Weekend Trip up North

First headed to Git Git waterfall for a little morning FREEZING swim. Some shots of Arak made that a bit easier...but it was beautiful. Still had the voice of the travel nurse in the back of my head "Don't you dare swim in fresh water! There are parasites in it!"

O well...I couldn't resist...

Some beautiful flowers on the way there...I think I have a trillion photos of just flowers.

Offerings at the waterhole

At Lovina Beach on the north coast...it was very hot. Apparently at 6 a.m. dolphins swim right off the coast, maybe I'll make it next time. Although I'm not too into dolphins, saw and did that at Sea World.

The to the a sacred hot spring (air panas) that is supposed to cure disease...


So I'm not that into the healing powers of sulfur and thousands of bacteria...I lasted about two seconds in the hot spring. Something just made me feel like i was standing in a pool of piss.

We were lost for a good hour on the way back...a little bit of off-roading on empty, but no worries in Bali. We got some sweet views of the volcanoes to the West...

Our First Performance!...Let the dancing begin!

The preparation for Balinese dancing is very critical. It takes longer than the actual dancing and would probably be unbearable for any longer period of time. So we went to Bapak Nika's village to prepare for the dance in his village temple in Munggu where we were told not to dance for the audience, but for our (respective) god...I'll just say, I really hope I satisfied God, since, well, I'm no dancer...

But here is my prep...hair teasing, layers of foundation and makeup, fake lashes, painted lips...

The group in final form, pre-performance. I think we look pretty good/no one back home would recognize us...I'm on the bottom-left.

Also, pre-performance. At the temple finally, waiting to go on. There were other performances as well that night. It is still unclear to me if this was some kind of dance competition, or just a performance. Regardless, the kids running around the temple loved us. To them, I think seeing a white person in full Bali gear is the equivalent of a cat walking on its hind legs...

Mid-show. We did ok. Some costume pieces fell off...Sinu lost her whole hair piece. The audience laughed a lot. But I really am convinced it wasn't because we were THAT awful, rather, seeing bule's dance their dance is just hysterical to them. Then again, we could have been that bad...

Post-show. I look like the wicked witch of the west.

New Moon Again

The fireworks are going off in the distance...I wish we celebrated the new moon like this at home!

To those concerned, I did not feel the earthquake in Sumatra.

I spent my free day lounging on the beach...reading a great new book that I just found in my bag. Thank you to a wonderful, thoughtful colleague at GE, I now have amazing reading material and I highly recommend this book: The Innocent Anthropologist. I can't put it down!

Gunung Agung...BOOYAH

11:30 p.m.: Ready to Go

2:00 a.m.: Hike up the stairs to Puri Agung begins…At the temple our guides bring offerings, and we begin our trek.

3:00 a.m.: Takin’ a breather! One of many to sit back and watch the stars. I have never seen a night sky like this before. Headlamp off, and the shooting stars take off in all directions.

5:30 a.m.: The sky becomes a bit lighter in the distance. We’re above treeline, but can still only see the light from our headlamps in front of us…all starting to wonder how much further since our guide keeps repeating the same time over and over. (He also had a unique pattern of bolting ahead of us, then taking a nap while we caught up. I have never seen guides sleep on the job, let alone on a volcano)

6:00 a.m.: SUMMIT! We made it! And it’s freezing! But beautiful!

7:00 a.m.: OK, too cold now. And down we go…

7:15 a.m.: You can see literally all of southern Bali, east and west coast as well as the two islands Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Pendida. It is so beautiful…minus my wheezing from smoking too many clove cigarettes. Ugh.

10:30 a.m.: Still not there…lava flow from 1968 eruption.

11:00 a.m.: Pain in knees is beginning to become slightly irritating. So I sat and watched a sweet bug, some monkeys, and the beautiful flowers around me.

11:30 a.m.: FINALLY MADE IT.

GUNUNG AGUNG…check! Which peak’s next?

LOMBOK/GILI TRAWANGAN

So I was able to visit paradise this weekend with Astrid....

Our trip to Lombok began Friday before dawn. First to the Port Padangbai, where we caught a slow (and very cheap) ferry (extremely indo style) to Lombok. We rented a mattress to sleep on the deck for the same price as the ferry ticket....

After 4.5 hours of sleeping in the shade on the deck, I was burnt to a crisp. Awesome.

Finally, feel like I actually am in a muslim country! It has been interesting because the architecture is so different between Bali and Lombok because of the religions.

Awesome huts on the water at the port in Lembar.

Gili T in the background! Almost there!

A beautiful beach in Lombok. There is so much land for sale. And apparently its being bought up by the Saudis and being turned into the next hot vaca spot. They are currently constructing a major international aiport in Lombok as well to service the new resorts. Many locals were pushed off their land or paid virtually nothing for it.

Beach at Senggigi. We spent the night here before heading to Gili T. We woke up to the 6.4 Mag earthquake...glorious wake up.

After being tossed around at sea, Astrid is extremely happy to be back on land...GILI we made it!

Um...amazing.

Oh, and a rainbow...thank you god.

Ship off the coast...cool black sails?

Sweet Dr. Suess trees on the water. anyone know what kind they are?

Inviting.

even more inviting...

Offerings at Sea

Girl selling postcards...

Goa Lawah, Bat Cave Temple...smells like bat droppings...

Poor dog...

At the largest Temple in Bali, Besakih

On the beach outside the Bat Cave

Children playing the beach were putting on a show for us...