Bali

Joan asked, "What are you going to do for your birthday this year? Come to Bali!" 

Come to Bali. !! What an amazing invitation. So, I booked flights and I went to Bali! 

Bali is kind of like Asian Mexico Hawaii Costa Rica (haha, seriously though!), and it's amazing! It's a gorgeous jungle island with monkeys and frogs and geckos and dogs just wandering around, and some stray cats too. There are old statues and palaces, and these incredibly beautiful doorways. They put offerings of rice, flowers, and incense in little square baskets all over the place to symbolize gratitude and devotion to the gods. The weather is hot, but not miserable (unless you hate humidity.😅). The people are sweet and everything is ridiculously cheap (except maybe some taxis and super fancy hotels.). 

Joan and I stayed separately, which gave us some independence and allowed us to focus on our priorities for the trip early in the day (for her, continuing to get creative work done because I was joining the end of her 3 week trip -- for me, sleeping in and exploring!). Then we would meet up for activities and connection later in the day.

Paul was there too! Paul was in Joan's theatre troop for a long time in the Bay, and then he moved to China to teach. He had been living in Bali for about 6 months before this trip, so it was really fun to see him, and to get to see Bali through local eyes. 

Here's the list of awesome: 

• Staying at Samhita Gardens Resort & Villas in Ubud was perfect. Great location, incredible staff, very comfortable accommodations, huge yummy breakfast every day 
• The palaces, all of the statues, and the beautiful doorways
• The Monkey Forest, and the art gallery in the middle of it!
• The ridge hike
• The best shopping night ever :) 
• Great food everywhere for super cheap
• Mask day! Meeting the mask carvers and the ride through the island
• The mask show at the palace
• Magical rice field walk! 
• Wandering Ubud streets and shops
• Best most gorgeous smoothy bowl in the world 
• Paul's birthday party and his amazing ex-pat friends
• Luwak Coffee
• Staying at Kubudiuma Villas was very cheap and also a great location for the area we were in. Accommodations were okay
• The coast line in Perenan with the beautiful statues
• Arte restaurant and it's incredible pasta 
• The floating temple 
• Meeting up with Andre at Woods, another cute restaurant 
• Walking the beaches and through Canggu
• Dinner at Bokashi Boutique - excellent fine dining for so cheap!! 
• My sweet driver back to the airport

There was a lot of magic on this adventure, but there are also some things to keep in mind. 

Quick tips / facts / observations: 

• Bug spray is essential, and not the natural kind the one with DEET. 
• Don't drink the water. Same as Mexico, use bottled water for teeth brushing and be wary of ice in drinks and food items potentially washed in the water. 
• Getting into the water on certain beaches might also give you "Bali Belly". I'm assuming this isn't all of the beaches, but it's worth considering before you go swimming/snorkeling/surfing. 
• It is very hot there. Bring very light weight loose clothes that dry quickly. I brought some skorts and found myself fighting to get them off and on due to how sweaty I would get... and I'm not an overly sweaty person. 
• It's underdeveloped. Good sturdy walking shoes made a huge difference on uneven sidewalks and pathways, and are significantly better than sandals even though it's hot. The best outfit I wore was jean shorts, a tank top, and walking shoes. Lighter weight shorts would've probably been better if I had them. 
• If you can ride a scooter, that's the best way to get around if you're going any distance that you can't easily walk to. Cars can get you places, but they take a long time and taxis can be kind of pricy, which is weird because everything else is so cheap! Private drivers are the way to go for to and from the airport. I think you can Google: Bali private driver, and find one. I was really lucky to be with two experienced motorcycle riders (Joan, Paul) who let me jump on the back of their scooters.  
• Traffic is fascinating. There are very few street signs/lights and no real rules, but people pay attention to each other and move through it very close to each other with a lot of grace. It's kind of like schools of fish.
• We didn't love Canggu because of how touristy it was, even though it had gorgeous places to eat with incredible cheap food haha. We loved Ubud, which is also touristy, but different somehow. I think Ubud maintains Balinese culture, where Canggu sacrifices culture for tourism.

Till next time Bali!