Recess week - Part 3

Okey, where were we...

Day 6

Wednesday - this was the day when the trip of three blond European girls around Bali began! ;)

We hired a car again and took direction to north. First stop: Elephant Park! We would have loved a tour sitting on elephant's back, but it was sooo expensive, we decided not to pay that much to get our asses sore but to pay only for the entrance instead. We saw a lot of those big elephants carrying people on their backs, but a closer look we got take on a little 6-year old elephant, Helen. She was chained from two of her legs :,( but since she was still in the middle of her training, that was necessary if we wanted to get so close to her. Her trainer had to calm her down every once in a while, not to get too exited. We got to pet her and take pictures with her. It was so funny! And I didn't know that elephants are so hairy!!! :)

Helen

What we didn't know was that there was also another animal we could go and make friends with - a honey bear. She was 3 years old, but still, quite heavy! So much fun, I never thought I could hug a bear or hold a bear in my lap, let a lone kiss a bear! :D

Elephant riders from the window of our car

 The trip continued towards our destination, Lovina on the north coast of Bali. On the way we had a good chance to see the beautiful mountaineous views and ricepads.

I know, as if we hadn't seen enough temples yet :P but we still made another stop on the way to see a temple by the side of a lake and mountains. I don't remember the name if the place, though, but it was very beautiful. We also saw a bride there, they were taking pictures to her wedding picture book. We didn't ask where was she from, maybe Taiwan...? ;)

Finally we got to Lovina. It is famous for it's black sand beach, so after quicly finding ourselves a hotel, we went to the beach. The hotel was pretty crappy; no bed sheets, not a good bathroom, but it was cheep. And anyways, we could easily sleep under our sharongs - it wasn't very cold, you know, without air-con! :)

Lovina

beach art

We saw interesting art in the sand - made of eggs, garlic and clili! But the weather wasn't on our side, and after walking aroung on the beach for a short time, it started to rain.

Orcestra and... a monkey?

So that day we just relaxed in cafeterias and restaurants, went walking around Lovina getting to know the basically only three interesting streets besides the beach, ;) booked a set of tours in a tourist agency, wached a show of balinese dance, and had some mojitos!




Day 7

On Thursday we woke up really early, because one of the things we had booked last day, was a boat ride on the sea, to see dolphins. That's another thing that Lovina is famous for. So this time we saw the sunrise from a boat! :)

Too bad that was the only thing we, or the other about 40 boats, saw. People had told us that we could see dozens of dolphins jumping around our boat... Well not that day we didn't. After two hours of waiting and circling around, we only had a very short glanse of the backs of three dolphins. Our boat captain said it was propably because it had rained the last night, so the water was too dirty for the dolphins.

For least that say we had better luck with weather, so we could hit he beach. I have to say, even though the beach was pretty nice, I actually liked Legian beach more. I think it was maybe cleaner, and actually the water in Lovina was quite dirty as well. Just the idea of swimming in the same water, where the yahts and other boats were so close to you, was pretty discusting to begin with. I could really understand those dolphins when I went I tried the water myself.

Well, the day was pretty relaxed, enjoying the quietness of the town, having some desserts, writing postcards, having some more desserts... ;) We were going to leave Legian at two o'clock in the night, to drive to the starting point of our climb to Mount Batur! We decided not to take a hotel for that night at all. Instead we returned to the place we had made a good deal about mojitos last night, having in mind those comphy, sofa-like seats they had. A perfect place to enjoy our last evening in Lovina, with food, coffee and mojitos, while trying to rest for the night ahead!

Special thanks to the waiter, who kept us entertained! It was nice to get to know a balinese person, and to hear about the lives of locals. Well, also a lot of love stories! :D But for least we didn't get bored!

The place close and we still had a couple of hours to spend. We thought to actually realize the plan of sleeping on a beach, which once in a while pops up as a joke when travelling without booking hotels in advance. (Edit: No, not including the part of  "and waking up without kidney". Like a gecko. ;) ) Well, we almost did it, but not quite.

We noticed a restaurant/hotel on the beach with a small pool area. Pool chairs, tempting. And no people or any fencing... So we went, to "relax and look at the full moon, and the bats flying above us" = trying to sleep. Well, it was quite fine until two guards came. They didn't ask us, if we were living in this hotel or not, nor they asked us to leave. They just came to chat with us (ruining the last chance to rest), probably because their night shift would have been too boring otherwise. Well, let's look at the bright side again, for least we were protected agains anything making a sound ...

Day 8

So, at two o'clock we hopped on a car and after two hours of driving and trying to sleep on very uncomfortabe seats in a cold car, we arrived to our destination. Our mountain guide gave us torches, and off we went. Even though the mountain is easy to climb/hike without any special experience of mountain climbing or what ever, the pace of hiking (and higher rather almost really climbing) was quite fast. So, we were all huffing and puffing. Yes, don't have to remind me about all the desserts we had just had... Nor about the lack of physical exercise... We made three small stops on the way, and the guide ask us: OK? We answered: OK! :D We thought, that this it the pace we have to keep up in order to make it to the top before the sunrise.

Well, we got there in 1,5 hours, so we had plenty of time left on the top before the sun came up. It was really cold there, but luckily there was a small hut where it was warm inside. We had perfectly time to have our breakfast in 1700 m above sea level, while waiting!

Cold but happy

I know that the words "beautiful view" have been quite common in my blog updates concerning Bali - that's because Bali is a very beautiful place. But these views that we saw, when the sun strated to rise and the land below us constantly showed new sides of it when the light changed - these views there something amazing, something you can't describe in words. I knew then, that this was one of the best things I have ever had the chance to do! Those 1,5 hours of swet were really a small price to pay for that scene, and we were all really really happy we had done that!

Just a few attempts to capture the awsomeness:

 

wohooo!

Building a new temple - old one got under lawa

We took another way down than we came up, this time seeing the cold lawa from the time of the last eruption 10 years ago. For me, going down was a very painful experience, because both(!) of my feet started to cramp pretty badly when we were on the top. Trying to avoid falling with rocks sliding under those feet was... challenging. But with some support, we got safely down. (Every one else was not so lucky and ambulace was needed.)

Still, worth the experience!

We were there!

Our car took us to Changgu, where we luckily had a hotel booked, so we could finally have a proper sleep.

I guess Changgu would have been a great place for surfing, although for us the waves were way too big. Also, the weather didn't favour us again. While tryng to find an ATM (my God, how hard can it be?!?) we ended up walking all the way to Seminyak!!! Thanks, locals, for the good instuctions! Anyway, while in there, we had a lovely dinner and massages.

Then, a lesson #1 to be learned: ask your hotel's address before you leave, since the name might not be enough for the taxi driver, if it starts to rain and you have walked too far.

And a lesson #2 to be learned: don't eat Mexican food in Bali. ...Let me explain this one...

When we finally got back to our hotel (which was really nice, btw) we sat on our huge bed and watched a movie that we had selected out of the massive selection of DVD's in our room, from our TV. Then, all the sudden, the other Finnish girl started to feel sick and went puking. And it wasn't long after, that I started too.

I'm guessing our third friend, the Lithuanian girl, didn't have very much fun sleeping in the middle, while the both of us were running to the bathroom every once in a while for the whooooole night looooong. Terrible.

We concluded it must have been the salad or avocado (or both) that the two of us had in our foods; the tortillas with guacamole and avocado-shrimp salad. Stick with the local food like our wise friend did!

Day 9

Unfortunately our Lithuanian friend had her flight already in the morning, leaving us to survive alone. Our hostess of the hotel was very kind though, and let us stay in the hotel for a few extra hours, and for free. That was good, because we weren't even able to walk at the check-out time. 

Yeap, missed the horse rides and surffing we had planned for the day...

At some point we had to leave, and we stuggeled to get ourselves some food, took a taxi to the airport and met the other exchange students there.

Needless to say, when we got back to our homes, although not so sick anymore, we were pretty "dead". Oh, how good it was to return to the civilized country of working MRT system and self-flushing toilets!