Bali

Hello Everyone

Over my 2nd study break I planned a trip up to Bali with 5 of my friends that I have met at Uni. It seems like I have been doing so many trips since I've been here! Bali is just north Perth and is part of Indonesia. It's actually closer to Bali than to Sydney from Perth. Here are a bunch of the pictures that we took while we were there. I think that for this blog post the best way to describe the country and everything that I saw on my trip is through picture; so this will be a really picture heavy post. The main religion is Hinduism so it was really cool to see how much of that was incorporated into the culture.

This women is making an offering outside her home. This was done multiple times a day. Some of the items that were in the offering were crackers, candies, cigarettes, and flowers. 

The offerings on the street would start to pile up. They weren't thrown away but rather swept away or clogging up the sewer drain after a few days

This was the front of our hotel in Kuta. So beautiful and super cheap!

On our trip we went to Kuta which is a touristy in the South. This is where tons of Australians hang out at the beach or by the pool at the hotel. 

The view from out hotel in Kuta. We were right on the beach and the waves were the biggest that I've ever seen. There was no way that I was going in that water

After we spent two days in Kuta we drove up to Ubud which is a much more relaxed part of Bali. There are a lot of rice fields surrounding the city and its more of an artistic area. We hired a driver and he drove us all over the island to see all the temples and landmarks on the West side of the island.

There were a lot of these really deep canyons throughout the center of Bali

This is how a lot of the entrances to houses in Bali looked, the sons live with their families in the same home that they grew up in. So constantly the house needs to be expanded.

Floating Temple: there are stairs near the bank of the river that are always flooded. Along with the gate on the outside of the temple

This is at one of the monkey forests that we visited. The monkeys were all over the place and I didn't like the feeling of having so many monkeys around me at once. See the next picture to see how I really felt about being there :)

One of the most traumatizing moments of my life. Keeping your palms open was a sign that you didn't have food. No monkeys jumped on me but they all got way too close for comfort!!

While in Ubud we went on a bike ride through rice fields and local communities. This was the coolest part of the trip for me. Its was so beautiful!! All of the scenery that we rode by was amazing and all the people in the local villages were so nice.

Mt Batur, which I think is actually a volcano. 

This is the real color of rice growing! It was so green!!

 

Some of the rice fields on the bike tour near Ubud

The whole group during one of the stops on our bike tour

All of us drinking tea/coffee at a plantation near Ubud.

This was after our bike ride at the owners house. We ate a traditional Balinese meal which was amazing! 

I had so much fun the trip. It reminded me a lot of Egypt which I didn't expect when I first arrived. We couldn't drink the water and were always being ripped off since it was obvious that we were tourists. But the people of Bali totally made up for that. All of the people that we met while on our trip were so nice and genuinely cared about making your trip enjoyable. 

Currently my friend Heidi from CU is staying with me until Thursday and then on Monday my parents are arriving. Its going to be a busy month of May! I'll try to do more blog updates about Perth and local adventures that I've been taking rather than just trips that I take on my breaks. I leave a month from tomorrow. I can't believe that my semester is almost over and that I've been living in Australia for 3 and a 1/2 months!! Can't wait to see most of you when I get back to the States :)

Love

Emily