Chaos and Korea: Bali

We recently returned from our trip to Bali, Indonesia. We spent 6 days soaking up the sun and relaxing. This was a truly amazing trip and one that we would recommend to anyone.

We arrived in Denpasar, Indonesia to a warm welcome from the porters. We had really no experience in this situation, so just assumed that they were airport employees who were being nice. The two that latched on to us found our bags and ushered us to the money exchange booth, so we could change our Korean Won in to Indonesian Rupiah. Well as soon as we had money in hand they began asking us for tips. The one who had Shawn's bag simply would not stop asking for money. He kept asking for a few more "blue ones", which would be the 50,000 Rupiah note. By the end of it, mostly due to the fact that Shawn can't say no to anyone, He had given the man 270,000 Rupiah. This would be about $30, a pretty good tip for just rolling a bag through the airport to a taxi. Steph apparently knows how to say no a little better and ended up giving about $11 dollars. I guess you just can't depend on the kindness of strangers any more. Well we were off to a rocky start, but we were in Bali!

After leaving the airport we were taken by taxi to our hotel, which may have been one of the more terrifying experiences of our trip. Since living in Korea we have been exposed to a lot of scary driving. Swerving, running red lights, etc. Well let's just say Korea has NOTHING on Indonesia. This cab ride was intense. We had to hang on for dear life, literally. Besides our life that were concerned about, there was the little matter of all of the other people on the road that this guy nearly killed, but we made it. To top off our cab ride when we got to the hotel the cab driver immediately started hounding us for a tip (it happens a lot in Indonesia). After giving the man 50,000 Rupiah (and being told by him that it wasn't enough), we got to go to our room.

The hotel that we stayed at was called the Ramada Benoa in Nusa Dua (the southernmost area of Bali). This Ramada was nothing like the one that we used to frequent in Minneapolis, for those of you who had those fun experiences with us. This place was amazing there are some picutures below for you to see and we will let them do the explaining.

Most of the time we spent at Bali was extremely taxing for us. Our normal day consisted of getting up around 8:30 and going to breakfast at the wonderful breakfast buffet they had at the hotel. After this grueling chore we would head to the beach to relax for a few hours to get our strength back, before we had to go for lunch. Then we would need another rest and would head to the pool for the rest of the afternoon with our books (JP for Steph, of course!). By the time 5:00pm rolled around we were ready for a drink...and lucky us that is when happy hour started (it was acutally a happy two hours at the hotel bar, good for us huh?). After a drink or two we would head up to shower and get ready for dinner. After dinner we were usually exhauseted from our hard day of work, so we would head up to bed to do it all again the next day. All in all it was pretty rough, but we survived.

Not all of our trip was just lounging around though. We booked a day cruise to one of the other islands in the Indonesian archipelago called Lembongan Island. On this day cruise we were treated to banana boat rides (a little raft they drag behind a speed boat, which is a lot of fun), snorkeling, an underwater submarine tour of the reef, and a giant lunch buffet. We decided that this was not enough action for us, so payed the extra $20 to go parasailing (pretty cheap huh?). This was a very good choice. Neither of us had been parasailing before this and it was amazing. The views of the harbor area were gorgeous and it really is a cool feeling to be flying like that. Other than a little motion sickness that we got from the choppy boat ride, this was pretty close to a perfect day.

Here are some photos from our trip for you to enjoy...