Bali

On November 9th we arrived to Bali where we would spend the rest of the November. This little Indonesian island has 4 million inhabitants and the majority of them (84%) are hindus. Quite a surprise as we expected to see more women is islamic veils because 85% of Indonesians as a whole are muslims. The Balinese people take the hinduism seriously and the island is rightly called The Island of Thousands of Temples. That is so correct, there are at least one temple on each street, on each block and the top sightseeings are, alongside the rich flora and fauna, temples! Balinese people have a reputation of being nice, smiling and child-friendly but unfortunately it took some days before we could verify that. At Denpasar international airport we arranged a taxi at the official counter and got assigned arguably the grumpiest driver on the island. He huffed and puffed while waiting for luxurious detours like purchasing of water and toilet visits for Max before making it to his car. Our luggage barely fit the small sedan he was driving, and everything about him exuded blame towards us who had the audacity to bring so much crap with us. With the folded baby stroller in the front passenger seat and some angry glances from Mr. Happypants whether it would dent or stain the car ceiling, we were mercifully allowed to take a seat in the back and be transported to the hotel, under absolute silence. He had at least one spiritual brother - in one of the myriad of tiny shops littering the streets, peddling indonesian batik, wooden fallos with beer openers attached and Rolex replicas, the sales guy jumped at the opportunity to demonstrate his watch collection to Magnus. When Magnus backed out while explaining that he already had one, the snappy reply was "Shit man!".  Welcome to Kuta - the most exploited part of Bali. Tourists are pouring in by truckloads every day, mostly from Australia, so the attitude is not geared towards repeat customers. But luckily there were many exceptions. Walking the streets of Kuta requires some getting used to. Expect being offered taxi every three meters, seeing store keepers invite, ask, shout and literally beg you to visit their shop and at least buy a t-shirt. This reaches almost laughable levels at times, and it's no wonder there are people walking around with t-shirts with the print: "No taxi!", just to get some peace of mind. 

We also quickly noticed that Bali is an expensive place, compared to Thailand and Malaysia. We were expecting the opposite so it took a while to reconcile with the fact at hand. The currency, Rupiah, has inflated rather heavily so a normal amount of money to withdraw in the ATMs is around one million (about 700 SEK). It took a while to find an easy strategy for converting rupiahs to SEK without calculators so we struggled a bit in the beginning. Now were are masters of deducting zeroes and multiplying by 7!

The big thing in Kuta is surfing, and the town is packed with aussies carrying surfboards or driving customized scooters with attached surfboard holders. The aussie clothes brand Hurley is ubiquitous in the form of gray tanktops with large logos and you hear the familiar "g'dday" accent everywhere. Not all of them are here to surf though - Bali is just 3 hours away from the Australian west coast so it's pretty much aussies of all ages and sizes. We spoke to two nice elderly women from Melbourne, who had been coming over 17 times the last 14 years.

There are lots of similarities between the towns throughout Asian countries. Houses are often rather humble, sometimes not more than a tin roof supported by wooden sticks. Traffic in the bigger streets is bustling with scooters and every other house has some level of merchandize to offer, even if it is just one watermelon or a couple of Absolut Vodka bottles of petrol (yes, ALL petrol bottles we have seen throughout Bali is Absolut bottles). But we noticed that the Balinese people seemed more inclined to decorate. Houses generally has at least some kind of embellishment, and quite often they are beautiful with exquisitely carved wooden doors, statues and other objects. They also practice their balinese style of hinduism, that involves offerings twice a day in the form of small baskets with some flowers, sometimes a cracker or piece of candy and even a cigarette. These baskets lie absolutely everywhere - in the middle of the street and sidewalk, on top of brick walls, on cars etc.

We went to the beach to see the surfers. The waves was fairly calm so there was not a lot going on, but plenty of people hanging out in the sand. To celebrate the halfway of our Honey Quarter, Satu got some braids made to really embody the vacation mode, while the kids were playing in the sand and Magnus enjoyed a Bintang, the local beer. One hour later the hair was done, and that was when the rain hit us, hard! We quickly covered the stroller with the rain cover and ran up to the beach drive to seek shelter in a small cafe. We were covered with sand and took turns to try and wash it off in their small restroom, eventually clogging the plumbings. One alibi espresso later the rain eased off a bit, enough so we could get out on the road and hail a taxi. The driver tried to charge us 100'000 rupiahs to take us to our hotel but we refused and demanded him to turn on the meter. He finally gave up and did so. The trip back "missed" a lot of turns but the final cost landed anyway on 30'000. Key takeaway: taxi drivers in Kuta cannot be trusted. We warmed up a bit to the place eventually though. There were plenty of nice people to talk to, some good shopping and a very nice sunset meal at a seafood restaurant near the Century mall. We found a nice Rolex replica for Satu as well. Our new motto is "When love is real, watches don't have to be." ;)

When love is real, watches don't have to be :)

Who could guess that I just puked?

After more than a month of traveling, it was now time for the first stomach to get some problems. Unfortunately it was little Saga that started vomiting after a day in Bali with no appetite. But she was a real trooper! As soon as the vomit spell was over, she immediately started commenting her surroundings again and being just herself. We decided to lay low the remaining days in Kuta, giving her some rest in our moderately air conditioned hotel room while Max was playing and swimming with one of us in the hotel's very nice pool. After a few days, she started to recover. Her mood had barely been affected at all despite virtually no food and very little water staying down. Magnus cries more than she does during a stomach meltdown!

Ubud

Our outdoor bathroom

Saga recovered just in time for the next stop in Bali, Ubud. This lovely city is the cultural capital of Bali with loads of artists, dance groups, silver smiths, craftsmen and yoga studios.  The 'Love' part of the movie Eat Pray Love starring Julia Roberts was filmed in Ubud. What a contrast to the loud and lousy Kuta! Our hotel, Nefatari Villas, offered complimentary pickup, so we had a nice and free 2 hour ride with a chatty young balinese until we arrived. And what a place! Situated a bit outside the Ubud city centre, close to the green rice fields and country site,  it offered us a private villa with pool, outdoor bathroom and dining area. All in beautiful balinese style. We walked around in our new surroundings with our jaws dropped for a while, then we all went in the pool to wash off the road dust. A good start indeed!

Good, better, ginseng coffee!

Since we had read a many good reviews about Ubud and its cultural offerings, we had booked a whole week to stay there and make many day trips to its surroundings. First trip took us to a temple (who would have guessed!), rice terraces and coffee plantation that produces Kopi Luwak, the coffee made out of coffee beans that a civet cat has pooped out, said to be the most expensive coffee in the world. The coffee place was the last visit of the day and our driver had problems finding it. So our troop was tired and quite out of focus when we finally arrived at Bali Pulina Agro Plantation. Luckily we started of with tasting of nine different drinks they produce, everything from ginger tea and coffee to the drink we have been waiting for, Kopi Luwak. What an effect this 'fika' had on us: the combination of caffeine, ginseng (yes, ginseng coffee was the absolute winner of the tasting) and sweet coffee biscuits left us feeling energetic and happy. The main attraction, Luwak coffee, was an enjoyable drink too but the "wow" factor was not quite there.

Pineapple ready to be picked

While Max was taking a nap and Saga held her usual fan club meeting with the staff, we adults listened the luwak production presentation with great interest, shopped both ginseng and luwak coffee and enjoyed the beautiful scenery this place had to offer over a valley with rice terraces. This was also the first time in our lives that we saw how pineapple is growing. 

Capturing the rice terracesO

On the way back to our villa, we stopped by a spot with a great view of rice terraces. After some time there we heard "Saga! Hey Saga!", and found some Asian tourists that had took a great liking to her in the coffee place and now had caught up with us. If Saga had a Facebook profile, she would have more friends than us parents combined by now.





The days we didn't go touring around, we walked along the streets of Ubud. One of these days, while spending an enjoyable lunch at a nice restaurant/café called Bali Buda, that served excellent organic food with lovely health shakes, good coffee and nice pastries, we got approached by a lady who was Finnish, had a love for children and got plenty of time on her hands. Her opening phrase: "Hei, I am Riitta and I wonder if I can babysit your children?" left our jaws wide open. We got acquainted with this Riitta and decided that she could definitely babysit our darlings while we attended a much longed-after yoga class the following day. Since the Bali Buda had a well equipped play area plus killer shakes and the yoga place was three houses down the same street, we agreed that they should hang out at the restaurant. We left the kids in her capable hands but got a fair share of protests from Max, reminding us of the daycare drop-off chores that are in store for us when we return to reality. Quickly, we made way to the yoga center and checked in to a big room with open walls to a garden of palm-trees and frangipanis. The instructor was Sanna, also from Finland (!), and she gave us a 90 minute customized Ashtanga routine, complete with headstands, armstands and whatnot. No, we were not able to complete the upside-down bits but plenty of the other, super well-shaped guys and gals in the room did it quite effortlessly. It was quite obvious that this is a place for hardcore yogis, but Sanna offered lots of pedagogic advice and exercises for us with lesser skills. 90 minutes later, soaked in sweat and filled with endorphins with huge grins on our faces, we had a quick shower and returned to our little ones. Max was so busy playing catch with the staff so he barely acknowledged our presence, and Saga was happy as a clam in Riitta´s arms. Thank you Finland for bringing us Riitta and Sanna. Even though we seem incapable of having a less than excellent day in Ubud, this day was the very best!

A visit to Bali is not complete without seeing a Balinese dance show. There were plenty of variations, but by recommendation from Riitta, we chose the Kecak fire dance. Performed after dark in one of the many temples, with a sea of chanting bare-chested guys in checkered sarongs and male and female characters in very elaborate costumes, dresses and makeup telling the story of prince Rama and his princess Sita being banished from the kingdom. Everything a capella with narrators telling the story while the main characters acts it out around a large wooden torch. As the story ended and the couple was safely back in their kingdom (spoiler alert?!), the show ended with a barefoot guy straddling a wooden horse, kicking around burning coconut husks with sparks flying everywhere. Quite a spectacle and very well worth the visit. Should we mention that we saw all of this while the two smaller ones were sleeping? Thanks buddies for choosing your nap time so that we could concentrate on this cultural spectacle on 100%!

Two holy ones

We checked out the two most important temples on Bali, indeed for most hindus in Indonesia. Both residing at the foot of active volcanoes, they need to be rebuilt from time to time whenever an eruption destroys them. The last eruption of Mount Agung in 1963 missed the number one temple Pura Besakih, the mother temple, by mere meters though. The secondmost important temple sits on the foot of Mount Batur, the Pura Ulun Danu Batur, and apart from being quite beautiful also introduced us to very loud insects drilling in a large, holy tree in the temples courtyard. The noise was so intense that we could not keep up a normal conversation close to the tree.

Sacred Sga

In Besakih we went through with a praying ritual, requiring a stick of incense and a basket of offerings, all available within the temple walls. First, we took some dry, mosslike "grass" from the basket and rubbed it between our hands as a cleaning ritual. We made a praying gesture and prayed for our own souls. Then we took a yellow flower and put it between our fingers in a praying gesture and prayed for the supreme One. Again with a red flower and prayed for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Finally with empty hand for the peace of everybody. The priest then sprinkled holy water on our heads and put some grains of rice on the forehead.

Max the Almighty

The used flowers seated behind our ears, rice adorning our heads and a donation safely into the money box, we felt quite peaceful when leaving the pura, not before the priest had the chance to play a little with Saga and give Max some rice on the forehead too.

Mount Batur, an active volcano

After an active week, the Ubud time was sadly approaching the end. We really enjoyed pretty much everything about it. And when we could not love our villa more, they called and asked when it would suit us to get our complementary dinner. They arrived at the agreed time and put out candles around the pool and in the dining area, set the table nicely and served their best meal offering from the menu, all for free. The Nefatari staff simply does not stop to give pleasant surprises, and the dinner was the perfect ending to our most satisfying lodging ever.

The day after we left Ubud with some reluctance, being driven by our favourite driver Made who was a pleasant guy who helped enormously by lugging our baby stroller whenever there were steps (and there were a LOT in the temple areas), carrying Saga and being a nice guy in general.

Candidasa

Now it was time for the scuba diving part of this holiday, aka early Christmas Eve for Magnus. The plan was to make three full day trips with whole family so that one of us would take care of the kids while the other one is in to the deep and after the lunch we'd change roles. Magnus had one extra dive booked already on the following day after our arrival so first we did after the breakfast was to walk some hundred meters from the hotel to the diving centre and get all geared up. The owner of the dive centre was Jos, a jovial Dutch guy and during the a couple of hours we spent at the centre, we heard his life journey from Eindhoven to Bali, met his lovely Indonesian wife and 5-year old daughter Iris, chatted with all his staff, got offered home made banana cake and got advised that it would be best if Magnus can leave for his half-day scuba diving trip as soon as possible. Well, we had come to this tiny fisherman village to do nothing but dive so we quickly adjusted our plans.
While Magnus and divemaster Putu headed for Padangbai, Satu and the kids had quick lunch at the hotel room followed by 1,5 hours in the hotel pool. Padangbai proved to be a nice place. A real nice beach, even though it was quite busy with loads of boats. A small boat trip rounding a point, ending up in "Blue lagoon" and down they went. It turned out to be a pretty good dive! Orangutang shrimp, scorpion leaf fish and plenty of nudiebranches. Putu's experience became obvious rather quickly - not only could he spot almost invisible critters with ease, he also played a little with a gang of cleaner shrimps (remember Jacques from Finding Nemo?). He took out his breathing mouthpiece and got real close to them with his mouth open. Suddenly, one of the shrimps jumped to his face and ventured inside his mouth. Magnus had decided not to bring his camera with him this first dive, and he had the entire dive time to regret it. Divemasters are a weird breed - they seem more comfortable submerged than on land, and they barely use any air at all. One is half expecting them to grow spontaneous gills any time now. Oh, and by the way, no shrimps were harmed in the process - the little mouth spelunker was allowed safe passage back to his homies.

We got into a frustrating problem in our hotel room. We got upgraded from our first beach villa to a rather huge apartment because the bed broke and the cleaning was not up to standard. This apartment had two safety boxes, one in a cupboard and one in a storage area in the living room. The latter was already locked, something that didn't bother us as we were more than comfortable with just one. We did notice it to beep a lot when we moved in. Eventually it fell silent and we thought nothing more of it. Then, around midnight, the beeping resumed. It was quite loud as well and kept us awake. The kids mercifully snored along - phew! After many frustrating trips to the reception we learned that nobody was able to open the safe but that they would look into it the following morning. Not exactly your favorite answer when you are dead tired and are due for an early morning of diving. After some angry exchanges, Bradley the manager arrived and tried to muffle the cursed thing with a towel and what not. When nothing worked and nobody seemed to know how to silence the damn box, Bradley ripped the obnoxious thing clear from the wall with his bare arms. Oooo-kay we thougt, but at least we got back to bed without unwanted back groud noise.

USAT Liberty at Tulamben

Frogfish

Unexpected company

As planned, we did three days of diving, where Magnus took the morning plunge and Satu got in after lunch. We checked out the USAT Liberty wreck at Tulamben, chased various fish at Amed and had one more go at Blue Lagoon. The last dive day the water temperature had changed from 28 to 21 degrees for some reason. We were chilled to the core! Satu got to see swimming turtles, something Magnus still hasn't seen. Some other interesting sightings were hairy frogfish, more nudiebranches and a free roaming moray eel.

Moray eel, for once not peeking out from a hole

Satu's first dive offered a little drama, when she got attacked by an irate triggerfish who took a bite out of her fin!

"You should see the other guy!"

Diving finished, we left Candidasa for the last leg of the Bali trip.

Sanur

Philip <3 Saga

We rode with Philip, a cool guy from the Indonesian island Flores who beside chaffeuring also was a wedding singer. Yes, he had heard about that movie a zillion times and no, he had not seen it. He entertained us all the way to Sanur with impressively good self-taught English and especially liked Max saying "kap-kun-kaa' (thai for "thank you"). We expected some type of hotel but we arrived instead at our own "town house", all to ourselves. No reception, no meals, just a nice house. It boasted a spacious kitchen, living room and bedroom plus bath downstairs. Upstairs was another bedroom, living room and bath plus an outdoor jacuzzi. And there were two bikes, one with a baby seat, included. Brilliant!


Sanur is the oldest beach resort in Bali and for some visitors is not that cool anymore. We could rather quickly see that is was indeed much calmer than Kuta, but since we didn't miss anything about Kuta, we liked Sanur directly. There were people everywhere, but the vibe was relaxed and pleasant. And the beach was the best we encountered so far with nice sand and calm water. Perfect for the kids to play on! There were plenty of the usual peddlers, but they were less invasive than in Kuta and never impolite. We found a good café with fresh juices and smoothies, excellent coffee and handmade raw food chocolate from Ubud, so there were no shortage of good snacks.
We spent our days playing on the beach, exploring the town and venturing by bike to the local play land Peek-a-Boo. That play land was another very pleasant surprise for us: even though the climbing area was not nearly as large as in many popular establishments in Europe, the place was absolutely littered with toys ranging from dolls to rideable cars and massive play kitchens. Almost all the electronic toys, and there were a lot of them, had working batteries. The staff was very child friendly and actually played with the kids. And, as a grand finale, the place served good lattes with the customer's portraits in latte art. The word we looked for was O-M-G!

After all this snacking, we decided to get some real exercise the following day. We had noticed an ad in a local paper  saying that a German guy offers group training at the beach every Fri, Sat and Sunday. The early group was outdoor fitness, and Satu was in place at 7AM. It was a very tough routine and the weather was pretty warm already in the day so she was quite soaked in sweat afterwards. Magnus took the next group which was yoga. The guy turned out to be an excellent yoga instructor as well and the routine was pretty strong so the family had two exhausted but happy parents before the clock struck 10. Great!

A manta ray, like an angel in the water.

We were so excited about diving and wanted to get more. The diving company in Sanur made us a package of three dive around Nusa Penida, an island a short boat trip from Sanur, famous for its manta rays. By taking our kids into the diving boat with captain and a service staff on board, we were able to finally dive together. A very rare luxury for us. It turned out really well, where Max and Saga took turns sitting in the captain's lap holding the steering wheel, and finding cosy nooks and crannies all over the boat to hide in. We did three dives, all quite different in nature. The first was at Manta Bay. It was only 20 degrees in the water so it got frosty real quick, but there were mantas! Lots of them! They came real close too.

Up for some surface interval, snacks and play with the kids. Then back in again, this time at Crystal Bay. The idea of the dive site was to get to the drop-off, where Mola Mola (sunfish) were feeding. We tried our best but we had strong current going against us and it all ended up being more of a treadmill thing with us swimming as fast as we could without moving at all. A bit disappointing. The final dive was at a place called SD. It was a drift dive, meaning that there would be current that would carry us away, and we should just go with the flow. It went fast! The current was strong and all kinds of lovely corals and sea critters just zipped by us. We could be completely still, save for maneuvering around rocks and such. The water was up to 27 degrees here too so the frostbite from the previous dives started to give way. It was a good dive - Satu loved it but Magnus, proud member of the "Team Slowdivers" that  moves one meter every five minutes, photographing every miniscule thing that happens to be there, almost got stress symptoms.

Tired kids after one full day on a dive boat

For the final evening in Bali before going to Singapore we went to Jimbaran beach. Located south of Kuta and the airport it is famous for serving seafood by sunset. We went there with our neighbor, who took the opportunity to offer us taxi service when we stumbled upon each other in the narrow alleys leading to our house. Another nice guy with impressive self-taught English, so we had plenty of discussions about the Bali life in general on our trip to Jimbaran. First, we stopped by Nusa Dua for lunch and to check out the Pirate Bay - a place recommended for kids by having a big pirate ship on the beach. We expected a kids place but it was a restaurant, albeit with a cool decor. A big ship with two masts with dinner seatings for two parties, plus two tall multilevel tree houses with plenty of seating. We settled for a regular table in the sand next to the ship. The food was expensive and average, but Max loved to run around the ship and the tree houses. And it had one wonderful effect: the sand had precisely that firmness so Saga dared to take more unsupported steps. Not too soft as to make walking difficult and not too hard as to make falling down painful. She practiced and practiced and we felt that the tipping point was near. But it was time to go to Jimbaran and our dinner.

The beach was really beautiful. It was easily the best we've seen anywhere on the island. It was also crowded with tourists but, like Sanur, the vibe was relaxed. Here, Saga shed her last trepidations and simply started walking. Well done <3!
The kids got to play a bit in the water first, and Saga became the instant attraction of the camera wielding tourists.

We ate at the Ganesha restaurant and walked past fishtanks full of frutti di mare. You simply pointed to the unlucky fella who would see the inside of a frying pan very soon, and then enjoyed the meal out on the beach as the sun set.

Our dinner to be. (The one on the left side.)

We
chose lobster as our farewell meal, and it was superbly barbecued. Max took an instant liking to it and on the way out he ran around the fishtanks, pointing out which ones he was willing to eat next. We feel slightly worried about future family meal expenses...

Thank you Bali, it was a very pleasant time! We'll miss you!
Next stop, Singapore!

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