Beautiful, Bustling, Beguiling Bali

Way back in April (!), I went to Bali (Indonesia) for a week with one of my great new friends at work, Amy, and a group of other girls. I said a long time ago in one of my blog posts that I would eventually get around to writing about it and never have. Multiple people have asked me about my trip so I thought I would finally do it (plus I'm procrastinating working this weekend). If you know me well, you may find it fitting that Amy and I gave a hilarious presentation at work for our group. That's right....I gave a PowerPoint presentation about my trip to a bunch of consultants. It was titled "BPS in Bali - A detailed examination of spas and restaurants".

FYI notes: BPS stands for Business Performance Services, the group that I work for. Every month we have a "Home Office Day", where we all come back from our clients to connect in the office for a Friday afternoon. Often we are all out at various clients, so sometimes it is hard to catch up with the team if you are not on a particular project with them. These HOD's are a nice way for us to see each other, talk about the business, strategise, do some training and some team-building....and learn about any fun stuff that anyone's been doing. And then we might have drinks at the end of the day (and then we might continue to other activities such as a big night out, dancing, karoake????). It happens.

Anyway back to Bali. It was a place for relaxation, massages, restaurants, and drinking. Pretty much everyday we walked into Seminyak, ate, shopped, beached it, hung out at our awesome villa in our private pool, listened to tunes, got pretty, went back into town, ate, had drinks, maybe went out. For about a week. It's a rough life but someone's gotta do it! The restaurants are unbelievable - and all sorts of food, not just Indonesian. We stayed in Seminyak, which has good shopping and great restaurants. Luckily I was there with Amy, who is a very seasoned Bali veteran, so we went to all her favorite places. I think I gained a few kilos on this trip.

Bali is a very typical, popular destination for Aussies. A large part of the tourism industry in Bali is supported by Australians. I would equate it to maybe Cancun for Americans? It is also very cheap for Australians to travel there. Actually, it is less expensive than traveling around Australia (which is very expensive in general), so many Australians have been to Bali but maybe have not traveled around their own country a great deal. For example, my 8 days in Bali in a super nice private villa with the girls, eating out constantly, was essentially half the price of my 6 day trip traveling from Exmouth to Perth with a backpackers group (hostels, making our own food, etc). You get my point.

Amy and I at Matys in Seminyak

Amy and I hired a driver to take us to Ubud for a day, the area you may have heard featured in the (awful, imo) book and movie "Eat Pray Love". It is a beautiful rice paddie area. We also visited the Monkey Forest of Ubud which was..... super super gross and creepy. And also funny and cute because of all the baby monkeys. Wiki says that 10,000 tourists a month visit the Forest. I liked it for a little while as a bystander, but these monkeys are very aggressive and literally search you if they think you have food. (It reminded me of the Rock of Gibraltar, but at least those monkeys usually leave you alone). Bananas are sold at the front gate for those (idiots) who want to get up close and personal. People were letting monkeys crawl all over them. I did not have any food, but one monkey creeped up on me from behind and grabbed my leg....and then we left. I had enough of that! (By the way Amy hates this place and was being a nice host because I wanted to see it, thanks Amy!)

Monkey Forest of Ubud

We also took quite a trek (Amazing Race style!) to Jimbaron Bay to find this amazing bar that is built out on the cliffs over the ocean. We even had to take a tram/cable car down to it!

Rock Bar at Ayana in Jimbaron Bay

Some other things to talk about:

• There are scooters everywhere, the first choice to get around the main cities. Vendors sell petrol out of vodka bottles from the sides of the roads. There is a general lack of road rules whatsoever (at least that I could tell), but the Balinese somehow manage to never crash, only tourists.
• Kuta is the real touristy area of Bali and a place I would generally advise people to avoid (unless you are 20 and in a partying stage). There are markets to buy tourist souvenirs (crap to me), lots of clubs, lots of people offering drugs, etc. We went out dancing one night and I generally felt unsafe out on the street. And I would say I'm a pretty seasoned traveller. In the club I felt safe, but disgusted. Amy and I practiced "avoidance" strategies.....and eventually Amy started telling the boys pursuing her a tall tale that I was the owner's daughter, and we both lived in Bali. I generally didn't say anything (don't like to advertise my American accent), but Amy said that she went to boarding school in Australia to explain her accent. I don't know why this was funny, but it was (perhaps the drinks?). Kuta is also the location of the terrorist bombing in 2005 that sadly killed 200 people (88 Australians).
• The markets in Kuta were crap, but I liked the ones in Ubud a little better. I practiced my negotiation skills for a "Gucci" watch ($8 or 73,000 rupiahs) which no longer works.....what a SHOCKER! 

One of my favorite places was Echo Beach (requires to hire a car / taksi ("taxi) to get there). Definitely my kind of laid-back place where everyone is in comfy clothes, drinking beer (Bintang) instead of fruity drinks, and you pick out your fresh fish that for them to grill up for you. The motto here is "Hard to find.....Hard to forget" and I totally agree.

Echo Beach with some Bintangs

Making their offering at Echo Beach

The last thing I really wanted to talk about is drugs and the death penalty in Indonesia. I don't understand why people would take this chance. They are serious, people!!! Don't do drugs, and definitely don't try to take them to Bali! A very famous case in Australia media is Schappelle Corby, who is serving a 20 year sentence for drug smuggling. She has always maintained her innocence that she did not pack the drugs. It's a fascinating and sad case, if you're interested check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schapelle_Corby. Also check out the story of the "Bali 9", two of which have been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution.

Sign at the airport....and they mean it

The girls