The Gates to Paradise

Our short 2.5 hour flight to Bali was over before we knew it. The airport reminded us a lot of the Kona airport in Hawaii - it was outdoors with palm trees everywhere. We made it off the plane just in time to escape the rain that was starting to fall. As we jumped into our cab for the short ride into town, the rain began to fall harder and we were starting to regret not having made a hotel reservation in advance. We ended up taking the first place we came to that had rooms available in order to escape the heavy rain storm. By the time all this had occured, it was now about 11pm and everything was closed except for McDonalds, so that is where we ate before returning to our room to pass out.

View from our balcony





Although the people that ran our hotel were very nice, we decided we needed to find somewhe else that was just a bit nicer. As we walked around looking at rooms, we noticed that no matter how much they were chargng, they all had one constant... The bathrooms sucked. It's not that hard to clean every now and then, people! We ended up finding a little place that wasn't much nicer, but it had a great pool, so that made up for it!

Our guide book boasted that the beach in Kuta was the best one on the island of Bali. We loved the way they framed the entrance onto the beach


However, the 'best beach' label must only apply for half of the year, because the other half, the one that's happening now, the beach is absolutely covered in rubbish. This isn't exactly what we were imagining when we pictured Bali in our minds, but according to the locals, when the wind changes towards shore, instead of away from it, it brings with it all the trash in the ocean. They say that it goes back out in about a month.

On our second day in town, we decided to try out the surfing and got ourselves an instructor. As we entered the water, we were appalled by all of the trash, not only on the shore, but also in the water! It was EVERYWHERE! It felt like we were wading through a land fill so we were even more happy when we were on top of our boards so we could get out of it. Besides the garbage in the water, we had a great time surfing. We both got up and caught some nice waves. We even got to ride one in side by side... wish we had a picture!


Since we knew we would be back in Kuta to fly back home, we decided to continue on to Lembongan Island. The island is about an hour by boat to the east of Bali. Here's Julian on the boat with his little man-bag.


Arrival into port


We had heard that it was a really small island and accommodation was scarce, so we booked a night at a place that was recommended to us by a fellow traveler. Throughout our whole trip, we haven't received much in the way of good advice. Despite this, we keep on taking it because it is our only source of information. This was no exception. The girl that told us about the place said it was "paradise"! How can you pass up paradise? Well it wasn't paradise, and it wasn't cheap either. We were the only people staying there and there was no beach in front, but there was a nice empty beach about 5 minutes walk away. Here is a picture of our place from a nearby cliff.


We hung out in that area for the day and checked out Mushroom Bay, but there really wasn't much going on over there. So, the next morning, we walked back into the main town on the island, looking for a different place to stay. We went back to where the boats come and go and found a whole string of affordable hotels. We were able to snag a nice room, feet from the swimming pool, for a great discount because the a/c was broken...


Except we found that it wasn't really broken. Bonus!


The weather wasn't the best while we were there, so we ended up staying a little longer than originally planned because we didn't want to ride on a dingy boat for an hour in the rain and wind.

The up side to being stuck on a small island was that we got to see most of it...








Their primary source of income besides tourism is seaweed farming. They leave it out to dry all over the island. If you like the smell of rotting fish, you would love this!


And we got to go snorkeling!

















It was a very casual few days of eating, walking, laying in the sun and listening to the rain. When there was a morning without rain, we made reservations to go back on the local boat to Padang Bai. This was our boat


Even with three months in Asia under our belts, we still figured we must be the only passengers going on this boat, along with the captain, because it was so small. Silly us. When boarding time came, about a dozen people showed up and the captain smiled a weird smile and made a gesture for us to get in, so we all piled aboard.


The ride was interesting, with girls getting sea sick, and turning around to go fetch a plastic barrel out of the sea. Nonetheless, we made it back to land, headed for the town of Padang Bai!


- Mattie and Julian

Location:Bali, Indonesia