#geger beach

[majianguo]

We crawled underneath the rocks and discovered a hidden pura on the beach, at Pantai Geger.  Bli Okta and family really enjoyed this beach despite the fact that the waves were still too high for swimming.

[majianguo]

Pantai Geger - not a large beach but a rather unique one with a cave-like feel located next to one of the holiest temples in South Kuta, Pura Geger Dalem Pemutih.

[2amusings]

Outwards

[2curlyvegans]

Three is not a crowd in Bali

This is a very special post as its being co-written (or rather bullied into) by my childhood bestie Hasena.

After a somewhat bumpy and slightly hazy flight, we finally landed in the beautiful Indonesian island of Bali. As expected, as soon as you exit the airport, we were confronted by a whole host of uniformed taxi drivers.

Our driver although a friendly chatty chap, didn’t seem to know where he was going and had to ask numerous times what the name of our hotel was and asked the locals for directions. When we finally reached our destination, we learnt that the Nusa Puri hotel that we were looking for had changed its name to VOUK (and was called something else before that- so the name had changed three times in the space of two months). It was a beautiful place and we appeared to have the huge hotel resort to ourselves. If you ever go to Nusa Puri/VOUK/Mantra or whatever its name is gonna be, do try their Gabo Gabo which is a traditional Indonesian delicacy made with fresh vegetables, tofu, nut cake and a drizzle of spicy peanut sauce.

The local beach “Geger beach” was only a five minute drive away and we were escorted by the hotel tuk tuk. Hasena had the desperate urge for a massage and made friends with one the local beach masseuse. This masseuse kept coming back persuading not only Hasena (who always gave in!) but to also me and OK. Their tactic was to rub your feet and won’t stop until you give them a firm NO. Trust me, after the amount of walking we all did in KL and Singapore, a foot massage is definitely what the doctor would order. It was one of those “Yes, please carry on, no don’t I don’t want this, please stop, don’t stop…ahhhhh!” moments. After a couple of massage sessions, Hasena realised she was being ripped off as four local lady friends were charging 100,000 IDR (£5 GBP) instead of 60,000 IDR (£3 GBP) which is the market rate.

One thing we loved about Indonesia is their currency, because we always felt like millionaires. Their notes had extremely high denominations. We’d change £100 GBP at the Bureau de Change and was given $2M IDR. Hasena had to take a picture and send it to her family with the post “I’ve made it!”– We’re RICH, beyond our wildest dreams ;o)

Apart from the ever so rowdy Kuta (which was also the place where the devastating bombings occurred), Seminyak is the place to be in Bali. It’s a buzzing location filled with bars, restaurants and shops. This place was about a 30 minute drive away (which is about £5 GBP with a taxi). We spent many evenings there, mainly for dinner because we discovered an organic earthy restaurant called Earth Café. The restaurant also had a grocery section similar to Planet Organic in the UK but at the fraction of the cost so we bulked up with things to take home.  

Bali isn’t all just about paradise beaches, which is why we wanted to venture out. So we hired a driver called Made to show us what Bali is all about. He took us to Silver and Gold smiths, where Hasena and I would dribble over the precious stones and magnificent bespoke Indonesian designs and OK would sit in the corner keeping on a DL and play Backgammon on his phone hoping I wouldn’t drop hints on a certain piece of jewel I’d wish he would buy me ;o) Next stop was the Coffee and Cacao plantation and I kid you not, this place was absolute heaven for Hasena. After banishing her from any kind of coffee intake during her visit, she got away with experiencing different kinds of coffee in the name of culture- she was in total Euphoria (rolled eyes and all). However, one type of coffee she didn’t want to sample was the Luwak (Pea Berry) Coffee- which is supposed to be the most expensive coffee in the world as it is produced by an animal (looks a bit like a fox) pooping out the coffee bean, which is then roasted and grounded. I however needed to give this coffee a good go and for 50K IDR (£2.50 GBP) per cup, why not try a bit of shit once in your life…tastes like normal coffee though probably more nutritious.

You must go to Ubud because here is the home of Tampak Siring which is a holy water temple. Hasena heard that if you bathed under all circa twenty holy springs, it would enhance your beauty, health and wealth. So, we were all over this and made sure we bathed hard- the ritual was to wash your face three times, wash your mouth out three times, sip the water three times, and then wash your hair. There was an Indonesian school trip, where some of the students found us particularly fascinating and consistently took pictures of us and giggling as well.  

We discovered Made (our driver) was a yoga instructor and we requested he’d take us to his master who he kept banging on about- he told us the master had healing powers and the ability to read minds. But firstly, let’s rewind a little bit to explain why we were so eager to pay him a visit. As we were in a predominately Hindu region, we exposed to lots of information on Hindu related spiritual stuff for example Ayurveda, Chakra and the third eye. So, we hope a small visit to the master’s house would put our curiosity at rest. The next morning we woke up earlier than usual (6am) and drove three hours through steep mountainous roads and beautiful views of rice fields. We had to make a few stops along the way, as I have a very weak bladder. One of the toilet stops was a rather appealing one (I’m being sarcastic here)- as you’d probably imagine, it was a small room filled with all sorts of bugs and a hole in the floor. I had to go first as I was literally bursting and Hasena was contemplating being one with nature and do her business behind a banana tree-  but like a lady, she waited patiently. Unlucky, the toilet door was broken so OK took the job of holding it closed while I was in there. I took a little longer than normal having downed a huge coconut earlier and OK wasn’t making my experience in there anymore pleasant by yelling “What you doing in there? Hurry up!” me “Yes OK, you’re acting like I really want to be in here!!”.

A short nap in our tour bus later, we arrived at the master’s house. But first, we had to cross a river by foot! This meant getting a little wet- while OK and I sped through it, poor Hasena was strategically escorted hand-in-hand by Made (what a gentleman). This journey reminded me a lot of the film “Wizard of Oz” - Dorothy and her pals embarked on a journey to visit the wizard who lived miles away and had to encounter many inconveniences along the way. This journey is definitely one to tell the kids…The Master’s house was pretty run down in the middle of nowhere and we caught a naked man bathing in the river (literally washing his bum out). We were greeted by a host of people (who also took pictures of us) and the master who I imagined would be an old tanned, long white bearded skinny man with a turban. But he turned out to be a rather young, out of shape, casual kind of guy- I was a little disappointed (I should never stereotype). He was sitting in a school teacher type of desk with a white board near him- seemed he was giving a lecture. We felt slightly awkward because we interrupted his session and he didn’t get up to shake our hand- we also had to communicate with him through Made. I have to admit, I felt pretty nervous around him because I couldn’t help think that he knew exactly what I was thinking. For some reason all his attention was drawn towards me which made me feel even more nervous. He lectured us about yoga and why it’s is important, he asked us questions around our beliefs. He then offered to perform a ritual that he referred to as a blessing- I politely declined and Hasena politely fell asleep. I had to knock her a couple of times as her snoring was getting louder and louder- you can’t take her anywhere! He seemed pretty offended we didn’t take up on this offer, but it definitely wasn’t a wasted journey.

I’m letting Hasena rate Bali this time round. The experience was phenomenal and the people were super nice. She concludes that apart from her initial coffee/meat/fish/dairy/eggs withdrawal symptoms and a rather seaweedy (and sometimes cold by her standards) beach- she’s giving Bali a whopping 9 out of 10!