I'm back! (Bali 2012 re-cap)

Yep, here I am, ready to share my thoughts on Bali, and how my expectations compared with the reality. I must say I think I had a very polite introduction to the Bali experience. Firstly, it wasn't the busiest tourist season (thankfully). Secondly, the villa we stayed in was paradise. I could have stayed there for all 7 days, never moving from my deck chair or from the depths of the aquamarine pool. But of course I wasn't in Bali just to hang out "at home".

"Our" pool from the living area.

I looked forward to...
In my previous blog post, I mentioned things I was looking forward to in Bali (massages, beautiful food, not swimming in the ocean, fishbowl cocktails, and the wedding). I did have beautiful food but not all of it was Balinese (my favourite was Thai, unsurprisingly), and lots of massages. I did not have one single fishbowl cocktail. Very disappointing. I did have other cocktails, though. I did swim in the ocean, on one day at least. The rest of the time, I swam in that beautiful pool. And yes, I did make it to the wedding!

The entrance to our villa.

Weather...

Apparently a ginger flower?

This time of year in Bali isn't too hot, comparatively. For people hailing from colder climes, it might cause heat stroke. But for me it was tolerable. Most of the time. I was sometimes being grumpy due to slight overheating. I looked forward to getting home to the Aussie winter, even as I wallowed in the pool and guzzled cocktails.

Being a tourist...

The Thai laksa thingy that
heated things up even more.

Mum and I went to Waterbom Park one day. It was the most touristy part of our trip, I'd say. We only stayed for half a day. It was silly fun. Later that day, I visited Balangan Beach, not far from Jimbaran Bay, and watched the guys surf (boooring! The non-surfing company was fun though). I also went for a swim in the lagoon there. It was really shallow but surprisingly refreshing (not tepid as I had expected).

Culture...?

A musical instrument
I wanted to bring home.

The day after the wedding, we drove out to Ubud, where I was hoping to see more of the Balinese landscape off the beaten track. Alas, I didn't see much at all beyond more busy streets and teeming markets. We passed the monkey forest, but with a two-month-old baby in tow, hanging out with cheeky Balinese monkeys wasn't on the cards. We spent most of our time in the Ubud market. I bought some cool stuff. On the way back to our villa, we saw some rice paddies, but they weren't those giant ones I'd hoped to glimpse.

Frangipani walkway
at the wedding.

The wedding...
We were not the only spectators at the ceremony (a crowd of locals gathered to watch from the sidelines, and other tourists also looked on with interest). It was a fairly small gathering but for my brother it brought most of his old gang (scattered to the nine winds nowadays) back together again in their old stomping ground. I also saw people I hadn't seen since I was a little kid.

The ugly bits...
In conclusion, the main bad parts of the trip were: 1) seeing stray, mangy, slat-ribbed dogs and cats that nobody is taking care of, that would be better off being shot, 2) knowing that the majority of people in Bali work super hard for very little reward, and 3) two of our party getting Bali belly the night of the wedding, and having a pretty nasty time of it.