I just spend the
quickest week in Bali with six of my favourite girls in Australia! Unfortunately I’m not able to holiday like the average
Australian and go for weeks at a time, but maybe one day in my life I’ll get
there! Until then, I’ll have to be satisfied with 8 days jam-packed with
adventure and team time! One of the girls that went on the trip with us has a
connection in Bali. Her friend, Matt, is a missionary and runs a surf
house where people can come do life together during their stay. Because of
this, we got the local scoop on things to do, and got to meet plenty of awesome
people.
We landed in Bali
around midnight on Friday, so after meeting Matt and our driver at the airport
we headed to the surf house. The surf house just moved locations because a few weeks
ago, the owners of the previous house decided they needed more money so they
kicked everyone out and sold the place. The surf house team found an awesome
new house and everything was unpacked and settled by the time we got there.
Since we landed at night we had no idea what Bali looked like. It was humid but the warm weather felt so nice since winter is hitting full force in Melbourne.
We woke up to a wedding reception going on at the Surf House. It was super casual and a great way to meet people right away. Everyone had left by 10 so we walked
to a western café for breakfast. We figured we would be eating Indo food all
week, so western food in the morning sounded good. After breakky, we headed to
the beach!
We spend the day
laying out and enjoying this nice little piece of paradise. We tried to go play
in the water, but the undertow was so strong, and the water was so rough that
after 10 minutes we were exhausted and had to get out to rest. While we were
laying out, people were constantly coming up to us offering to sell us stuff or
give us massages.
We were ready to get
out of the sun, so we found a cute little café right on the water. This was where I learned just how good the fruit juices are in Bali. WOW!!! I had one with every meal! We all had such
good conversations that we just lost track of time and were there for almost 4
hours. When we finally decided to leave, we only had to wait a short time to
see this gorgeous sunset. I was so happy! My heart just comes to life at the
beach!
The next day, we
decided to sleep in and spend the day at a spa, so we all crammed in one ‘taksi’
and headed to Romansia. Everything is so cheap in Bali! I got a 90-minute full
body massage for $8.00! Can’t find that in America or Australia! Some of the
girls got their nails done for super cheap as well.
After a late lunch, we
spent the afternoon hanging out at the surf house then went to Global Church.
The Bali Surf House is the surf ministry of Global Church and it was so cool to
see the tight-knit community the Christians have in Bali. The guy who started
Global Church is actually from Houston, and graduated from Cy-Creek in 1998.
How crazy is that!? There is a music missions team from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK in Bali right now, so after church we went out to dinner with them then headed back to the Surf House for the night.
On Monday morning we headed to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the coast of Bali. We went with the ORU team, a few people on staff from Global Church, as well as Matt's best friend from Hawaii. There were 23 loud Americans on an island with 3,000 locals. This place was like a postcard! The six of us girls had this great little villa right on the water. I could walk out our door and be in the ocean in one minute. The ORU team was not even a minute walk from our villa, and Matt, his friend Kurt, and the rest of the staff were really close too so that made it easy to spend time with everyone.
The first day we were
there was nice and relaxing. We got to the island around lunch time, so after
we spend a little time by the water we ventured out to find a place to eat. Since
we were in a third world country, there weren’t any big time restaurants. Everything
was local and delicious! We went back to the water after lunch and then decided
to rent bikes in the afternoon.
Matt took us around to the island to the Mangroves, which are trees that grow in the ocean. We also got our first sight of a monkey! when we were finished exploring, we headed back to the villa to get ready for dinner with everyone. We had a huge dance party in the restaurant after dinner, which might not have been culturally acceptable, but what do you expect when you get 23 Americans together!?
We woke up early on Tuesday for snorkeling! It is such an awesome thing to see the world under water. It fascinates me. After doing that for a few hours, we headed back for lunch. Again, another local spot and more delicious fruit juice. After lunch, one of my favourite parts of the whole trip happened. Before we left for Bali, we each set a trip goal. Mine was to paddle board - and it happened!!! Abby, Nina and I spend three hours on paddle boards in the ocean!!! Seriously, it was incredible!! I want to move to a beach even more now so I can paddle board every day. We met everyone for dinner again and had a giant family style meal before heading back to our villas. I have no pictures from this day because everything we did was in the water, but trust me it was gorgeous. Both nights in Nusa Lembongan we stayed up late laying out by the pool and hanging out. It was so fun and such good team time. We headed back to Bali around lunch time, and spend Wednesday afternoon hanging out at the Surf House.
Wednesay night, we
went for dinner in Jimbaran. This is a place known for dinner on the beach. That’s
right..we got to stick our toes in the sand and watch the sun set as we ate
fresh seafood dinner! After dinner, we met up with the ORU team and went to see some live Indo music.
It was interesting to hear the kind of music they could make with their indigenous instruments - we loved it!
Thursday we hired a driver to take us to Ubud. We stated off the morning watching a Balinese dance/play. It told some sort of story, but since we couldn't understand what they were saying I wasn't really following. Their costumes were so elaborate!
After the dance we headed to the Monkey Forest! I heard the monkeys were quite aggressive so I was a little nervous but they were great!
We bought some bananas and if you held them up in the air they would race up your body to get to it. It was so fun! The little cheeky monkeys got so curious they would just crawl all over you searching for food! We saw one get sun screen from a lady's purse, zip up the tree with it, then figure out how to unscrew the lid!
They must have been attracted to my hair because they would crawl all over me. Anyone with curly hair knows how it blows up in humidity! After the monkey forest we went to this cute little cafe where we had to take our shoes off at the door and we got to sit and eat on the floor. Maz was in heaven because it was a vegan cafe, and the poor girl had basically been living on steamed rice since we got to Bali.
After a relaxing and
very long lunch (so long that Kurt took a nap), we went to a market in Ubud.
This was a hustler’s paradise. Everyone was trying to convince you go come to
their “store” and offering to let you try things on. We headed back to the surf house, and Abby and I went to dinner with Kurt and Matt. Sidenote-it was super refreshing to be around true gentlemen again! These two boys were so wonderful and such a great reminder that gentlemen are not a dying breed! Anyways, after dinner the ORU team came to the surf house to hang out and have a dance party! happy heart!
Friday was our last day in Bali so we went out with a bang! We woke up and went to an Elephant Safari Park!!!
We spent some time eating snacks in this little cabana watching the elephants, and then it was our turn to ride!!
We rode GiGi, AKA Lady GaGa! Our driver told us how she was captured from the jungle but is living a better life at the safari park because the jungle where she lived is being destroyed by man. I'm choosing to believe him because if these elephants are tortured like I've heard the elephants are in Thailand, I don't think my heart could take it. After the ride, we got to feed the elephants and take all the pictures with them we wanted. I'm not sure which of us ended up with all those pictures but I'll look around and maybe add some more on the blog later.
After the elephants, we went to Uluwatu to watch one last sunset and to enjoy one more watermelon juice. We went back to the surf house to spend a little time with everyone before we left for our red-eye flight.
I wish I had a better picture of all the
motobikes on the road, but since I don’t here is a little parking lot filled
with them. They were all over! And they all drive like maniacs! It is such a
main way of transportation. Someone has a picture of me on one, but when you
travel with six girls there is no telling which camera is going to be used. I
loved riding one! I never drove one, but spend quite a bit of time on the back.
My first ride was on Nusa Lembongan, so the roads weren’t crowded. Once we got
back to Bali, riding on the back of one was such a thrill! Don’t worry, the
boys who drove me were perfectly safe and unlike most of the Balinese people, they
actually followed the road rules. Dad, Southeast Asia prepared me..I'm finally ready to ride your motorcycle!
What is this you ask? They are seaweed flavored chips! Don't you dare judge..they are so good! We found them the very first day we got there and bought a bag because we were so intrigued. After that, I think someone had a bag at all times. If you ever see them..stock up!! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!!
Well Bali, thanks for being stunningly gorgeous and for opening my eyes to what life in a third world country looks like. MA KASIH!
