Beach, White Water and Elephants, Bali!

Long time no post?,

Well my visa was once again running short. I had no current plans on what to do, but with my parents and my aunt going to Bali it seemed like a perfect place to go and see them. Not having seem my oldies since I left Aus last year.

Sông (my girlfriend) had also expressed a interest in coming along, so with a few weeks out we booked the tickets and accommodation and prepared for a bit of sun and surf.

It was the first time Sông had been outside of Vietnam, even northern Vietnam at that. So it was a blast showing her how to get through customs and on the plane, something I had been doing since I was knee high. The plane took off and I had booked her a window seat, the smile was from ear to ear.

We had a small stop over in Kuala Lumpur before we joined our second flight to Bali (Indonesia).

It was bucketing down when we arrived, the streets were flooded. We had a taxi pick us up from the airport and take us to the hotel. I almost fell over when we arrived, the hotel was covered in carvings and sculptures and I was only paying 30$ a night, I could have sworn the hotel would charge us $50+.  It was midnight and we crashed. 10 hours on getting from Vietnam to Bali it was a long trip.

Mum and Dad

The next day we woke up quite late, I had forgotten the time change and what my watch said was 9am was 11am.. oops.  Oh well we headed out to lunch and to buy Sông and myself some new swim gear, the stuff I had from Aus was very loose now and looked old. After a nice large lunch we were lazing about at the pool when my Aunt (Bente) and Anders walked in and greeted us. It wasn’t long after they left that my parents arrived and said hello as well. We had all managed to meet in Bali at the same time ;)

That night we headed out as a group for beer and dinner and a good long chat.

The next day was a nice relaxing one by the beach, a few cold beers as well and discussing what to do in the limited time we had together, we had all agreed that white water rafting would be fun, and so we planned the next few days of adventure.

The following day we had booked ourselves onto a white water rafting trip, this was going to be fun. Sông could not swim and so I was very worried about this but it was clear after the first 10 min of rafting that this was something I didn’t have to worry about. 


The smile on her face was from ear to ear and was laughing the whole way down.

The rapids were not big but they were constant, it made for a relaxing but enjoyable trip and we continually bumped into people and pushed there boats up onto the rocks, it was funny making other groups stuck as we just bounced off and moved on our way down the river.

After 1 hour of rafting we stopped at a small waterfall for some drinks and photos. Then we continued down the river for another 2 hours of rafting to the finish. About ½ way towards the end there was a 5 meter drop over a dam, and we had to lay down and sit in the bottom of the boat. Then we went over the waterfall.

At the end there was a nice lunch waiting us.

The following day we again had to get up early but this time we travelled to the top of a mountain to a view of a old volcano, you could clearly see the old lava flows. It was very pretty to see the view, and after a small lunch we hopped on some mountain bikes for a 3 hour bike ride (down hill) to the bottom of the mountain.

Over the course of the time we passed lots of small villages. It was a nice easy ride and the time really passed quickly. The villages seemed to blend into one the further we got down the mountain we went.

We stopped off at a small “traditional” house but it was very run down and the owner was not happy to see us at all. So I didn’t take any pictures of this.

That afternoon we went for a walk around Sanur to see what was happening in town before relaxing at the pool and going swimming.

The next morning we headed of on a safari trip, today we were going to a elephant park in Bali. After a extremely long bus ride we arrived at the park.

We were immediately asked to head to the elephant riding platform. On the path were some large fish ponds and it was feeding time. The fish were almost jumping out of the tank into the food bag.

We were immediately able to see the elephants, they had a baby elephant practicing in the arena for later. Then we waited for a short while before hopping on the back (in a chair) of a large female elephant which took us for a long hour long walk around the park. Our Elephant was called naughty because she was exactly that. Every few minutes it would stop and start to eat plants on the side of path.

After the ride we headed to the feeding and picture area and got to stand right next to the elephants and pat them, if we stood in front they would put a ring of flowers over our headed then put there trunks on top of our head, very funny.

Sông and I had some bananas from breakfast in our bag and were aloud to feed it to the elephants. As soon as I opened up the bag they (the elephants) could all smell it and went nuts trying to reach my bag with there trunks. Sông got permission from the keepers to hand feed them the bananas. Then the keepers wheeled out a bin full of palm tree bits cut up and the feeding time began.

After lots of photos and playing it was time to head to the arena and watch a show of how skilled the elephants are. They did math’s, paintings and played ball booting a soccer ball over the other side of the park.

Then it was time to head home and out for a nice big dinner all together again.

The last day with my family we headed on a sailing ship to a small island for the day. 


We were all first on the boat and as such managed to take up all the front deck chairs so no other passengers could take them. It was nice and sunny, song borrowed some of my parents sun cream and it very tick and didn’t spread well. She looked so funny all with the tick sun cream all over her face ;).

We arrived at the island and Sông and I, left the others to go snorkeling while we headed on a glass bottom boat to go fish watching, it was very clear water and we could easily see the bottom of the ocean floor and the massive amount of corals and fish. 


It was very nice. My camera was able to take some nice photos through the glass.

After a massive lunch Sông and my mum and bente headed inland to see seaweed farming and local houses. 

Sông with Bente and Anders

While Dad and I went fishing and spend some time on our own. It was a nice relaxing afternoon and a good way to end the time with our family members. That evening we said farewell to my parents, the next time I see them will be in July/August.

Sông and I still had 1 week so we relaxed for 1 day by the pool and the next day headed to the airport to go to a new island called Flores for a week long trip over the entire island. But that’s for another blog.

Queue Silly Face!

                      

Till next time,

HAVE FUN!

Steffen