Indonesia (Bali): Part Two (Kuta and Nusa Penida)

We left from our Homestay in Ubud using an Uber. Although the host at our Homestay was awesome, he did insist on trying to have us book car services, tours, etc. through him, but at a much higher cost than what we could find on the street. Because of this, we had to tell him that the next hotel had actually sent the car, although he saw right through our bluff (the Uber was about 1/4 of the price of him hiring a driver). It was about an hour drive but we finally arrived to our place near Kuta beach: a Marriott? Yes, we decided to "splurge" a little bit on our accommodation for this one. After reading some travel websites and hearing another blogger who used their hotel rewards points, Kyle remembered that he had some saved up from work travels. For a ridiculously small amount of points we were able to book a comfortable room, although it wasn't really near the beach (but it was free, so who can complain)?

The Kuta area was much more like the Bali we were expecting (we actually stayed in Legian, but it was all pretty much one interconnected beach town). There were tons of tourists and most of the buildings were big, expensive resorts or big, expensive restaurants and bars. After having some reprieve on prices in Ubud, we were afraid that we had run out of cheap things to do in Bali. After walking around a bit, though, we found out that if you know where to look, there were still some great deals to be had. On our first night, as we were wandering though the town by restaurants that were getting pricier and pricier, we stumbled upon a little outdoor food court area with 4-5 cool spots to eat, cheap beer, and live music. Best of all, the dishes were only $2-3 and well within budget.

On our first full day in the area, we woke up early to drop off laundry (it cost $6 total for washing and drying) and to grab breakfast at a little stall next door. It was another place where we just pointed at random things for them to add to a rice plate, but it was much cheaper than the buffet at the Marriott and the ladies at the stall were happy to serve us (you could tell they did not get many people from the resorts at their place). We hung by the pool for a couple of hours (disappointingly, our pool was almost always in the shadow of the hotel) and then wandered the beach for a couple of more hours, doing some souvenir shopping on the way. Kuta/Legian beaches consist of miles of uninterrupted, fine golden sand. There were a lot of cabanas/beach side chairs with vendors yelling for us to sit down, and dozens of surf rental stands, but even with these there was plenty of room to maneuver and enjoy the beach. On our way back, we were stopped in the street by a salesman holding pamphlets with a scratch-off lottery on the back. While we knew it was sales pitch, we allowed him to walk through it and after scratching off the back, of course Nicole had won the "grand prize." All we had to do was schedule a time to sit through a vacation-package seminar, and we would get either $200, a Go-Pro, or a free 7-night stay in one of their 30 resorts across the globe. Now, normally we would ignore these things and spend the time elsewhere...but time is one commodity that we have on this trip, so we decided to schedule our meeting a couple of days out and see if we could fight through the red tape and actually get our prize. The salesman looked like he was the real lottery winner when we told him to pick us up the following Monday.

That evening, back at the hotel, we arrived just in time for a happy hour drink by the pool and to participate in one of their nightly events. The event that night was a bartending lesson, where we learned how to mix up "mocktail" versions of several cocktails, then were able come up with some combinations of our own. Nicole pretty much dominated as her background as a bartender paid off. The real bartender even talked about adding her mixture to the menu. Kyle, on the other hand , had the bartender adding a few ingredients to his mixture to make it palatable. Kyle likes to think that his showmanship was top notch though. After another cocktail, a real one this time, at the bar we wandered back down to our cool food court area and tried some more mie goreng (fried noodles) and noodle soup (again, the local food options were pretty much limited to fried rice, fried noodles, soups, and chicken).

The next morning we were up bright and early to catch a ferry over to Nusa Penida, a nearby island. Unfortunately we were up before any of the breakfast food stalls, so we grabbed some instant noodles from a 7/11. After that we took an Uber to the ferry port, hopped on the upper deck of our boat, and we were off towards the island. We had booked a tour of the island that included snorkeling, beach time, lunch, and a personal driver (this was pretty much the same tour package that everyone books, but we were able to find it cheap using info from our WhatsApp group for Bali). When we got to Nusa Penida, however, our driver/guide was nowhere to be found. After about an hour of back and forth, we finally found him, and he shuffled us over to the snorkeling place where we joined a group. Our snorkeling time included stops at four spots. Three of them were the same, with crystal-clear, turquoise waters over coral reefs with colorful fish. We were more interested in the other spot though, which was deeper water with giant manta rays swimming around! We were able to follow a few, and whenever you poked you head above water the boat drivers were happy to act as spotters to show you where the next one was.

After snorkeling we split off from the group and were driven to an inland lunch spot that served mie goreng and nasi goreng (fried rice and fried noodles, like always). From there, we headed to Kelingking Beach (sometimes called T-Rex beach for it's dinosaur-like shape, as seen from above). Our driver wanted us to quickly stop by the viewpoint (which was, indeed, pretty amazing) before moving on. He said that the way down to the beach was steep, dangerous, and took way too long. That sounded like a challenge to us, so we took him up on it and let him know that we were heading down. He said that he'd head down as well, and led the way. It took around 45 minutes to reach the bottom, as we had to pass many sweaty, terrified people along the way. It was actually quite steep and dangerous (especially in flip flops!), but we were able to manage it just fine and the beach below was well worth it. It had the finest, whitest sand we had seen, clear waters, and beautiful waves crashing into the beach (one of which knocked Kyle over and almost swept him out to sea). The journey back up ended up being quicker, as we didn't have to be quite as deliberate with our steps on the way down. Our driver/guide struggled a bit with the experience, so we had to let him rest at the top a bit before we were on our way.

Unfortunately, our guide let us know that we would not have time to see the last beach (we were disappointed, as we knew we could have been much more efficient by ourselves vs having guide, but there was nothing we could do about it). Arriving back a bit early to the port, we found a smoothie spot to relax until our departure. We took the ferry back and tried a new spot for dinner, another outdoor area. This time we sat on mats on the ground and, in addition to our rice and soup, ordered some Nasi Jinggo (for 6,000 rupiah, or 40 cents) as well, although we didn't know what it was. It ended up being a dish consisting of rice, shredded pork, egg, sautéed vegetables, chile peppers, and some sambal sauce. It was one of the best things we tried in Indonesia!

The following morning it was finally time to head to our vacation rental seminar, which we were instantly regretting signing up for. Beforehand, we headed to the nearby market to get breakfast if more nasi jingga and banana. The brochure said all we had to do was sit through a 1-hour pitch, which we could ensure, and we would be on our way with our windfall. It ended up being much more involved, though, as we had to sit through a sales-type conversation on the 40 minute drive, and then a combined pitch and tour that was much closer to 3 hours when we got there. They were trying to sell us a vacation package that committed us to their resort brand for 25+ years, but we stuck to our guns and ended with a polite, yet firm, "not interested." After that they wanted nothing to do with us, but we walked away with a 7-day resort voucher and $50 worth of free food vouchers, which we were happy to spend over the next couple of days! It was definitely worth our time that morning, as we now have a free stay in Italy, Greece, France, Germany, or India any time of our choosing over the next couple of years.

That evening we had another appointment set up, this time to get our first tattoos (sorry Moms)! Southeast Asia has a long history of tattoo culture that has evolved into a sort of rite-of-passage for young backpackers, with both Thailand and Indonesia being some of the most popular spots to get them. In fact, it there seems to be 3-4 tattoo parlors on every block in Bali, and almost everyone walking on the streets seems to have one. We had always thought about getting something to commemorate the trip, and had contemplated for months when/where the right time would be. In true SE Asia fashion, we decided to wing it a bit, although we did do some legwork to find the most reputable shop. We both decided to get symbols from our time in Vietnam (Nicole, a lotus-flower on her wrist, and Kyle, a Vietnamese-style dragon on his thigh). It was a fun experience, and there were two Australian ladies in the parlor getting tattoos in this same Bali shop for the 10th time. Note that Kyle had previously been staunchly against tattoos in general, but came across a quote similar to "tattoos can simply be a reminder that at one point in your life you were young enough, free enough, and crazy enough to just get one" and it sort of put us over the top. As we were nearing our visit home Kyle also found a barber around the corner where he got overcharged and had a very uncomfortable cut. Nicole left him there to fend for himself.

The next day we were due to fly back to the States for a quick pit stop, but we were in need of some beach time. We started the day at a brunch place that we had passed by several times that advertised "Porncakes" on their menu. These ended up being thick, Japanese-style pancakes served with ice cream! From there, after carefully wrapping our tattoos to keep out the sun, sand, and water, we spent the morning on rented beach chairs, reading and enjoying the lazy breeze. We rushed back to the hotel to take a quick shower and headed to get a late afternoon lunch of fish 'n chips as we still had some free food credits left over from our seminar. Then it was time for the airport to start our nearly 2-day travel agenda back home!

Levi's shirt count: 514