Jumping in Head First

Gili T Sunset

Well, I'm in Asia now!  After spending 41 hours getting from Wanaka, NZ to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, I was exhausted.  I did get about 8 hours in downtown Syndey along the way though!
All I wanted to do was sleep.  However, I first needed to get cash from the ATM, which turned out to be a mission. None of the ATMs dispensed cash, but I found a taxi driver who was willing to take me to my bank's ATM in town before dropping me off at the hotel, so I was able to finally get cash.  Later, I found out that money was withdrawn from my account, so now I'm disputing the $300 I lost--yay!

Tegalalang Rice Terrace

Anyway, the next day I got to Ubud, which was a really nice town.  I stayed in a great, social hostel where I immediately made some friends  The next day, a group of 4 of us hired a taxi for the day (for $5 each for 5 hours!) and saw a few temples, rice terraces and a waterfall!  It was interesting as the taxi driver tried to take us all sorts of other places but we eventually convinced him to take us where we wanted!

The next morning, I got up at 0200 to go climb Mt Batur near Kintamani.  It was a beautiful sunset from the top overlooking several other volcanoes, a lake, and the ocean beyond!  There were monkeys on the way down, too, which I fed some bread (I know that's not environmentally friendly, but you have to do it once!)  That afternoon, I went to monkey forest, where there were soooo many monkeys!!!

Holy Spring Temple

The following day, a group of us took the boat to Gili Trawangan!  It is a beautiful little island, where we've relaxed on the beach, snorkeled, dove, and biked around the island.  There are so many turtles--we saw 5 diving, and 3 just while we were swimming!  The diving was incredible--so any fish! The night market is nice as well!  As many of you have heard, my wallet did get stolen here, but things are getting sorted and hopefully in a couple days I'll be all good again!  As Rocky Balboa said,  "it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!" So, I'm moving along and will still make the most of it!  

From Mt Batur, looking at Mt Agung/Lake Batur

Otherwise, Asia is really interesting.  Obviously quite different culturally, but so cheap!  On Gili T, Ramadan is now, which is a month of fasting basically.  Even when hiking Mt Batur, the guides had to stop and give an offering to the gods and say a prayer before walking.  Also, you can get a bed for $8/night, food for $3-5, water bottles are 50 cents  And you can bargain everything, which at first I hated, but is kind of fun now!  Anyway, I'm hoping to climb Mt Rinjani once I get my cards, then go back to Bali before flying off to Bangkok on July 1st! Hope you all are having a great summer.  It sounds almost as hot there as here!  Also, Happy Father's Day to all you dads reading this!