Bali Staycation

    After flying overnight from Chiang Mai, with a layover in Bangkok (where I cozied up in a corner on the floor for some zzz's), I was more than happy and excited to see the island of Bali growing out of the crystal-clear, blue water, from the window of my Air Asia plane. Though I was convinced we were about to land in the water, the tarmac suddenly appeared below the wheels of the plane and we taxied to the gate. The airport itself was beautiful, built reflecting the architecture I have now seen so much of around Bali - detailed stone carvings, pointed roofs, Buddha statues and animal statues. I made quick time to get my visa, grab my bag, fly through customs, into a cab shared by a fellow Canadian, and into my hostel, where I was very happily greeted by an old friend of mine. Nick and I had discovered a couple weeks prior that we would overlap in Bali, so made a plan to meet in Sanur. That afternoon was spent exploring Sanur Beach, learning everything there was to know about a very friendly local who decided to join us (only to be ushered into her stall later), and finding a good spot to eat dinner.

    We had talked to a few people on the road about renting a scooter, so the following day we went back to the one who had the best deal, and jumped on a scooter, heading towards Ubud. This time I was not at the wheel and instead could enjoy the view. While on the highway, a local on his scooter waved us down to the side of the road to kindly let us know our back license plate was trying to escape. While he was fixing it, he and Nick got into a discussion about traditional Balinese coffee (Lowak Coffee) and would we like to follow him to a place where they make it. With no real plans set, we figured why not,  and off we set, following the man on his scooter, still in the direction of Ubud. We arrived at a very lush, jungle-looking property, to be greeted by a lovely lady, waiting to tour us through the garden. We were introduced to and shown a number of different plants and animals in cages, including Lowaks (that look a bit like ferrets) and a giant bat that was caged up just for show...a good 1.5 feet long! The property overlooked some beautiful, vast, rice paddy fields, with a line of tables under cabanas setup for you to sit and taste all of the coffee and tea they make. We learned the process for making Lowak coffee, which includes feeding the furry friends coffee beans, waiting for them to poop them out, and then drying them out, and though I was slightly reluctant, we each tried a cup. Honestly, it tasted like pretty normal coffee to me, but I was a big fan of their Coconut Coffee and Ginger Tea.
    

Lowak Coffee Spot

    After waving Selamat Tinggal to our hosts and being pointed in the direction of the Sacred Monkey Forest, we were off again. A few wrong turns later, and driving through the chaos of the centre of Ubud, we arrived at entrance #3 to the monkey forest. The forest is basically a very large jungle area, lightly fenced in, absolutely filled with monkeys eagerly waiting for you to feed them. Once we watched a man who had bought a bunch of bananas be completely attacked, we decided against the food thing and instead to just walk through and observe. Apparently, that didn't make a difference. About 5 minutes into our visit, we walked by a monkey who was seemingly calmly sleeping on the ground. A few seconds later, after seeing I had a purse, the monkey was up and stalking towards me, teeth exposed, with a minor growl. Quickly thinking to myself that I had opted out of getting my rabies shot before leaving Canada, I managed to stifle out a quiet scream of Nick's name, and soon he was in front of me having a stand off with Señor monkey. As soon as that had died down, we continued exploring the forest with no hassle...and my purse safely wrapped around Nick instead.
We had planned to head to a large temple we had read about but ended up getting very lost in Ubud, scooting through villages, unaware of our location on a map, being very happily surprised by what we encountered and discovered, including the famous Rice Paddy Terraces. They were absolutely gorgeous! Levels on levels of green fields stretching deep into the valley and up again. After a quick lunch at a café overlooking the terraces, we were back on the scooter to get lost, as that seems to be the best way to really discover areas. Cruising down roads with holes so big and spread across the streets, we were barely going 1km. We were driving up and down through valleys and forests including one road that on our way back up, I had to get off and walk up because it was so steep and the bike wouldn't go up fast enough to balance. The walk up to meet Nick was fine though, meeting two friendly gentlemen, casually carrying live and dead ducks in their bare hands. The getting lost thing didn't totally work in our favor when it came to getting back to Sanur though, as we had wanted to be back by 6 and instead rolled in at 8. The reason for a specific arrival? Enough time to sneak in a siesta before needing to be up again for our pick up to Mount Agung.

1:30AM start

    Nick and I had organized, before arriving in Sanur, to do one of the big volcano hikes in Bali...in fact, the biggest one. We were to be picked up from our hostel at 11:30pm, and driven to the starting point of the hike, where we met up with everyone else doing the same thing. Boy, did we ever not know what we were getting in for. I can proudly say now that the hike was definitely worth it, though while I was in it, my sentiments weren't exactly that. We started to climb at 1:30am, and reached the summit by 5:45, in time for sunrise. In between, we made about 5 stops which were used to sit down and rest, drink water, eat snacks, and at one point enjoy a fire for a bit. Everytime we stopped, we were reminded just how cold it was, as our sweat would start to freeze and the rough 8-degree cold would kick in. On average, the climb up the face of this enormous volcano was a 40-degree incline,  with sections increasing to a good 80-degrees...no exaggeration, we were quite literally rock climbing on our hands and knees near the end. The last 55 minutes of the climb was straight up, we were already well above the clouds, and rocks and dust were eacaping from under our feet with every step. We had our last break about 5 minutes from the top, where I made the mistake of looking down, sending me into a complete minor anxiety attack as a result of my fear of heights and the thought that nothing was stopping any of us from slipping amd tumbling down.
 

   
    Once we had made it to the top, and settled on the (very small and tight) summit, the sight of the glowing, fiery sun emerging in the distance, made all fears dissappear. The sunrise was the most amazing I've seen, probably because I was seeing it from 3152m above sea level on top of the highest point in Bali. On one side of the summit we had all of Bali below us, slowly waking up with the sun,  and on the other, was the drop into the massive (still active) volcanic crater.  Though terrifying, it was quite a thing of beauty. After resting on the summit for an hour and a half, we began our slow descent back down the mountain, chasing the shadow it created from the sun. The dust made the climb down very slippery and hard on the knees and the common reaction when reaching the bottom was to collapse on the ground. My legs were suffering for a few days after, but every minute of the experience was worth it. Facing another fear, unexpectedly pushing myself well out of my comfort zone....check. Have to say, the massages on the beach we treated ourselves to later that afternoon definitely helped, too.

XOXO Nicky