Bali

After our whirlwind tour of Singapore, we flew to Denpasar, Bali for the second leg of our vacation.  We arrived in Bali on the evening of July 17th and, after a minor delay navigating ourselves through the chaos of the airport in order to acquire a taxi, we finally made our way to our hotel in Kuta. We had booked a private day tour for the 18th, so once we arrived we had a late dinner and headed back to our room to get some rest.

Our private day tour got off to a slow start when our driver showed up to the hotel with a SUV that had difficulty starting (see notes about the rain below!). A few phone calls and an hour later, and we were finally off on our day tour with a brand new - and much more comfortable - SUV.

The start of our tour was a bit miserable weather-wise as there was a very strong (but luckily short-lived) rain storm. The infrastructure in both Kuta and Denpasar was clearly not able to withstand this amount of rain, and as a result, the streets quickly became flooded.

Flooding in the streets!

So much water!

The first stop for our day tour was the Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud. The sanctuary is home to hundreds of Macaque monkeys - as well as a temple - and is a popular place to visit in Ubud. The monkeys certainly aren't afraid of strangers and will follow you around looking for any food you might have for them.

Macaque monkey looking for food

Family cleaning the baby

Dragon statues at the temple entrance

After hanging out with the monkeys, we made our way to the market in Ubud. There wasn't really much to see at the market; some handmade crafts, typical souvenirs, and some trinkets with 'Bali' written on them. Just across the street from the market, however, was the Ubud Palace. The palace was built in the early 18th century and is set in the centre of Ubud.  The courtyard of the palace offers views of some impressive façades and statues.

Inside the palace courtyard

Interesting statue piece

After tourism, agriculture (namely, rice cultivation) is the largest employment sector in Bali. Given that we'd never seen a rice paddy before, we decided to stop by the rice terraces in Tegallalang (north of Ubud). Even though it had started raining quite heavily again, it was still an interesting sight to see for the first time.

Rice Terraces in Tagallalang

After getting drenched at the rice terraces, we headed for Gungung Kawi temple. Built in the 11th century, Gunung Kawi temple rests in a small valley and consists of several open courtyard areas which are home to shrines that have been carved out of the rock face. Thankfully the rain let up because it took us about 15 minutes to walk down to the bottom of the valley (while stopping to take in the views). The trek, however, was absolutely worth it! The shrines are absolutely huge (20ft+) and are in very good condition given that they are nearly a century old!

Massive shrines carved into the rock face

More shrines on the opposite side of the valley

The next site we visited was Goa Gajah - also known as the elephant cave temple. The entrance to the cave features a facade of creatures and demons. The cave originally got its name from the elephant-like shape of the rock face, though it's difficult to see now due to erosion. Next to the cave are two holy bathing pools. Many local people come here to clean themselves and wash away evil spirits.

Cave entrance - see the elephant shape?

Bathing pool

The last stop on our day trip was at the Oka coffee plantation. We were given an overview the coffee agriculture in Bali as well as a few samplings of some locally grown & roasted coffee and tea.

Coffee & Tea samples - tasty!

More importantly, however, is that Blair got to finally try some of the famous Kopi Luwak coffee, as well as meet the 'coffee machine' that helps produce it - the Asian Palm Civet.

Asian Palm Civet  -aka- Coffee Machine

While there were a few more sights we would have liked to have seen, we feel as though we managed to see quite a lot in a single day. A private tour with your own driver is definitely the way to go when visiting Bali as it allows you to move at your own pace and focus on the things you really want to see. But most importantly, it allows you to avoid the motorcycles.  Oh my, the motorcycles!! :S

On the left of us..

...and on the right of us!

All in all, we had a fantastic tour of Bali. It was a great cultural experience, and one we'll never forget. Something that stuck with us from our first impressions until our very last day there - the Balinese people are extremely friendly and very, very kind. They certainly helped to make this visit as great as it was.

Coming soon - some diving and beach stories from the Gili Islands!