Still loving Bali...

Aug 6 2010

Oh the morning came way too soon. I'm still tired or maybe I'm tired because it’s been a long day and is now ten o’clock at night. Who can tell. We woke early to be picked up for diving. Two dives today. And the last for Bali. I love diving but this morning it had no appeal to me. I wanted to sleep in not jump into cold water so early. But I did. The dives were great. We drove about an hour and the boat ride to the dive site was about 30 minutes. Still no sign of seasickness for me thank you. But I did take another dramamine which had me even more tired for he day. I survived though. We didn't see too much in the under water world that was out of the ordinary. We did see a sleeping turtle and a squid which I'm still not sure if I actually saw it or not. We had lunch between the two dives. Mine was a vegetarian sandwich. Cucumber, lettuce, tomato and was that potato? I'm not sure. Also egg so maybe it shouldn’t  have been called vegetarian but I thoroughly enjoyed it. After a long day of diving we got back to our hotel around 6 and cleaned up for dinner. Lovina is very quiet. Not like the other cities with lots of people or traffic. There is a main road that follows the beach with hotels and resorts spaced fairly far apart and separating the road from the water. There are the occasional bicycling tourists or motor bike riders but other than that this is a place to relax at your hotel. Ashton is a little bored already. I think he misses the busy-ness of Ubud and Gilli. Me too a little. Tonight for dinner we stayed at our hotel fore they were having a BBQ. It was fun to watch them cook the dinner. We had rice and some sort of Asian dish you top your rice with. The best of the barbeque was all prepared on shishkabobs. There was shrimp, eel, and squid. All were delicious especially the squid. There was also bbq chicken and fish. The fish was cooked whole. It wasn't my favorite but not too bad. There was also corn on the cob and a few other vegetables. Dinner was great. They even played romantic American music. How sweet. Ashton and I finished the night going for a walk in search of a satisfying dessert. We returned empty handed but tomorrow we head to Kuta where we'll finish off Bali. A part of me is anxious to start life back in Salt Lake and another part wants to continue traveling. I do miss my dog like you wouldn't believe though. Goodnight.

Aug 7 2010

Found the missing link to Lovina today. A paved beach walk that lines the sand and passes several hotel cafes and street vendors. I found it while in search of some black sand to bottle and take home. I wish Ashton and I had known about it last night it would have been a nice walk to take. Currently I'm waiting for ash to come back from the ATM so we can pay for our hotel and head towards Kuta. We still don't have a room there so it should be interesting. We switched things up a little last minute so that Ash could have a day to try and learn how to surf. I'm not in much of a mood for salt water currently so I'll watch from the sandy beach sidelines.

Ashton and I made it to Kuta. Our driver picked us up from the hotel, we made one stop at the hot springs and then made the long trek south. The hot springs were beautiful. The water pours from the mouth of stone carved dragons into a pool of water which from there pours out more dragon mouths into a second pool below. It would have been nice to stay and swim but we wanted to get to Kuta. Here we are staying at La Waron. A multiple level hotel. The room is nice. Very clean and cool, it over looks the very contemporary pool. Kuta is very busy but it's an actually city and has the busy city feel, not like seminyak which perhaps we weren't in the hot spot because I felt like it was just dirty and busy. Yet, our travel guide describes it as the place to shop. Once settled into our new digs we rented another motor bike and scoped the place out. Lots of name brand beach stores like quicksilver, billabong, etc. Lots and lots of tourists.

You may remember hearing of the bombings that happened here in Bali a few years ago. Those took place here in Kuta. In fact they took place on the crossroad to where we are staying Jl. Legian. In October of 2002 the first bomb went off destroying the front of a popular bar while the second bomb that soon followed, completely destroyed and obliterated an entire club as well as doing great damage to any and all surrounding structures. Being the busiest night of the week over three hundred were injured from what was said, over 23 countries, and over 200 people were killed. The blame was placed on a radical Islamic terrorist group here in Indonesia. Three years later in 2005 when Bali had began to finally bounce back in tourism, again, three suicide bombers from the same radical group blew themselves up in local restaurants and cafes. The group admitted that their main target was tourists but out of the 20 people killed, 15 were local Balinese. The people hugely affected were those whose livelihood depends on tourism. It’s said that after the first bombings, the people of Bali were shocked and in disbelief, after the second they were angry. The memory is kept here with a large shrine on the main road with all the names of people lost in the attack.

After getting our bearings in the new neighborhood, we grabbed some sushi for lunch and then ventured further outside of Kuta. The Pasar badung market. It was wild. A Balinese market selling all kinds of produce and materials needed for the Hindus to make their daily offering (grass stalks, flower petals.) There were many fruit vendors, bananas, melons, coconuts. There were vegetables, and eggs, and fish, all kinds of sea food really. Chickens, whole ones, ones already plucked, chicken parts. There was all kinds of unrecognizable meat. And all of this out in the open with flies and bugs, mud and garbage on the ground and motor transport kicking up dirt and exhaust. We did find a doughnut vendor though which I gladly partook in. Yum. After the local produce market we went to the bird market down the street a little further called Pasar Burung. Ashton was right when he said I would cry. Well partially right, I didn't cry but I wanted to. There were many exotic birds in beautiful, but some very worn, cages. Some vendors also had bunnies, and other animals like this little baby luwak way too young to be away from it's mother. It all made me very sad. And bats. The giant fruit bats. These ones were not giant but still the largest bat I've ever seen. They did not belong in cages and why on earth would anyone want one as a pet. I always joke that Toby looks like a bat when she's upside down and she truly does. Just like one of these. So we left, myself a little a heart broken. Just outside the market were some puppies for sale. A sweet little dachshund. I would have bought him in a heart beat but I know he can’t come home with me. We headed back to our neck of the woods and there we went for a walk on the beach. We ate at a really small restaurant for dinner and now I'm ready for bed. My energy has been drained the last few days so tonight I hope to get a little extra sleep.

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