Our voyage to Bali was blessed and speedier than we had anticipated. Instead of a 12 hour layover in Taipei we traded up for a two hour wait (though unfortunately forfeiting our vegetarian meals; a small price to pay for a sooner landing in Paradise). Damn I love China Airlines with their cheap flights and awesome veggie meals :)
Our welcome to Paradise was superb! We were met by Sven's friend Budi (Boo-dee), his wife and his brother who whisked us off from Denpasar Airport to the breathtaking mountain, country side of Ubud. Staring out the window with a wicked grin on my face, my eyes were met with every possible art-form. From the beauty Gaia herself created, to wood carvings, spectacular ornately carved doors, sculptures, paintings, jewellery, and everything in between! The scenery of the city melted away into houses and family compounds on what I, at the time, had thought were small back roads. And later found out were just regular roads (they're all really tiny roads).
As we crept closer to Ubud, the scenery finally converged into massive of amounts of green, beautiful ornate entrances to houses, temples, and what seems like infinite rice paddies in every direction, trimmed with jungle.
Our first week here has been amazing! Ripping around on a motorcycle! Which was only $120 bucks for the month! So stoked on that =) Meeting so many amazing people, and seeing this unreal beauty everywhere, that is so integrated into the culture itself. So far we've seen the Bali Bird Park (where I totally ran around picking up feathers of the ground everywhere! And sneaking my hand into habitats grabbing some good ones that caught my eye!) and reptile Park, coming face to face with the dreaded Komodo Dragon (o-my-good-goddesss we saw a DRAGON!!!!! =D!!!)
Met Alex Grey at an amazing party a couple houses down from ours, taken a silver smithing course and made a wicked lotus star ruby ring! Yesterday we went to Lake Batur, a crater lake under neath Mt. batur (a Volcano!!! =) However it was like 2 bucks just to ride around in the area and the pollution and smog was so thick we could barely see the mountain itself. So we opted out waiting for a day of heavy rain to go up again in hopes of a clearer sky and epic photos.
However on the way down back to Ubud we stumbled upon on a agricultural property set up for tourist to see how Cocoa, Coffee, Vanilla, cardamom, pepper, cinnamon and many other spices are grown! We had an amazing time there and sat under a little roof on the terraced hillside trying all there different coffees and teas. Including the incredibly rare Luwuk Coffee; which are coffee berries that are eaten by a civet (super amazing mongoose or weasel like creature that picks and eat the best coffee berries) and passes them through its system. So people wander through the forest picking up civet poop and then roast the coffee beans. It had an interesting earthy flavour ( i wonder why..... =-S) and tasted a lot less acidic than regular coffee.
Isaac and Kaery flew in last night and have joined the crew at our brilliant Palace! And i think today we'll head of to the beach and a long awaited swim in the ocean!
Hope everyone is doing brilliantly where ever you are! So much love friends! And Thanks for reading! <3
Hi Sara, check out the 'GREEN SCHOOL' in Bali. Might give you and Russ some ideas.
ReplyDeleteLove & hugs !!