Indonesia Pt. 1: Bali

So after having had a photo sharing session I've finally finished sorting all the photos from our trip to Indonesia, or more specifically the Bali and Java islands.

Leaving from Changi Airport on the 24th September we began our journey heading for Bali and Denpasar, the flight was trouble free and after having rejected the offers of some suspicious taxi driver we finally ended up at our hotel in Legian late in the night.

But who where "we"? Well, besides me, our group consisted of Jacob, Jacob and Mahmoud (my fellow physicists who I joined up with for the F1), another Danish guy named Wael and a korean called Dongjun (aka "DJ").

Since DJ is behind the camera he gets his own picture!

We started the Sunday by taking a walk along Kuta beach and wandering around some of the shops in Kut, around lunch we went and picked up DJ at the airport (since he had stayed in Singapore to see the F1 and Shakira on the Saturday, he's such a ladies man!). Afterwards we traveled south of Kuta to an water activity company, unfortunately all of their really fun activities had closed for the day during to the low tide. We decided to try something anyway and went for the banana boat, it was unfortunately quiet boring and a bit overpriced. We left a bit disappointed but decided that we would return on the Tuesday to do some of the cooler activities!

One cool thing in Indonesia is that it's rather easy to become a multimillionaire since 1 SEK is worth around 1300 rupi, it felt a bit weird walking around with half a million as pocket money. 

On Monday morning we drove just outside a village called Ubud to go rafting! Our driver for our time in Bali, Ketut, had contacts at a local rafting company there and it turned out to be awesome!

Words can't really describe it, the pictures are better but barely give it justice, it was a beyond-cool experience!

After having some included lunch, we were dropped of so that we could walk back to Ubud among the rice paddies and Balinese countryside.

They had some pretty cool houses there (though I can imagine that they're not that cool on the inside).

We then met up with Ketut inside Ubud and after seeing some more incredible rice paddy views and a quick visit to Ubuds monkey forest we went to see a Kecak-dance performance. Kecak-dance is a kind of theatre were a large group of men sings while a few actors performs parts from the epos Ramayana.

It was a bit weird because at the same time as the last photo was taken, the arrangers of the dance also took a photo. At the end of the performance they had printed the photo on to a platter that they tried to sell to you. People in Indonesia almost always try to earn money from you but this felt like one of the more innovative methods though a bit intrusive at the same time.

On the Tuesday we returned to the water activity company to go snorkeling and to visit the so called "Turtle Island".

The Turtle Island was a kind of small zoo with a lot of turtles of course, but also some birds, monkeys, bats, monitor lizards and snakes!

The snorkeling was pretty cool but as I understood it can be a lot better in more untouched places where the water is cleaner and the reefs less worn.

We then started driving to a temple called Tanah Merah, we did a stop on the way to give Jacob the possibility to surf and a bathing opportunity for us others. I stayed on the beach though and took some photos instead, it felt like our trips only surfer deserved that!

We arrived at Tanah Merah at sunset (the preferred time to go there), it was maybe a bit too cloudy but still a very beautiful place.

We then went back to our hotel to go to sleep since we were checking out at 5.00 to take the bus at 7.00. Our next destination: the Java island and the small city of Probolinggo.