F1

We just happened to arrive into town during the biggest event in Singapore and possibly the largest in the world- Get ready racefans… Singapore’s Grand Prix Formula One Race and first F1 to have been raced at night on city street! Tickets were pricey, so we followed the locals lead and hopped up on the concrete wall to get a view. Not bad for free!

We're not in Bali anymore!

Found a very American-like church service at Grace Assembly of God. (Thanks Dot for the research!)


Our first day here and we set out to find good walking & running shoes. In this city of mass transport and pedestrian paths, our Keen sandals just aren’t cutting it for the long walks. Wondering around the main “sports” shopping center we met a new friend, Roy. He runs a tailor shop and was so fun to speak with, telling us about many of the local delights and some of his great traveling experiences. He’s even making us some custom bike shorts and jerseys. Won’t we just be so cute with matching bike outfits :) stay tuned for pics. Now we have to build our skill to match the level of our appearance.

Local food stalls:

Exploring Singapore

The first thing that we noticed as we settled into Singapore was how incredibly clean and organized everything is here! There really is no trash, gum, or graffiti anywhere that we could see. Such a contrast to Bali, were the country’s trash floats down the rivers into the ocean. Also, we quickly noticed how the money slips through your fingers here. With the endless world-renowned restaurants, we had to indulge in some amazing food. Even though we never did really catch the shopping fever (gotta keep the packs light!), we really enjoyed watching the locals get sucked in as they shopped at all hours in shopping malls as far as the eye can see. We were able to find a hostel for only $52 per a night, a real steal by Singapore standards: Bed, warm water shower, A/C with complimentary fish odor, complimentary breakfast of toast and coffee, but lacking necessities such as toilet tissue, sheets, and towels. It also even came with a strange 60 year old French roommate who seemed to speak of nothing other than Jackie Kennedy’s French heritage. The high price was a little hard to swallow, as the same place in Bali would have run about $4.

Reflections of Bali

In Bali, Anders met his match! They run a hard bargain, but after a few locals let us in on the tricks of the trade around here we got along just fine. Everything is negotiable here, and that’s the beauty of it! Even a buffet lunch price can be negotiated down if you play your cards right.
Even with all of the fun and natural beauty of the area, what will always stick with us is the kindness and hospitality of the people. Any person whom we came across was always willing to stop and give you a hand or point you in the right direction, amazing especially when refusing to take anything in return.

Pitstop: Waterfall Massage

On our way to Lovina, we saw a small sign that just said “waterfall this way”, so figured we’d give it a look-see. We met a nice local named Gede, who led us on an hour hike, while sampling some of his fruit, coffee, and cocoa pods he cultivates. Here we are, after getting into a fight with a fern. Actually just nature's press-on tattoos.


He even took us to his home. Here’s his kitchen and dog named Hello!


Finally reaching the beautiful waterfall without our swimsuits, we couldn’t pass up trying it out. Refreshing relief from the humid air!


The only rubbish bin we were able to find in Bali- explaining the large amount of litter strewn throughout.

Dinner & Dancing with the Czechs!

During our stay at the Czech hotel, they invited us to dinner with them. The evening was great and we had an amazing buffet dinner with Barracuda and Mahi Mahi including many Balinese delicacies with a touch of the Czech culture!

After dinner the Czechs like to have a dance of their own. They had a fun game with an orange scarf… to whomever the scarf was given, required dance moves in the circle center! It was a bit embarrassing until observing others having to also pretend they can dance!

Our fabulous hotel in Salang:

Every morning the local village fisherman head out in their tiny boats at 4 am for the morning catch. We weren’t up early enough to catch them on their way out but here they are coming in with sails or rudimentary motors. It was beautiful to see them sailing into shore; every sail was handmade and unique!

A Whole New World

We feel so blessed to have found one of the most premier diving spots on earth! The coral reefs off Selang and Amed were teeming with wonderful sea life, so much that unfortunately we couldn’t catch photos of everything. We saw too many different types of fish to count… an eel, sting ray, trigger fish, puffer fish, a tiny seahorse and even a black tip shark!

The Japanese and US Liberty shipwrecks were the best dives we have ever experienced! The sea life is so rich around the shipwrecks that we can’t even describe how amazing it was to swim through the different caverns. It was a whole new world!


We even found time to play a little b-ball. (Watch out Whit!)



Then, we found Nemo!!

Our diving crew out of the ocean.

Candidasa

Here we go again on our own…on the main highway to Candidasa, we stopped at any town that looked worth stopping at. This tiny town (don’t even know the name) we thought was beautiful!



While driving through the mountains we came across the feeding spot for the monkeys. The locals told us that the farmers come by and drop off their left over fruit and vegetables for the monkeys. They also were chowing down on the Hindu sacrifices as they were left.



We got some great photos of them…but one wanted a bite of Lori! Anders charged it and secured his spot as the Alpha Male.


Also, at the same market we saw live pigeons for sale:


Unfortunately, a few decades ago the developers became greedy and blew up the protective coral reef, from which to create cement; this soon-to-be afterthought caused the beautiful sandy beach to wash away and leave a rocky sea-shore. I guess that’s what happens when we mess with God’s creation. We did come across a great homestay here run by a helpful Aussie. He let us in on the local secret- a white sand beach just minutes down the road, one of the remaining hidden treasures left of the area.



We finally found where the locals shop and where tourists aren’t hounded- a department store called Hardy’s that could be compared to a Walmart. They even had an Islamic clothing display… possibly to compliment the mosque across the street?

Silver City

Just south of Sukawati, Batubulan, the main drag is lined with silver shop after silver shop. After checking out a few, we soon realized that the Balinese haven’t yet learned the art of product variety…boring for shopping, but great for bargaining! Not only does each shop sell duplicate items of the shop next door, they all have the same silver tour consisting of four workbenches with locals appearing to be making silver jewelry. But, our investigation proved the items are all mass produced at a nearby factory…

Random Detours

Along the way we stopped off in a local village and found a hiking trail down to the river and some beautiful panoramas of the rice paddies and forest. We saw a grandma and her 2 grandchildren watering the fields bucket by bucket between the river and field (about 1/4mi away in steep terrain!)
After chatting with the family, they invited us back to their huts for some coconut milk and dragonflies! The grandpa quickly climbed right up the tree to pick a coconut and then cut it open, using a piece of the husk as the straw.

The kids were enamored with Detlef's German TV on his iphone.

They were quite friendly and the kids sure enjoyed showing off their catch of the day… dragonflies. Each evening they grill the tasty-treats. Fortunately, we didn’t stick around for dinner!

Feeling much better we hit the road with our adventurous German neighbors Detlef and Marianne. Even though our German language leaves much to be desired, we manage to communicate well with charades, laughter, and a few well placed English words.


Now, why on earth would we set out on our trip thinking it would be uneventful, given the series of events that has occurred thus far? Maybe because we’ve figured we’ve seen and have experienced every possible thing that might go wrong… Guess again.

Midway up the mountain, our motorbike decided to just quit. Again the Balinese came to our rescue. Noticing us stranded alongside the road, they helped us to the nearest repair shop. One carburetor rebuild, one air filter cleaning, one spark plug check, diagnose, all removal, replace, and adjustment, one hour and $3 later, we were back on the one lane mountainous road! Not only was I amazed he only wanted $3 for the entire job, but he was in the middle of six motorbike repairs with six customers waiting, when he stopped all he was doing to help us! Wow, what service! The other customers surprisingly didn’t even seem to care!

Also along our beautiful ride, we spent more paying off the police, than we did on the motorbike rental, fuel, and rebuilding the carburetor… combined! The officer didn’t seem to want anything else from us other than a little “help” out. I quote him, “You help me, I help you”. So we paid him his $5 as he slyly slipped it into his shirt so his partner hanging behind couldn’t see. Then they wished us a good trip and waved as though they were saying goodbye to old friends. The whole thing was pretty crazy and something we will never forget. It is too bad we were so shocked by the corruption at the moment to take a picture. Maybe that would have dissuaded him?

We made a few detours along the way and saw amazing views of the volcano which erupted in 1900 and 1967:


The nearby village seemed a bit eerie like a ghost town. Evidently they had begun building many villas, hotels, etc. but following the terrorist bombings of 2002 & 2005 in the tourist capital of Kuta, all construction and tourism abruptly came to a halt before finally picking up again this year. See empty foundation after foundation after foundation:

Who wears the pants??

Balinese Towing & Dance

As we made our way to leave Nacho Mama’s following another delicious $5 rack of BBQ pork spareribs, we couldn’t find our motorbike. We were stumped as we were very sure of the location where we had left it. Then we noticed all the other motorbikes were also gone in the entire parking lot where we had left it! Walking to the spot where it had been, a kind Balinese man approached us and asked if we were looking for our bike. Nodding yes in confusion, he led us to a new makeshift parking lot for their ceremony and lo and behold, our motorbike! Apparently since they just picked up the bikes and moved them… little did we know we had just witnessed the Balinese towing service! He then invited us to see their Balinese ceremonial dance. Out of respect, they asked us to cover our legs with sarongs they conveniently had on hand for tourists like us to borrow. It was very interesting and quite different. The movements seemed awkward to the music of xylophones and drums. Then they had this wierd dragon/sheepdog looking thing with two people dancing underneat and chattering the wood teeth at the crowd. Again, wish we were able to upload the video.

Bali Belly

Over the last few days we had what our German friends call “Bali Belly”. Apparently after my assuredly two thumbs up for the street food cart, we had two thumbs down for the next three days... =( We spent practically the entire time in bed with stomach aches, fever, cold sweats and swollen glands. We were reading all about similar symptoms of plague and malaria on the CDC website, and just when we were about to go visit a hospital, the good Lord intervened. You can say we were very relieved!

Wedding Photos and Slide Show

Our wonderful photographer and close friend Kelli put up a slide show and some of the wedding photos on her blog. There will be more to come and she will be setting up a great site for anyone wanting to purchase any photos. Browse around her blog and website… We think she’s pretty amazing, but then again we're biased :)

The slide show can be found at the bottom of her blog post or if you're too excited by clicking here.

More Ubud

Lori set out to find a nice dress, shorts and less scandalous American looking clothes, but came up empty handed as all for sale were more traditional styles as seen below:


Though, all was not lost. We did enjoy bargaining with the store owners and clerks. One clerk spilled her company’s sale tactics. For example, the pillow shams, cost her owner $2.50. But, judging by the nationality of the tourist who walks into her store, she charges anywhere from $5 for the average cheap looking tourist (probably the few like us) to $20 for Japanese tourists who won’t fight the price, but gives a complimentary 10% off to make them feel like they’re getting a deal. Upon first arriving in Bali one and a half weeks ago, I thought the locals just doubled or tripled the prices. Boy I was mistaken, but luckily was only conned an extra $4 during our first taxi cab ride.

We’ve heard of the bemo, which is the public transport that takes mostly locals from town to town, but this is the real economy transport. We’re not sure of the price but think that we will try this one soon.


Our fist dinner on the street! We thought we’ve given our stomachs enough time to adjust to the local fiery food, so we thought we would finally try eating off of one of those carts. It smelled really great and for 50 cents each we thought it would be good on our budget too. This particular cart only made one thing: Sate ayam or “chicken on a stick” with rice. So we went for it! It was good, but to be honest we weren’t really feeling it the next day…

Adventures in Dreamland

While talking to another new friend over some suckling pig yesterday, he suggested that we go to Dreamland to see the best sunsets on the island. So we headed out on our longest motorbike ride so far (2hrs away). Lori even tried out driving the motorbike on the way…and Anders was brave enough to jump on there with her :)


It was a gorgeous beach with enormous waves, obviously a surfer’s paradise, with too many Californians to count. It looked like it was planned to be the next big spot on Bali for 5-star resorts and overpriced froufrou drinks. There were huge resorts in construction all over the area, none were close to being complete yet. We got out and tried to do some body surfing on the waves and got tossed most of the time. But our friend was right, the sunset was beautiful, and well worth the drive.



After enjoying the huge waves and beautiful scenery for a few hours we hopped back on the motorbike to head home. As Anders started to drive away, we noticed we had a really strange wobble…looking back to check it out…..FLAT TIRE!! We were pretty much the last people leaving the beach, so we began pushing the bike to the next town, something like 8 km (or about 5 miles). After about 3 minutes of this we saw that this was just gonna take too long, so we figured out that since it was the back tire, if Anders sat all the way forward and drove really slow, then we could drive it in. So that’s what we did, as Lori ran beside, we rode it in. After about only a couple of miles, some locals drove past us and had pity and stopped to help. Their names were Begi and Wayan. Wayan left his girlfriend to chat with us while he headed into town to find a mobile mechanic. It was so nice to get to know her. It was amazing to hear how hard she works…she supports both her parents and younger sister who all cannot work. She’s only 21 years old and earns only $85 per month. There isn’t any government assistance for disability or retirement here, but such a sense of community. Family members take care of each other, and people are willing to stop and help someone who is in need. Wayan came back with his friend who agreed to fix the flat right there on the side of the road (total cost = $6.50!). Begi was embarrassed because she said that price is double what they would normally pay if the bike was brought to them. We were really touched by the local’s willingness to help. Even the mechanic missed his ceremony to come fix our flat. Fifteen minutes later we were finally on our way. See photos of our new friends, we’re gonna meet up later this week for dinner:)

Gianyar and Lebih by Motorbike

While out riding our motorbike this morning, we saw a sign pointing in the direction of Gianyar, the province’s main city, so on a whim took the exit. Upon first arriving, we determined this is not the Bali paradise one envisions. Busy local markets, innumerable food carts and surprisingly strange looks caused us to make short order of our stay. Before finding ourselves being glared at by Muslims, but after re-composing our stomach’s, we sat down for some babi guling (suckling pig)! A nice man sitting down next to us explained the local favorite. We didn’t say the pig fat, skin and stomach was our favorite, but had to give ourselves credit for trying. I think the pictures will speak for themselves!



Back on the road, off the beaten path near Gianyar we saw this and were pretty shocked. We weren’t expecting to see anything like this around here and don’t really know what to make of it…


We made Lebih, a breezy beachfront fishing village, our next stop. As there didn’t seem much to do, we again stumbled upon entertainment by observing local construction practices. Anders seemed very pleased to see the women hauling soil in buckets on their heads and kids carrying bags of rock, but I made it very clear that we would not be carrying on that tradition!




Our friend told us that while in Lebih we had to try the fish sate, the town specialty. And there was a row of beachside restaurants all serving the exact same thing, fish sate and rice. So we picked the one that had the most people in it and smelled the best and sat down and ordered one of everything, literally. It really was delic, the sate was so fresh and tasty! As our bill came we were shocked, after what seemed like a huge feast we only owed about $1.50! No wonder people think we’re rich here!