Ubud is said to be the creative and cultural capital of Bali. There are lots of arts and crafts elements here. Both from local artist but also the general junk available all over the world.
When it comes to yoga, I don’t think there is any place on Bali near what Ubud offers. A lot if this is because if Yoga Barn.
We had our first session there yesterday and again two today. The campus is huge. Basically Yoga Barn is an industry in itself. There are several yoga studios on the premises, a cafe with food and drinks and a healing “department” as well. Continue reading
Category Archives: Indonesia
Ubud update
Those who have followed or blog since the first small post may remember our boasting about “renting a house in Ubud”. This was, after buying the plane ticket, the first thing we booked for the trip. Six weeks in a house with others, living happily ever after…. (Insert picture of cute cats, adorable babies and beautiful sunsets)
But NO! Mental note to self and fellow travelers: Never book so long a stay over the internet. Continue reading
Goodby Lombok, Hello Bali (again)
Green Asri hotel has been a great experience. It is located a little distance from Senggigi center (5 minutes with the local Bemo which costs 4000 IDR or 18.000 for taxi).
It is quiet, very well maintained and with a very friendly staff. They have been very helpful on all occasions. They really live up to their slogan: small, comfortable, friendly. The rooms are large with really comfortable beds. Katja especially knows this as she spent most of yesterday in bed with a bad stomach, she’s better now but skips breakfast this last day here before we head back to Bali, Ubud, by boat. Continue reading
Happy August 17th
Today, 3 months after Norway celebrated its national day, Indonesia does the same.
The Dutch held Indonesia since sometime in the 17th century, and the Japanese from 1942-1945. Indonesia declared independence a few days before the Japanese capitulation at the end of WWII. Still, the Dutch held on tight and there were fighting and UN mitigation before they were self governed in 1949.
It’s been a long journey to the stability and peaceful nation Indonesia is to day. The first fair election of government happened in 1999, and Indonesia is now the third heavily populated democracy (253,6 million), and the worlds largest Muslim-majority (87,2 %) country in the world.
It’s easy to get the Muslim part as there are lots of women in hijab, the mosques starts their prayers at 05:00 and there are prayer mats to be seen. At the same time is there a lot more freedom to be had than in a lot of other Muslim governed states. There are no strict rule about alcohol, it seems. In more rural areas all the farmers brew their own wine. And all drink it; women and children included.
And there are more women without hijabs than with, here at Senggigi on Lombok.
We have also learned that there are at least six languages just here on Lombok that hold 3.8 million people. They have a common language for Indonesia to make communication possible, but do not understand the languages between them.
At today’s celebration of independent day, we saw …….(drum roll)……
Nothing!
There have been a few banners showing the national colors of red and white, but nothing more. All stores are open, the sales people at the beach carry on, the restaurants serve their food and all is normal. It was a little more people than normal on the beach this evening. Possible they got the afternoon of work or it may be normal for a Sunday.
And it looks like a pig sty after them. It is unbearable to see how the locals just throw garbage down around them. Seconds before these last lines are written a man at the neighboring table uses a napkin and just throws it on the floor. We saw it in the mountains, we see it in the streets and on the beach. OK, Indonesia is a developing country but one would think that keeping it decent around one self was more natural than this.
Another cultural thing that still baffles me is the use of “self whitening creams”. Where we westerners hold the sun brown skin in high esteem for both women and men, several of the Asian countries are into “the whiter the better”. So we have to be constantly aware when buying after sun lotion, so not to end up with one that takes away all those hours at the beach during the night.
But first, let me take a selfie:
And the obligatory sunset picture. As the beach we use is facing the west
Sunset @ Senggigi beach
And finally as we have posted few food pictures do we present: Grilled snapper fillet with fried rice and Lombok spicy sauce.
Mt. Rinjani – day 3 & 4
The third day started after about 12 hours of sleep. We crashed hard last night after both the summit trek and the trek down to the crater lake.
Down here at the lake it is a lot of locals. It turns out that this is an important site for celebrating the upcoming national day 17th of August. Lots and lots of people gathers here to fish in the lake and just chill out. Mostly men, though.
Locals at the crater
We were told that the last president had flown up in a helicopter and set out 2000 fish in the lake. I’m not sure how long they will last with all this people around. There were many there when we left, but according to our guide it will be thousands upon thousands from all over Lombok there this next Sunday.
As every day we got a healthy breakfast and set about for our trek. We were to go up the crater on the other side and down maybe an hour on the other side. We did so much more…
Steep climbing
More steep climbing
The climb up the crater is from 2000-2600 meters and much of it is pretty straight up. We spent 2 hours on the climb and came to the crater rim to a spectacular view. All pictures promoting Rinjani is basically taken from this point. With a great view of the lake, the active inner volcano and the Rinjani summit itself.
Panorama from the crater rim
The we started on the trek downhill. “Maybe down to waterfall”, said our guide Aman. We agreed and started walking – for another 6 hours. On the last part of the trek I was walking on pure willpower. With 22 out of the last 54 hours spent on walking, mostly climbs or descents, my legs were shaking, blisters appeared, toes and toenails were begging for mercy and I smelled like your average local hobo.
Local hobo smell coming your way
But on and on we went. Down through thick jungle and slippery slopes. We saw both grey and black monkeys on the way. And finally, there was the waterfall. After 8,5 hours of walking did we see the yellow tent.
But it just got better. The waterfall is not just for pretty pictures, it’s for showering. So we got undressed, got in and under and washed so much of the filth, dust, smell and grit away. It was heavenly! As the pictures show it is a rather large drop and the pressure is high. It holds about 17-18 centigrade and thereby more than I would have thought.
The waterfall
Into the waterfall
Showering in the waterfall
Dinner, brush teeth, sleep.
Day 4 started out at 7:30 where we walked the last 30 minutes to Johns hotel. Just enough to claim a fourth day of trekking. 🙂
From there we were taken to our new hotel in Senggigi further south west on the island. Here we have already booked the ferry back to
Bali, gotten a haircut and leg wax (guess who did what?) and we both had a massage. The calves and front of thighs hurt like a ________ (fill In blank) but I guess it will be worse tomorrow.
All in all it’s been a great adventure. We can highly recommend both the Rinjani trek and Johns Adventure, but there are some does and don’ts:
– Bring trekking shoes. You will have a better time, and you will not ruin your shoes.
– Bring warm cloths. It is freezing on the top (literary). Would you do shorts in that temp and heavy wind back home?
– Drink enough. We brought a little extra water, but just make sure you keep hydrated. We have camelback that let’s us take small sips easily. We used these every 15 min to keep the intake at a good level. It also helped us break down every trek into smaller parts.
– Bring a head torch. If you can get the head mounted torch. You need both hands to the summit, or to the toilet tent at night.
– Eat. Whatever you are served by your porter, eat it. You need the fuel.
– Bring some extra snack you like and that will give you energy. Chocolate, nuts, bars… As long as it gives you that little kick.
-Stay positive. When walking upwards it’s easy to let theirs wander to negative places. Look at where you will place your feet next and the top will be conquered.
Sunset on the first ridge
We talked a lot about the feeling of achievement we got from this. Knowing we can take this kind of “heat” straight on makes us sure we will enjoy a lot of other treks this upcoming year.
Right now it’s Bintang time! Cheers!
Bintang time
Mt. Rinjani day 2
Ai ai ai! After dinner yesterday we fell asleep around 19:00. We were dead tired from the days climb and went out like babies.
The sleep was so and so all the time people were passing 20 cm from our head and talking in all sorts of languages. But there is no rest for the wicked and 01:58 the alarm went off. We got tea and crackers for a light breakfast. What we achieved on that fuel is beyond our comprehension.
The trek up to the summit on 3726 meters starts easy enough. With a trek through the camp that was much bigger than we knew. But the steep climb came soon enough. With basically just gravel under foot, you take two steps forward and one step back (who remember Paula Abdul?). It is extremely tiresome! We are both pretty fit but this trek took all we got. We walked with head torches and all we saw was the meter and a half ahead of us. Aman had put a blinking light on his backpack and it guides us along. He was clear that we needed to pass some of the slower people as they would hold us back when the track narrowed further up.
We just looked down, took one step – collected one win. Another step, another win. Man, this was hard. I’m sort of out of words to describe it, and that is something that rarely happens.
Katja & Aman – dressed for the cold
On top of the hardship of the trek came the cold. We were dressed in windbreakers, long sleeved technical underwear, wool sweatshirt, hats and gloves. We were freezing cold! When we finally arrived at the summit we were shaking. We took out all other clothes from the backpack and put them on. Still we were not getting warm. We managed to get the mandatory picture with the sign, though. Done by pure willpower and a guide who took his gloves of long enough to take the picture.
Rinjani Summit 3726 meters
We moved down 50-60 meters to find shelter for the howling wind together with a lot of others. We had done good and was 45 minutes early for the sunset. So we had some time to kill in the cold dark night. Aman, our magical guide had brought hot tea, a sleeping bag and crackers. We all huddled together under the bag, rubbing each other for warmth and focusing on all the lights coming up the hill. All the people we knew would not make it to sunrise… When we saw how far they still had to go.
Finally! 6:15 the sun came up. There were cheers on the mountain top from people who had conquered both themselves and the mountain. Personally I had tears in my eyes and can straight up say I have never worked so hard for seeing the sun rise. It was beautiful!
The sunrise on Mt. Rinjani
And immediately we started on the decent. In the same gravel as we struggled up we slipped and slided back down. This is dry season and the dust was just unbearable. So many people, so much dust! And for the people still on their way up we must have made their day much harder. We got down, got a big breakfast, slept for 30 min- got back up, packed the bags and started the days second trek.
Straight down into the crater down to the lake. Almost uneventful, but three more hours downhill took its toll. We saw grey monkeys.
Halfway down to the crater
Panorama view of the crater
But behold! In the crater there are hot springs that hold about 40 degrees. We got in, stayed awhile and got out fresher than before. It was heavenly.
Hot springs in the crater
The difference on our 4 day/3 nights and the one shorter is they do the climb this afternoon that we do tomorrow. We are presently chilling by the lake in the crater. Have had a nice nap, and are now sipping tea with a great view. But Katja has gotten blister on both heals today and have pain in some toes also. Right now she is uncertain if she will live to tell this story.
Worth mentioning are our porters as well. They started out with 40 kg packs and move faster in flip-flops than we do in trekking boots. Today they went past us twice. And when we came to the break in the trek they already had the lunch ready. And now they are preparing dinner. Aleks and Dama (formerly known as “the other guy”) are great chefs, puts the clients first and are all smile and good spirit. We have been served banana pancakes, vegetable soup, fried chicken, rice and freshly cut fruit. All good, all delicate and fresh.
I will do a review of Johns Adventure on tripadvisor and publish the link here for all good things to say about the crew.
Now it is evening and time to relax. Tomorrow we will start trekking at 9, hopefully well rested.
To infinity and beyond – The trekking of Mt. Rinjani day 1
So we’ve been offline for a few days. No phone, no internet and no electricity. Here is what we’ve been doing:
Long before our departure from Norway was it decided that we wold trek Mt. Rinjani the second week of the tour. We looked up different companies that offer services for this. TripAdvisor was once more an
Important tool for deciding which one to choose. I read a lot of reviews and we fell down on John’s Adventure –rinjanimaster.com.
And it all started with the trip from Bali to Lombok…
We had made arrangement with John for pickup at the harbor where our boat came in, but things are not always on schedule in Indonesia. We had booked tickets for the 8:30 ferry from Padang Bai with pickup at Puri Santrian Hotel at 6:45. It’s an hour drive from the hotel to Padang Bai. When the clock was 7:00 we called the. Ferry Company about the pickup. “Right there. Only five minutes away”
Yeah, right!
We got picked up at 7:30, but we were not the only stop on the way. Four more people were to be picked up, and the driver had no idea about where the hotels where. We drove around and around and when we finally left Sanur area our boat left the harbor.
The drive, as I wrote , was to take one hour. We used a little more than two. So we had 20 minutes to get on the boat that left at 10:30. The boat ride was OK. Pretty new boat and we left on time. But the ride didn’t take 1:05 hours as described, it took a little over 2 houses. Do you begin to see the pattern?
The boys at Taluk Nare
The beginning
We got ashore on Lombok at Taluk Nare. There we were to be picked up- 3 hours ago.
They guys at the harbor all offered their services but a call to John and pickup was again on the road to us. Since we were up early and had an early breakfast we were getting cranky and needed food, but there were no food stalls in sight. But making new friends is always positive. We ended up with the local guys who waited to attack the next batch of passengers coming ashore and ate with them. For NOK 4,- (0,50 €) we got a great meal of rice, noodles, chicken, sambal and veggies. It tasted great. And we waited. But we had great entertainment. We talked to the local guys about martial arts, Guns ‘n Roses, Steven Segal and prostitution (no money, no honey, no hanhu, no hehe) I think you all can guess the meaning of the last to phrases without seeing the faces on these guys. 😉
But John delivered and we got our transport to Senaru village.
We paid our dues to John and got a hotel room. Quite descent and spacious. And with hot water in the shower. A briefing on the next days adventure and off to bed.
Back up at 5:45 and taking a shower. Then we had pancakes 🙂 for breakfast. And the off with our guide Ahmman and our two porters Alex and the other guy. 🙂
We started our climb at 1100 meters and ended today’s trek on 2600 meters. It took us 6 hours and 20 minutes including the long lunch (close to 2 hours). And it was steep and dusty. Really really dusty. We are here in the dry season and they has not been rain for ages. It’s so dry we had dust all over our bodies. All openings and basically all skin.
Covered in dust
Hole in the ground toilet
Right now we are chilling in chairs, sipping tea and eating fried bananas outside the tent and will soon be served dinner. The tent is up, sleeping bags laid out and we have bearly lifted a finger for this to happen. We even got ourselves a Privat toilet tent. Yup, hole in the ground toilet- with style. Hours in the gym with squats, lounges, dead lift and boxjump really paid off today!
We will turn in early as we will be woken at 2. We will start trekking again at 2:30 to reach the sunrise at 6:15 on the summit. We will climb 1100 more meters tomorrow.
Balinese culture
It’s hard to do a short post on Balinese culture, but I’m gonna try.
For a long long time ago the Hindus of Indonesia fled to Bali to avoid the rule of the Muslims. They brought with them (naturally) their customs and the Hindus and the local Balinese merges into one big happy religious family. That means that a lot of the local arts and dances is religiously connected. Balinese dance is widely know for its form. It is vibrant, colorful and unique.
(we have some videos of the local dancers and a little surprise for you as well. Right now the internet connection is to slow)
And most visual is maybe the offerings everybody put out. Small baskets containing avert thing form sweets, money, cigarets and flowers. These offerings are meant to please the nice spirits and keep at bay the bad ones.
It is not so much WHAT you offer, but the fact that you DO make an offer that counts. These offerings you will find in front of stores, restaurants and houses. All for receiving good fortune and prosperity.
And all people (Hindi) in Bali is connected to a shrine of some sort. It can by decided by your inheritance, workplace, geography or something else. To the shrine / temple you belong, hyou make offerings as well.
Last but not least is the thing called Karma. As we got it explained it can happen in three dimensions.
– instant Karma
you reap what you sow. Immediate and swift repay for your actions
– Tomorrow or the day before you die.
You don’t know which but it will happen one of these two days
– your bloodline
Your action reflects on your bloodline as well. So your kids have to carry your burden or reap your reward.
This is what keeps a lot of people pretty honest.
We can pretty much rule out that the Police (Polisi) are good Hindi, if we are to believe what we here around here.
Good bye Puri Santrian
It’s Monday morning 0600 and we are ready for take off. Next stop Lombok, by ferry. The stay at Puri Santrian has be a pure pleasure! The compound is beautiful, the staff lovely, the walk along the beach good for walks at all hours and the surrounding area full of nice little restaurants. Off course you also have all the small sales stalls and massage places. The “vendors” always have a “good offer” when you pass by but they are not pushy or “touching” and accept a no thank you. The drivers and taksis are everywhere and honk every time they see a “prospect”. If you don’t go with Bluebird, which drive by meter (starting price 6000 IDR), we noticed that the running price for “everywhere” is 150 000 IDR that is if your going just down the street or going across the island 🙂
We took yoga classes at the hotel in the morning and the instructor felt a little like Ketut (from Eat, love, pray) and gave us a good start of the day.
When you are up early it’s amazing to see all the stuff that falls down and “stirs” up the pathways and grass. So from dusk to dawn you always hear the soothing sound off brooms, brooming the grounds so it always looks nice.
The hotel also offers 2 happy hours! The normal one in the bar from 1600 to 1900 and, the one I liked :-), buy one and get one for free in the SPA from 0900-1300! So I got myself a 2 hours tension release massage and the 1 hour “free” facial 🙂 The spa is a beautiful house with the nicest atmosphere and really makes you feel calm and relaxed.
We even “got” ourselves a dog while here. It was this black dog that showed up out of nowhere and followed us around everywhere. Lots of dogs all over the place but all friendly (but Nina, not a place for you :-)). There was also this one light colored dog that we found in one of the chair groups outside our room. He was there every evening and when we went by he didn’t move an inch sort of “if I don’t move they don’t see me and then I can stay”. This was obviously his “house” so we just greeted him a good night 🙂
We just said goodbye to the nice “oatmeal” lady that made us oatmeal for breakfast and are now waiting for the buss to take us to the ferry, so tudela, and “see” you in Lombok!
If the pictures are not showing, they will be uploaded later 🙂 so stay tuned!!!
Happy day 🙂
Short update
We have now been off the grid for a few days. Several posts are written but not yet published. So look out for a rush of posts as soon as all pictures are sorted and text is proof read.
In the meanwhile, stay frosty. 🙉🙈🙊
kogatravel 
