After ubud, we traveled to Pandang Bai. A small coastal town hosting some of the best scuba diving Bali has to offer. Today Miranda completed day one of her intensive 2 day scuba certification classes. (Most people spend 4 days
go Miranda!) Sandra and I rented a little scooter and tracked down "Hidden beach" and it was well worth the hike. Very Paradisical, with quaint little restaurants right on the beach. (Sat 6ft from high-tide level.) The beach was very quiet. Every restaurant we look at has several vegetarian options, many have half their menu vegetarian. It's been great fun eating, and It's usually very healthy food. Lots of Gado-Gado (fresh veggies in peanut sauce with rice) for usually $2.25. Fresh, real juices are often for just a bit over $1 (carrot ginger, Banana, mango, all great and 100% fresh fruit made right then.)
Our massive hotel room is on the 3rd floor looking out above most of the village. Between the limited ocean view, the constant colorful kites flying in the sky, and all of the artwork,sculpture and clay-tile rooftops, it's a wonderfully different view
Accommodation is roughly $36/night including internet and fancy breakfast (banana crepe,coffe/tea and fresh fruit). We were worried Bali would be too touristy, but it has been a very welcome relaxing break. No stress here. Everything is easy and cheap. The Indonesian island retains loads of character, and the people are nice.-Joe
The front of our "cottage".
The bill for our first dinner in Bali. The big numbers make it very amusing. 8500 = $1
Some of the stone work in front of a temple in the Monkey Forest.
Sandra and me in the temple.
Monkeys!
Our super yummy lunch the day we left Ubud. Notice the wonderful muddy rice parries in the background.
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We've been pretty boring since we've been here. Sandra left for Bali two days after we got here. We've been working and walking around a little. We went to Little India a couple times to have lunch and dinner. We found a fully vegetarian restaurant that was excellent.
Yesterday we went to the Batu Caves to check them out. It was pretty neat. We climbed the stairs and ende dup inside a huge cavern. Temples were scattered around and once we got to the end, there were monkeys everywhere. Many of the people were feeding them bananas, etc. Pretty crazy. My camera's battery was dead, so I didn't get any monkey photos.
That evening, when we went to find dinner, I stopped at a shop in the Central Market to get a henna tattoo. My first one.
-Miranda
Apparently the largest statue of Lord Murugan. It was definitely huge. See stairs to the left. Those were tall also.
My henna tattoo.
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Well, we made it to Kuala Lumpur today. We also had an amazing hike through the Batand Terraces yesterday. I'll have to write a separate blog for that and post photos of those terraces when I have time, but here are the slightly older photos I promised first. All photos were taken by Sandra (except the first one, because if she had taken it, that would have been an amazing trick.
)-Miranda
Joe and Sandra before going out scuba diving.
;)
The bus to Bantoc. Yes, those are geese on the roof. (Click to enlarge.)
;)
Rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)
;)
More rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)
;)
And yet more rice terraces. (Click to enlarge.)
Joe and me in front of the Banaue rice terraces.
An adorable puppy on the side of the road during our walk back to the hotel.
;)
A panorama of the area. (Click to enlarge.)
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We left the dive resort on Saturday and started our trek north towards the rice terraces. We caught a bus to Manilla, met Melissa (she has done a lot of work for Horse Isle) and spent some time with her at the Mall of Asia. From there we got on a cushy, overnight bus to Baguio. We arrived at 4:30am. From there we had to find the bus that went to Bantoc. Once we arrived at the bus station, we hopped on that bus, which was our first non-air-conditioned, uncomfy bus. There were even geese on the roof! This ride ended up being 5 hours long. We arrived in Bantoc, found lunch and then Joe wandered around looking for a place to stay while Sandra and I used internet at an internet cafe.
The day was mostly spent catching up on sleep and doing some wandering around town. The next morning, we packed up and caught the bus to Banaue. This ride was under 2 hours long, so not too bad. The views are stunning. There are rice terraces everywhere and we're high up in the mountains. Since we had the whole day, we found a hotel for the night and then went back up the hill to the look out for the terraces right next to the town. They are very neat. We've set up a 'tour' for tomorrow with a group of 4 people to help split the cost. We're going to see some other terraces, which includes an hour hike to a view, then another half hour to a waterfall. Hopefully it should be fun.
I don't have any of the photos uploaded to the computer yet. I'll get those posted once I can.
-Miranda
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The fireflies ended up being a lot of fun. We took a small boat up the river and right around when it was getting pretty dark, fireflies started appearing in the trees. They apparently live in the mangroves and synchronize their blinking with each other. It was very neat.
The next morning we got to the whale shark encounter place and headed right at 7:30. We were the first group out. Within 5 minutes, he told us to get ready! We were like, wha?? We all got our flippers and masks on then hopped in when our guide told us to. We swam along for a very short bit, then he told us to look down. All of a sudden the Whale Shark was came out of the murky water. So neat!! We ended up with about 5 encounters. It was either all with the same shark, or a couple different ones. The videos weren't great since it is huge and you can't see what your taping, but we still got some on video. This is from getting ready to go, jumping in, then seeing the shark.
Whale Shark (click to view)
-Miranda
Photos by Sandra (I'm getting lazy and not using my broken camera anymore. haha)
Rice patties.
Water Buffalo!
Moon over the river.
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