What a variety of things to see and do on this small little island. You never know what treasure you will find. One of the treasures was this beautiful OLD tree of Kaye Putin. As we were driving and driving I wondered if it would be worth it - it was spectacular. At over 700 years old and over 60 meters in diameter it is fascinating to climb on.
The Ubud Water Palace is in the centre of Ubud and next to the Lotus Cafe. As the name implies, water and lotus are features. Unfortunately there are not many lotus flowers right now as they are doing maintenance but the grounds are magnificent both during the day and night. In pictures it almost looks fake.
Every evening they offer a dance show which is interesting thing to see. I will never get over how they can bend those fingers and move their heads and eyes - it is somewhat eerie.
On holidays and getting up at 2:30 am. It was worth it to view the sunrise over Mt Batur. After driving by car for an hour we transferred to jeeps and travelled extremely rough bumpy roads to reach the jeep viewing area for sunrise. None of us expected hundreds of jeeps but that was what we encountered. The clouds definitely added to the sunrise and our Christmas props were fun additions.
The morning was not over and we journey to the back side of the mountain to see the black lava fields and more beautiful views. We had great guides with us and they loved taking pictures - I’ll be selective in picking from over 200 pics from this experience. As an aside - shortly after returning to our place, the skies opened up and it is currently pouring out with lots of thunder rumblings.
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| Lake Batur |
There are dozens of coffee plantations in Bali. Plantation might not be the right term as the production is small and all the coffee and tea is produced in a powder form. Of course the most interesting coffee fact is the luwark animal that lives in the jungle and whose poo is cleaned and turned into coffee. It is not cheap 100 grams costs about $45. We tasted the 13 varieties of teas and coffees before walking through the store.
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| A sleepy Luwark |
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| Roasting coffee - 40 minutes |
There are lots of opportunities for walks. This one took us through the jungles around Sideman with a lovely guide who tried to educate us on many different plants.
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| And gigantic spiders |
Penglipuran Village is advertised as a traditional village. Unfortunately it really isn’t but they have made it into an interesting and very busy place to provide locals with incomes. When I was there 5 years ago, no one was there. Not this time - it was very crowded. The village is very clean and in fact has won awards for its cleanliness - not always the case in Bali. The buildings are newer and everyone has a shop of some type. The orchids were stunning!
Behind the village is a very peaceful and relaxing bamboo forest. I might add very cool too on a hit day.
There are waterfalls everywhere in Bali. Most are very difficult to get to. So as research for a future trip I tried a tour called most accessible water falls. Three out of four were visited and yes they were accessible but there still were a lot of steps, and some of them were huge!
And let’s not forget the flowers - always beautiful!
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| A star of Bali - Mt Agung. Five years ago it was smoking while I was here but quiet these days |
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