perfect for Reggae fans. As we are none of those we chose to walk down the road in direction south and found out: Gili T enttäuscht dich nie! You'll find a club, pub or bar that is right for you and at the end of the night when everything closes there is still one last place to go: good old Surf Bar is open longer than the other ones – perfect for kinda like an aftershow (unfortunately not with JB&Backstreet Boys like im Juze Isny haha), seeing “old faces” from the night again and having a last drink! Or for staying awake after the music turned off to watch the sunrise above Lombok the next morning hehe.

But enough drinking stories for now haha – my absolute highlight of this little trip was the 3 Island snorkeling Tour! Just plash and staring under water, seeing and swimming trough shoals of pretty colorful fishes you only (or not even) know from seeing in aquariums was just such a cool experience! I bet diving would even be more spectacular as the divers we saw were just like a meter away from that big turtle we only saw from kinda like the surface and probably discovered even more cool fishes, corals & Co.

Tips accommodation/food:

• 711 Homestay: located more in the inner of the Island and like this far enough from the crouded party area but sill only a not even 5 minute walk from the beach, and for only 150 000 Rp for the night in a room with ventilator, cold shower (what was awesome after being in the heat the whole day) and yummy breaky (we love banana pancakes....:P ) it was just the perfect places for us to stay!
• Art Market: As soon as it's dark the Art Market, which is an empty space at daytime, turns into a place filled with hungry people ready for typical and tasty Indonesian Food (I tell you to rather not try the chili sauce if you want to be able too fully enjoy it – my mouth burned like hell haha!!!)

Our trip was absolutely fun and I can only be thankful for having the best travel companion for this station of my journey (even though I had to send her home as the winner of our Phase 10 matches....)! Miss the Laura! <3

"Shooting" pictures will be up on >Facebook< ASAP, for more pictures check out my >Instagram Gallery<.


And at the end a little video for you to watch: First serious try of filming and making a short video - need a lot more practice and a better program for editing, but it was fun!:)

Have a good Sunday peeps!

Love from Thailand, Lina <3