Beautiful Bali: Beach/Volcano/Beach

We left Ubud for Lovina, a small town on the beach in the north of Bali. The bus went up and up and up volcanic mountains (the landscape was a little similar to southern Mexico), and then down to the coast. In Lovina, we stayed at Gede's Homestay (which I think just means that the owners live in the hotel), a basic beachfront place. The super-frienldy owner Gede was a local fisherman for 30 years, and has owned the homestay for 15, in which time he's learned to speak English (a process which we've heard so many people are able to do, still seems pretty impressive to us to just pick up a language from tourists). Because of the volcanic rock, Lovina has a black sand beach, the first of those we've ever seen. It also has a beautiful horizon, one that seems very flat and seems to spread out continually with beautiful low lines of clouds.

In addition to our stomachs having to readjust to developing world bacteria in Bali, another readjustment we've had to make after our South Africa to New Zealand developed world hiatus is our status as walking ATMs in the eyes of the local population. Everyone is trying to sell us something, and although people usually leave us alone after we say no a few times, a few are annoyingly persistent. At the same time that it's an unpleasant interaction/feeling for us, we also recognize that tourism is how people here live (again like other places we've seen, outside of agriculture there seem to be no jobs besides tourism). And targeting tourists as a means to make a living in Bali seems to have taken on a mood of desperation, as tourism has declined significantly since the bombings (one Australian woman we met said that there were more tourists here when she came 25 years ago than there are today). One sign in a hotel window read "Don't Let the Terrorist Win: Come Back to Bali" while a cruder t-shirt version read "Fuck Terrorist."

In Lovina we met Michael from Germany and Mark from Ireland, and the four of us signed up to go fishing. We set out with a fisherman (Gede's nephew) at 6:30 am in a narrow wooden boat with supports on each side. As we headed out to sea, we marveled at the beautiful mountains of Bali behind us. On the water we saw some amazing small flying fish, which looked a little like humming birds, that would zip along just above the water for what seemed like really long distances. The process of fishing consisted of the boat going to different spots marked with floating stations, throwing out jugs with a line and hook attached, and also trawling a line wrapped around a spool. While we never had a bite on the trawling lines, we caught one smaller grouper and one large Mahi-Mahi (see photos) on the jugs. Another highlight of the outing was seeing dozens of dolphins swimming and jumping nearby, including a few who swam right beside the boat for a short time. We returned about 11 am, and later (thankfully) that afternoon the skies opened up in a huge rainstorm, which we would experience many more times in Bali. That night we enjoyed the Mahi Mahi, which Gede had barbecued for us.

We left Lovina with Mark, heading towards the Gunang Batur volcano. We were dropped at the town of Penelokan, at the top of the ridge, and after walking around a little and getting hassled a lot, we spotted another couple who had just arrived--Steven and Ana from Holland--and all went together to a hotel in a village at the bottom of the valley. After more hassle from the hotel trying to sell us their exorbitantly-priced volcano hike, we followed the guidebook's suggestion and walked to the official hiking office to book for the next day. As the rain came that afternoon, we sat around the hotel talking and then went to bed early in preparation for our hike the next day.

Like Mt. Sinai in Egypt, the volcano hike is timed so that you can see the sunrise, which means that the 5 of us had to start at the unfortunate time of 4 am (the leftover bumper bar from N.Z. came in handy). We followed a guide up the side of the volcano, some of which was level and relatively easy but some very rocky and steep, which was difficult to navigate given that we were half asleep and didn't have enough flashlights to go around. But we made it to the main observation point and sat there with a few other groups of tourists, enjoying the spectacular view of the island of Lombok in the distance and the taller volcano Gunang Anung across from us despite that fact that the sunrise was obscured by a few clouds. We then hiked a little further to the very top, where except for a small store and owner we were all alone with our guide, looking down into the steaming crater, out over the black lava flow and over much of Bali. At the top, our guide cooked us eggs and bananas in the steam from the volcano. We then started our descent, part of which included "skiing" in stretches of black sand. We felt great arriving back at the hiking office around 10 am. It was an awesome experience and amazingly beautiful--see all the photos we took!

After a second breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and the 5 of us headed to the beach at Pading Bai, an even smaller town than Lovina in the south of Bali, and the ferry port for Lombok. Rachel and I hadn't planned to come here, but both Mark and Steven and Ana had been and enjoyed it, so we decided to check it out. Mark and Steven and Ana both had planned to move on the next day, but luckily for us they decided to stick around, and the 5 of us had a great time lounging on the beach but mostly eating, drinking, and talking in the local restaurants. They're all really interesting and friendly people; Irish Mark from is a chef, and Dutch Steven and Ana (via Portugal) are an architect and artist. Steven spent time in Indonesia before and speaks Indonesian, which also came in handy a few times. Although there were a few incredibly pushy massage women, overall Pading Bai was much more low key and low hassle than Lovina. We stayed in a nice garden bungalow (although unfortunately we found evidence of a rodent staying with us a well, who apparently stole one of my soaps). Some mornings were sunny and most afternoons were rainy, including one terrific storm where we sat in the beachfront restaurant drinking beer and jumping at the booming thunder.

Overall we stayed 4 nights in Pading Bai, with Steven and Ana staying 3 and Mark 4 also. It was great to hang out with people and have a very slow pace for awhile. The most exciting thing we saw in Pading Bai were beautiful processions of people to a local Hindu temple, with people dressed in white tops and multi-colored sarongs. We left Pading Bai on Saturday, March 3, and came to Ubud, where I'm writing this blog, for a little end-of-Bali eating and shopping. On our van ride here was a couple from Ostrava, Czech Republic! (Where one of the Partnership churches is located, and where Rachel attended the conference in 2001 and we both visited in 2002.) For lunch today in Ubud we took Mark's suggestion for a Babi Guling (suckling pig) restaurant--it was incredible! (unfortunately no photos) We saw a whole roasted pig being carried into the kitchen. Really juicy, flavorful meat, pork rind, blood sausage, and a few other tasty pieces we couldn't name but loved eating. From here we'll catch a van to the airport tomorrow morning, then on for one night in Singapore tomorrow night (where we plan to meet up with Mark), and then to Vietnam!