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Since we are now scuba certified, we decided to try our skills in Bali! We went to a place called Tulamben to the U.S. Liberty shipwreck. We hired a guide and some scuba gear and we were off! For $40 we got to go on two dives throughout the afternoon, have a guide with us the whole time, and get transportation to the site! (Too bad this hobbie is so addicting because it is going to be much more expensive at home!) Both dives were absolutely amazing! We saw a starfish, some kind of fish that looks exactly like the coral except occasionally his mouth moves or he will swim to a new spot, a Moray eel, yellow and red clown fish, a school of thousands of silver fish, not to mention we got to swim through a sunken ship! We both said we feel like little kids again everytime we get back from a dive...its the most exhilarating feeling!
After getting both of our laundry done for about $8 (hand washed and hung dry) we headed back to Kuta where we originally started our Bali trip. On the 26th it's the Balinese New Year! That night the streets were filled with thousands of people, all ages, to see the parade through town. The people here spend months making these floats and creating a whole performance where there is a a guy narrating in a scary voice and music playing. They all make their floats dance and tell a story (not that we understood the Balinese but we got the idea). After the parade they march all the floats down to a temple on the beach and burn them. We are not exactly sure how good our Balinese-English translating is but the festival represents something about purifying all of the negativity from the years past, getting rid of any bad energy or evil spirits and starting over. The celebration goes on until about midnight and then the streets are dead until 5am on the 28th. We had to go grocery shopping the night before to get anything we wanted because from 5am on the 27th until 5am on the 28th no one is allowed to be seen in public, use lights, work, talk (or make any noise), eat (if your Balinese). Basically you are locked in your room for 24 hours. If you violate any of the rules it is possible for you to be handcuffed and taken away by the police (guess they take their holiday's pretty serious)! We spent the entire day watching the 15 DVD's we bought the night before on the lowest possible volume setting and eating cups of noodles. Needless to say, we were excited to start a new adventure the next day and see the outside world!
So after our lock down, we headed to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the southern coast of Bali. We just got here this morning but spent all day laying out at an infinity pool where if you are laying on your lounge chair it looks like the pool runs into the ocean. After the pool we headed back to our bungalow, which we are paying a total of about $7 a night, to watch the sunset. Around 5pm the tide goes out about 1/2 mile from the shore leaving all the boats stranded and just small pools of water left. As the sun sets it reflects the red and orange colors into the little pools left behind by the tide. We have seem a million sunsets here but this is definitely one of the most amazing!
Tomorrow we hired a boat to take us to another part of the island to snorkle for a couple of hours....can't wait!
So basically we showed up to Bali having no clue what we were doing...at all! We got off the airplane and we were swarmed with the locals offering to change our money or "you need transport?" (a phrase we quickly learned we would hear about a million times while we were here!) We were standing outside the airport, realizing we should have probably done a little bit more research but decided 'okay, we need money, we know that so lets go to the atm.' So we each took out "500"..."500" what? we had no clue-we couldn't figure out if we took $500 US or whatever currency they used here. Meanwhile some guy keeps offering to take us to a hotel for $50,000. We were so confused! Luckily some Canadian guy came up to us to ask us about what flight we came in on and we had him help us out a bit! So we went to Kuta and just told the taxi driver to take us to the hotel this nice Canadian guy was staying at (he also told us we only took out $500,000 rp which was only $50 US and the driver was offering to take us for $5 US haha-we learned later we kind of got ripped off but lets be honest, it could have been a lot worse!) So we made it to our hotel and for $6 each a night we were in a really cool place with a really cool pool but a really basic, crappy room, with a bathroom we were not exactly used to. Kuta is the main city here and it was a little overhwhelming at first-it's restaurants and vendors and hotels basically stacked on top of each other with everyone riding around on motorbikes.
We decided to get out of there first and head to Ubud. It was such a cute little artsy town with lots of culture. We stayed in an adorable little bungalow-for less than $8 a night! The first day we went shopping at the market and basically replenished our wardrobes with a bunch of cute, cheap dresses. That night we went to a Balinese Fire Dance Show. It started off kind of weird to be honest, with a bunch of people chanting and chanting and chanting. But, it ended really cool with this crazy guy who danced around on the fire coals that had been burning. He just kept going and going, it was crazy. 
The next morning we decided to walk to the monkey sanctuary, which was amazing! There was a lady at the entrance that was selling bananas so we thought why not!? Well, those didn't last long...we were pretty much attacked right when we walked in by monkeys. They would pull on our dresses or jump up on us or try to get into our purses to get the bananas. But they were soo cute(when they weren't trying to steal whatever was in your purse!) They were so people-friendly and would just hop right up on us. Shanna and I decided we want one as a pet, and we even named him already...Aboo!
So we got back to our bungalow and decided we wanted to go to these elephant caves that were about a 10 minute drive away so we asked how we should get there and somehow a few minutes later we were on a motorbike we rented! Not our best idea we've had. Within about 5 minutes Shanna had the first sharp turn and, well, we kind of crashed into the curb. Shanna's foot was bleeding, it wasn't good haha! But she kept going and by some miracle we made it to the elephant caves. They were these caves used for praying and meditation that got burried and were recently uncovered. Our tour guide took us through and told us all about the history. We ended up at this river that was supposedly holy water and asked if we wanted to go swimming. Before we knew it this little Balinese man was swimming in this holy water in his underwear. Kinda weird but we thought what the hell and jumped in!
We ended the day on a walk through these beautiful rice fields, drinking from a fresh coconut and had mojitos at an adorable restaurant.
After Ubud we decided to head to the Gili Islands, specifically Gili Tawamban. There were two options to get there: one was fast and expensive and the other slow and cheap. We forced ourselves to take the slower option of bus rides, ferry rides and little boat rides. We stopped at Singigi on the way and for some reason decided it was a good idea to rent a motorbike again and ride along the coast stopping at all the beaches. It was so beautiful! We only had one more crash where we were riding on a dirt road that turned to sand and we lost traction and ended up in a bush haha. That night we went to a temple on the water to watch the sunset. The next day, another boat ride, and we made it to the Gigli Islans! It's a pretty small island with a strip of really cute restaurants and hotel/bungalows right on a gorgeous beach. We took a horse-drawn carriage (no cars on the island) to our really nice bungalow right on the beach and spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach. We learned really quickly that all you had to do was buy lunch at a resort and you could use their pools all day, so we also spent a lot of time at these amazing resort pools, steps away from the beach. We went snorkeling a few times (resisted the urge to spend money diving). One time we saw 2 sea turtles and one of them swam right up to us. We swam around with him for a while and we were even able to pet him, it was crazy! We also found this place that was their version of a movie theater. They were these little individual huts right on the sand and you could pick from the 500 illegal dvds they had-all you had to do was order $3 of food or drink each. This is also a party island so we spent a few nights out at the beach bars! The night of the 17th was St. Patty's and then turned Britt's bithday at midnight so that was definitely a great night to remember. Gili Islands were absolutely amazing! It was sad to leave them (and to have to get back on that damn slow ferry!)
After getting both of our laundry done for about $8 (hand washed and hung dry) we headed back to Kuta where we originally started our Bali trip. On the 26th it's the Balinese New Year! That night the streets were filled with thousands of people, all ages, to see the parade through town. The people here spend months making these floats and creating a whole performance where there is a a guy narrating in a scary voice and music playing. They all make their floats dance and tell a story (not that we understood the Balinese but we got the idea). After the parade they march all the floats down to a temple on the beach and burn them. We are not exactly sure how good our Balinese-English translating is but the festival represents something about purifying all of the negativity from the years past, getting rid of any bad energy or evil spirits and starting over. The celebration goes on until about midnight and then the streets are dead until 5am on the 28th. We had to go grocery shopping the night before to get anything we wanted because from 5am on the 27th until 5am on the 28th no one is allowed to be seen in public, use lights, work, talk (or make any noise), eat (if your Balinese). Basically you are locked in your room for 24 hours. If you violate any of the rules it is possible for you to be handcuffed and taken away by the police (guess they take their holiday's pretty serious)! We spent the entire day watching the 15 DVD's we bought the night before on the lowest possible volume setting and eating cups of noodles. Needless to say, we were excited to start a new adventure the next day and see the outside world!
So after our lock down, we headed to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the southern coast of Bali. We just got here this morning but spent all day laying out at an infinity pool where if you are laying on your lounge chair it looks like the pool runs into the ocean. After the pool we headed back to our bungalow, which we are paying a total of about $7 a night, to watch the sunset. Around 5pm the tide goes out about 1/2 mile from the shore leaving all the boats stranded and just small pools of water left. As the sun sets it reflects the red and orange colors into the little pools left behind by the tide. We have seem a million sunsets here but this is definitely one of the most amazing!
