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Ubud to Bingin, Bali
A couple of exhausting, 30 degrees bus rides later, we finally arrived in Ubud, still stinking of eggs and ready to sleep for a week! Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali, and we were looking forward to getting somewhere that we could start to soak up a bit of local culture rather than scale volcanoes each morning! On arrival we dumped our stuff on the path and sat next to a water fountain whilst trying to research somewhere to stay for the next few days. As the battery on our phone ran out and we considered bedding down in the street we finally found the tourist information centre and were directed to a small street with some cheap accommodation. We settled for 'Goutama Homestay', a collection of small bungalows set amongst a garden just back from the street.
First thing first, we tried to shower the smell from our hair and separated all our clothes and bags that needed washing. Whilst Trevor took the majority of our clothes covered in sulphur to a launderette, Sophie was left to do her usual job of washing our bags and waterproofs in a bucket in the bathroom (even Patch got a scrub)! The rest of the day was largely spent resting, eating a massive burger for dinner and having an early night!
Whilst in Ubud we headed to a renowned restaurant, famous for its slow-cooked suckling pig, which we decided was wholly average and not a patch on a hog roast back home! We also watched some traditional Balinese dance at the Palace, where the Royal family still live today. The dance was very strange but also captivating to watch, with the girls extremely decorated, with striking make-up and lavish costumes. The dancing was very static and hypnotic, involving a lot of use of staggered hand and eye movements. Accompanied by the Gamelan music, it made for a surreal and surprisingly enjoyable evening. (Videos to follow at some point of both our attempts at copying the dancing once back at our bungalow)! Trevor also made us go to the Monkey Forest, where hundreds of monkeys roam freely, stealing bananas and any other food you may have on you at the time! Whilst in Ubud it was the Balinese Galungan festival, for which elaborate decorations made from massive bamboo sticks with intricate wooden flowers and patterns something like origami attached to them, were erected vertically down all the streets. The festival has something to do with protecting and freeing the spirits of the dead, and lots of the children wore costumes and played music, roaming the streets in the evening, much like Halloween 'trick-or-treating'.
After 5 days in Ubud we were feeling far more refreshed and decided to head on for some more physical battering...this time to Bingin for some surfing!
Bingin, a quiet beach set below cliffs full of shack-like accommodation apparently has one of the best waves in the world for top surfers in dry season. Visiting in the wet season, it provided us with some more gentle waves to have our very first go at surfing on. We checked into 'Rockeys'; some very basic huts set in the cliffs just above the beach, and soon discovered that it really was a quiet area at this time of year, with just a few small shops open for snacks and a couple of beach-bars to eat at.
On our second day we decided to rent some surfboards, and in an attempt to save money, by-passed having any lessons and instead hauled our giant foam surfboards into the sea, trying to avoid scraping our feet on the coral as we frantically paddled to get out past the breaking waves. Once out, having watched other people surfing the waves and Sophie swatting up on the internet, we were ready to! The next hour consisted of a lot of sea water being swallowed, being churned around under the waves a good few times, but nonetheless both managing to stand up on our boards for a second or two. We also saw schools of fish jumping from the water whilst waiting for the waves, and Sophie managed to see a turtle in the shallows whilst being thrown around. We returned to the water for another hour in the afternoon, although the waves had died down by this time and our energy was starting to disappear. Eventually after more body boarding than surfing we headed back in shore to assess our various injuries. We both had severe sun-burn on the backs of our legs, from where we had spent the majority of time lying on our surfboards, Sophie had a very bruised and swollen little finger having prevented her surfboard smacking her in the face with it alone, we had scraped knees and elbows, and Trevor had cuts on his back and feet...cue a large application of moisturiser!!
That evening we watched the sunset on the beach and had a whole barbecued snapper complete with eyes that Sophie had to cover with lime segments whilst eating to avoid feeling sick. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep that evening with our legs heating up the room!
The next day, after applying more moisturiser we carried our heavy bags back up all the steps we had descended previously to the main road and got a lift to Kuta to renew our visas for another 30 days. Kuta is hardly worth mentioning unless you are an 18 year old Australian; its pretty much the equivalent of Faliraki! We spent the 3 days we had there watching TV, applying aloe vera to our burns and constantly declining offers from touts of transport, women and drugs... Quite a place!
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