Indonesia Part 1 - first days on Bali and new friends in Ubud - english version

Since the 28th of April we are on our new adventure – Indonesia! When we arrived at the airport it was the same situation as on every other asian airport. The cab driver or the people they say they are cab driver want you, the tourist! Of course we had one, who followed us. Our first stop was the ATM – and after we had the money, we were really astonished, we were millionaires!! We had 1,5 million in our wallet – this feeling was amazing!!! But, unfortunately, 1,5 mil. IDR is only around 100 Euro, but anyway, we felt like millionaires! :D

Our follower was just a private person, who pretended to be a cab driver, he only wanted to make big money with us. But we weren’t silly, so we went to the official cab stand and took a cab.

Kuta – „Run Forrest Run“

Beach in Kuta

Our first stop was Kuta on Bali. There is a nice beach with a nice sunset. And for people, who want to eat at “Bubba Gump” famous from the movie Forest Gump, could do so there. Unfortunately, the menu was a little bit too expensive for our budget! :D Anyway there are a lot of tourists and its very busy, so we only spent two days in Kuta. We stayed in a cosy homestay and they had their own temple in the inner courtyard. Almost everybody on Bali has got his own temple in the inner courtyard.

our homestay with a small temple

Ubud – a small, cute village and a lot of new lovely people

Jane, Gwen, Marleen, Matthias and Fabio

We spent four days in Ubud, we would have stayed longer, but we had to leave at some point. Ubud is a small cute village and famous from the movie “Eat, Pray, Love” A good place for relaxing. There are a few nice boutiques and a lot of nice restaurants. If you are a big fan of yoga, you have to go there! Unfortunately we hadn’t enough time to go to a yoga class. We spent our days in two different homestays, but both had this cute little temple in the inner courtyard, just nice to see! :)

Ubud

Monkey Forest

On our first day we checked out Ubud and walked around. One attraction is the Monkey Forest. You could feed the monkeys and sometimes they jumped on you! :D Beside the monkeys there were three temples to explore.

Monkey Forest

Day trip around Ubud: coffee plantation – rice fields – royal palace – sunset in Tanah Lot

In our homestay we met Jane from England und Gwen from France. They're such lovely people! Jane came for yoga to Ubud, she is around 60 years old, she is travelling by herself and a very tough woman! Gwen is in our age and she is spending her last weeks in Indonesia. They already knew Matthias; he is a German, France, Netherlands mix and is fluent in German, French and English. He is working and living in China and has a business for christmas lights!

Jane, Matthias and Gwen

Together we booked a day trip around Ubud. First stop was the coffee plantation. At the end we tried all the coffees and teas for free. They are also growing cacao and chili on the plantation. They showed us how they get the original coffee “Kopi Luwak”. A "little bear" eats the raw coffee beans, then poos it out. They dry the poo – ready are the beans! :D

Kupi Luwak coffee

coffee plantation

Next stop were the rice fields.

rice fields and sacrificial offerings

Another stop was a royal palace.

royal palace 

The end of the tour was the sunset at Tanah Lot, but unfortunately there were no sunset because the sun was hidden by the clouds! :D

Tanah Lot

Tanah Lot - sunset without sun! :D

Tanah Lot - just crazy guys!!

starters

It was a very nice day with our new friends. For dinner we went out to a French restaurant.

Day trip to Mt. Batur – police again – but we already paid! :D

We rented a motorbike to go to the Mount Batur. Gwen joined us. Mt. Batur is an activ volcano on Bali. It took us one hour to get there, but we had a little trouble on our way:

After 30 minutes we came by a police control, who pulled over all the tourists from the road. We thought “oh, shit, but we have no other chance!” The police man wanted to see our driver license. Fabio had only his german license with him and Gwen nothing at all! :D “Hmm… what should we do?” thought Fabio. They wanted to fine us with 500.000 rupiah (50 USD) per driver and keep the motor bikes. Fabio tried to bribe him with 50.000 rupiah. But the police man didn´t want this SMALL money. So, we stood there and didn’t know what to do. Gwen started again and asked the police man, whether 100.000 per driver would be ok? He smiled and took the money. We could continue our journey! :) Good luck for us that we had only to pay 100.000!! But after five minutes there was the next check!! We thought “Damn, wtf, please not again!!” We past the police man and Fabio only sad, that we already had paid the cop before! The police man gave us a sign to drive through! Good luck again!! We had also to pay the entrance fee to drive to the volcano look out, which was 35.000 rupiah for the three of us. You are confused like us? 35.000 split into three? That doesn’t work? No, that works - here is the correct answer: 10.000 entrance fee each and 5.000 for the cashier! :D We took a few pictures at the look out and a small detour to the lake down at the bottom. On our way back to Ubud there was the police check AGAIN!!! OH NOOOO!!! We stopped quickly and explained to the police man that we had already paid on our way to the volcano. Fortunately he believed us and we could drive through! THANK YOU!!!!

Mt. Batur - Marleen, Fabio and Gwen

Mt. Batur - Viewed from the lake 

We had a lunch break in a small cafe with a great view above the rice field cascades!

rice cascades

lunch time

After the lunch we drove to the Elephant Caves. We didn’t know why they called Elephant Caves, because there are no elephants whatsoever! :D

in front of the Elephant Cave

sacrificial offerings

In spite of everything we had a really good day. And the story with the police check will made this trip to an unforgettable and very funny trip! :)

The next days we spent with the group, went out for lunch or dinner.

Traditional dance on Bali.

The time passed by so quickly. We had to say goodbye! Matthias already left one day before us. Jane will stay a few weeks longer in Ubud and Gwen decided to follow us to Gili one day later. :) We say THANKS to everyone for the great time in Ubud! See you!! :)

Next destination: Gili Trawangan!! Part 2 of Indonesia!