Bali!

12 days in Bali = Amazing!!

Backpacking Bali.. No Big Deal!

Fun Facts of my time in Bali

1 USD = 30 THB = 8600 Indonesian Rupiah

Food: I ate alot of fried noodles and a lot of chicken satay in peanut sauce

Travelers: I met only ONE other American in Bali! Mostly Australians

Cost: Accommodations were much more expensive in Thailand, probably because the quality was nicer. And everywhere we stayed included a free breakfast!

My Favorite Thing: Beaches and culture, all on one island!
Funny occurrence:  Multiple Asian people/families (mostly from China) asking for me to join in on their family picture. I'm a celebrity!

Alysha and I took an early flight from Bangkok to Bali on the morning of April 26. We spent the next 12 days running around Bali and spent three of those days on a small island off of Lombok, Indonesia called Gili Trawangan! Here are some highlights from our trip! 

After spending our first few days in Kuta (Bali's most touristy destination), we went up North to Pemuteran for snorkeling. We took a tourist bus up north for a town, then a Bemo (Bali's public bus) to the town of Pemuteran.  The Bemo is more of a shady van without doors but it wasnt bad.  It dropped us off at a guest house which was more of a resort, probably the nicest place I've stayed on the entire 2 month trip!  It had a pool and gave us amazing choices for the free breakfast.  The next morning, Alysha and I headed out for our snorkeling tour.  Along with two couples from Europe that were diving and a solo traveler from A European country I had never heard of, we had the boat to ourselves.  We went to three different spots and the Indonesian guides showed us to the cool fish and coral.. it was hands down the most amazing snorkeling I have ever seen in my life! Coral and fish of every color, its going to be hard to beat. It was an amazing underwater world!

Next we went to Ubud, located amongst the rice paddies and the steep ravines in the central foothills.  One of Bali's major arts and culture centers, it has developed a large tourism industry due to the movie "Eat, Pray, Love".  While in Ubud, we went to see a traditional Balinese dance, ate yummy Bali food, explored the rice fields, and shopped! I figured out how to bargain and finally become comfortable with the currency, and got a few pieces of fabric to bring home. I found many home decor pieces that would have loved to get but didn't have enough space in my bag.  We stayed at a small guesthouse that was mentioned in my Lonely Planet that served us free breakfast, wahoo! (Side note: While leaving Ubud, we were at the bus station when I recognized the voice of our President on breaking news on the television announcing the killing of OBL. This was the only TV I saw on the entire trip and the only piece of news I heard. I think this will be a "where were you" moment for me)

Next stop, Gili Trawangan! We took a four hour boat ride to Lombok’s largest island of the set of three Gili Islands.  We had heard good things about Gili T from other travelers (as well as from Lonely Planet) and wanted to spend a few days here.  The island is truly a tropical paradise, coral-fringed with white sand beaches and crystal turquoise water and a rainbow assortment of reef fish. There are no motorized vehicles on the island and the main means of transportation are bicycles and cidomo, a small horsedrawn carriage.  Gili T has only become popular for travelers sometime in the past twenty years, so it was touristy but not overwhelmingly so in that we felt like we were still in Indonesia (however, we could tell that tourism could possibly ruin the beauty of this place in the future.. we feel really lucky we went when we did!).  The island is lined with numerous scuba diving centers (very popular there), places to eat, and accommodations.  We spent our days on the white sand beaches, walking around the island, drinking smoothies, and running around the night life.  On our day to leave, I had slept through my alarm but miraculously woke up ten minutes before our boat was to leave to take up to Lombok.  Alysha and I frantically packed our stuff, which was more an act of rushing to stuff our various belongings in our already stuffed bags, threw them on our backs, and bolted to the boat.  We boarded in the clothes we fell asleep in and looked a bit messy but at least we had made it! We spent one night in a small little fishing village, then our last night in Kuta, near the airport.

We spent our last day in Bali doing some last minute shopping (a bought a batik fabric duffle bag that I definitely didn’t need), eating, and strolling around the beach.  In the afternoon, we made a trip to Pura Tanah Lot, a rock formation off of Bali.  We hired a driver, WanWan, to take us for the hour drive and take us around the temple.  He filled us in on all the facts and history behind Pura Tanah Lot.  It is home of a pilgrimage temple and a popular tourist and cultural icon for photography and general exoticism.  The Tanah Lot temple was built and has been part of Balinese mythology for centuries.  The temple is one of seven sea temples along the coast of Bali.  Each of the sea temples were established within eyesight of the next to form a chain along the south-western coast.  At the base of the rocky island, poisonous sea snakes are believed to guard the temple from evil spirits and intruders.  Tourists could pay to take a look at the giant snake that protects the temple, but Alysha and I figured we would pass on that one.  Although it was too cloudy to see the sunset, it was a beautiful seaside temple! On the drive home, WanWan told us all about the Kuta bombing in 2002, the deadlest act of terrorism in Indonesia’s history.   Wan Wan had been working down the street when the suicide bomber walked into the nightclub and first-hand witnessed the devastation.  It killed over 200 people, mostly tourists, and was a huge blow to the economy. Another bombing 2005 caused more devastation.  Our last night in Kuta was only a few days after the killing of OBL, so we were a little extra vigilant only because we were out of the USA.

We caught a noon flight on May 7th to end our two month adventure!!! Bali was the perfect end to the perfect trip, and besides an AWFUL sunburn (I forgot to put sunblock on my back after a day of snorkeling and got the worst sunburn I've ever had!  A week later, my back broke out into hives and I had to seek assistance from the Thai pharmacy), Bali was amazing!  I wish I had more time to explore Indonesia, I think I'll need to go back one day :)

 

Ubud rice fields!

Gili Islands from google! (I stayed on the largest of the three, far right)

Gili Trawangan!

Cambodia: Angkor WHAAAT

Nearly two months later and I’m finally blogging about Cambodia!

One thing I have learned about traveling.. It is sometimes best not to have a strict plan, because they often change… When I started traveling, my original plan was to travel with the girls then head back to Khon Kaen for a day or two after Chiang Mai to repack to have a solo traveling adventure for a week in Bali.  While in Chiang Mai, Alysha expressed great interest in traveling to Bali with me. Long story short, the girls easily talked me into going to Cambodia with them and changing my flight so Alysha could stay longer in Asia (she extended her flight date home to the states) and go to Bali with me!  Funny thing was, I had only packed for Laos and Chiang Mai, basically a weeks worth of clothes and now needed to make it all last for another month of traveling! I always knew that I am an over packer but this really made it a reality! I made it work with NO problems.. my “week” packing is really a “month” packing. I’m hoping to be a better packer in the future!

The girls and I took an overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, then another bus to the Cambodia/Thailand border.  We had been warned by other travelers to watch out for scams in Cambodia and we were instantly ripped off at the border.  From the bus station on the Thailand side, we needed to take a tuk-tuk to the border to walk across but instead it took us to a visa station which over charged us for our Cambodia visa.  We walked across the border in the scorching heat and were directed to a “tourist bus” to take us to a bus station to get to Siam Reap, a city about three hours from the border.  Another scam.. these tourist buses over-charge westerners for bus tickets and we were warned of this in the South East Asia Lonely Planet but we didn’t have another option..  The four of us ended up splitting a cab to take us to Siam Reap.

We spent the next three days in Siam Reap, Cambodia’s most popular tourist destination and gate way to Angkor Wat,  the worlds most religious monument and one of the wonders of the world! Angkor Wat is surrounded by numerous temples and we spent our first two days exploring them.  We broke our days into halves because of the heat so the first day we went out in the morning, and the second in the afternoon.  We hired a tuk tuk for about 15 dollars a day and it took us to different temples including the temple “Tomb Raider” was filmed at. My very favorite was the Bayon, a Khmer temple decorated with 216 gigantic faces.  When we weren’t running around temples, we were eating delicious food, drinking fruit smoothies, exploring the night markets, and getting pedicures and massages for less than five dollars!

We woke up at 5 am on our last day in Siam Reap to go see Angkor Wat at sunrise.  At orientation in Bangkok six months before, Jenna and I went to the Grand Palace where they had a mini model of Angkor Wat.  When we saw it, we took a picture in front of it and decided that we would make it there while we were in Asia, and today we had! Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s pride and joy and has become their national symbol, appearing on their national flag as well as having Angkor beer.  It was built thousands of years ago in the Khmer Empire and has Buddhist and Hindu influences.  We explored the worlds greatest religious site for an hour or two, then headed back to our guesthouse to get ready for our bus ride that afternoon.  Even though it was too cloudy to see an actual sunrise, Angkor Wat was AMAZING!

Around 12 30, a janky little blue van that looked like it was about to break down pulled up in the pouring rain to take us to the bus station.  We hopped in, it reeked of mold and was a bumpy ride, picking up a few Cambodian people on the way.  We arrived at the bus “station” which was more of a dirt lot where the bus pulled up. Five hours later, we arrived in Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia.  Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia and has grown to become the nation’s center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security, politics, economics, cultural heritage, and diplomacy of Cambodia.  Phnom Penh has more to offer travelers than a quick, depressing swing to the Killing Fields..  I didn’t know much about the genocide in the 1970s before coming to Cambodia, but after visiting the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng, the actual torture prison where thousands of people lost their lives, I learned more about it.  We encountered a huge memorial site filled with thousands of human skulls and it was extremely surreal to realize that this genocide occurred only 30 years ago.  (For those interested in learning more about it, google).

We stayed in Phnom Pehn for three days and visited the Russian Market which has good souvenir shopping, ate tasty food, got caught in a huge rain storm while at dinner (it caused numerous of the streets to flood in about an hour and we couldn’t walk through it, we took a tuk tuk which took us around town because the streets were so flooded!), attempted to visit the royal palace THREE times and turned away each time due to strange hours and lack of appropriate attire (needed to have our shoulders covered but can’t wear a shawl, close toed shoes but nice ones), and had Easter linner (lunch/dinner.. with Sangria! The best meal I had in Cambodia!) at an AMAZING Spanish restaurant on the Mekong River.

After Phnom Pehn, we took an overnight bus back to Bangkok.  We were slightly nervous as we approached the border because Cambodia and Thailand are currently in disagreement.  They aren’t exactly one another’s biggest fans and are in fighting over a temple near the border.  It made headline news the day we left Phnom Pehn and a few people had been killed in the battle.  Luckily, this wasn’t at the border that we were crossing and the bus ride went very smoothly.. other than they turned on the lights and music at 4am which woke us up.  

All in all, Cambodia was a pleasant experience, even with the scorching heat!  Cambodia uses the US dollar so it made the conversion extremely easy for us.  Everything was very inexpensive and we could easily find lunch or dinner for three dollars a day.  However, it was still obvious that the people of Cambodia have been to hell and back and they rely a lot on tourism as a major source of income.  Many of the people in Cambodia are uneducated and it broke my heart to have small children grab my arm and ask for money.  As westerners, we were often approached and asked to buy sunglasses, books, and were countered with a “Please, miss?” when we declined.  I had a little bit of a hard time in Cambodia because I have never seen families in such a struggle and I was heartbroken when feeling like I couldn’t help them.

We made it back to Bangkok and Kianna, Alysha, and I stayed the night on Khao San Rd before our flights the next day.  Jenna went back to her town for a few days before her parents arrived to visit, Kianna had a flight to the US the next morning, and Alysha and I were flying to Bali at 6am!  Sadly, this marked the end of our adventure together, but I had such an AMAZING time with these girls! I’m so lucky I was able to explore three different countries with them, we all got along so well and it'll be a trip I’ll never forget.

Next up… BALI!

Tomb Raider!

Angkor Wat!

We made it!

Tasty icecream!

Happy Easter!

Sangria and BOMB food