Micki's trip to Bali

I'm doing a foreign semester in Bali. In this Blog you can read about my adventures on the other side of the world.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Sunday trip to Batukaru and rice terraces

You’ve probably been wondering what I’ve been doing during the last couple of weeks. Well, I’ll tell you: I’ve been enjoying life on my beautiful tropical island. You know, it’s hard to go to an internet café and write your Blog and upload pictures when you could sit on the beach, hang out with fun people or party at the same time. But a promise is a promise, so I try to give you a little update here – THREE new entries! Enjoy! ;-)

Last Sunday, Thomas, Martin and I went on our weekly trip (we’re trying to make at least one trip with our motorbikes every week to explore the island; so far, Martin and I have been on every trip I guess, the other people keep changing). The road took us to Batukaru this time, which is pretty much in the middle of Bali. It was the first time that we didn’t get stopped by the police or got lost big time. The streets were good, the weather was ok and the after-effects of the night before slowly disappeared the later it got. We went to the temple in Batukaru first and stopped at a smaller rice terrace on the way. The temple in Batukaru belongs to the best known temples in Bali. Besides us, there were only a handful of tourists there. The temple is surrounded by deep rainforest which created a great atmosphere. After some photo shoots, we decided to follow the hints of our travel guide and started driving towards the big rice terraces. That was probably one of the best ideas ever. We’ve already seen a lot of rice fields in Bali, but these were just huge and green and beautiful and….. The pictures we took look great, but I can assure you that it even looks 1,000 times better in nature. On our way back, we stopped at some hot springs. Unfortunately, this was the first time I didn’t have my bikini with me… L. But the boys went in there and told me how nice it was. Great. I just had the job to take the pictures. While driving through some villages, Martin saw some kids playing table tennis and badminton near the road (you gotta know: he loves kids and can’t pass them without joking around with them). So we stopped again and decided to play with them. It always fun hanging out with these kids. And they get all crazy about our digital cameras!

The time here in Indonesia really reminds me of why I started working for Unicef in Germany. And now I know why I wanna go back to working there again. The kids we were playing with were really cute and they all seemed to be ok. But when we go out in Kuta at night, we see little kids going up and down in front of the clubs at 4 o’clock in the morning, begging for money. Many of them are on their own, no Mums to see. And it just doesn’t feel right: on the one hand, you wanna give them money or food so they can eat and go home, but on the other hand, there are so many of them that it’s impossible to always give something! I wanna try to change the world… just a little bit – step by step!!!

Well, those were pretty much the most important things to say about our trip. I’m always glad when Thomas is with us – he’s got the best camera and takes fantastic pictures!!!! Thanks a lot, Thomas! :-*





exploring the rcie terrace


???


yeah, just kissable, aren't we?? ;-)


Thomas and Martin


strict rules for visiting the temple


temple in Batukaru


Martin copying an old Balinese


jungle around the temple


locals


me and my motorbike



guess who's ticklish?? :-)


trying to hit the "Federball"


gosh, I haven't played table tennis in years...!


cute Balinese girls


Thomas trying to make some music...


another temple that we couldn't get in to, cause we were too late.... :-(



Trip to Danau Batur (Lake Batur)

First of all: I was really freezing my a** off on that trip. The reason why: we were actually planning on going to Nusa Penida that day. It’s a small island east of Bali and you can go there by ferry. Long story short: we couldn’t find the ferry, it was getting late and the guys quickly created a Plan B. It was a good plan, I just wasn’t prepared for going on a volcano – preparations for Nusa Penida included a bikini and a towel. Anyway, Thomas was kind enough to let me borrow his rainbow colour towel so I could cover my shoulders and chest during the driving.

But let’s start at the beginning: with me on the trip were Holger, Thomas, Martin and Yvonne. We went all the long way up to Lake Batur (of course not without getting stopped by the police: Yvonne and I had to pay: 50,000 for both of us, good deal actually – the next cop that stops us should be prepared, cause I fell discriminated against and I’ll probably yell at them next time or totally freak out – you know I will….; you can read more about the Balinese police in my “What so special about Bali” report that will be published soon).

The trip was great. Beautiful nature. The volcano was last active in the 1960s. We had lunch at the lake and Thomas took some great pictures. It was just fun. I really enjoy hanging out with these people: no stress, just fun and nice talks. And great parties! But read about that in the party report coming up soon…. ;-)





the Gunung Batur


view above the lake


Martin and Holger


local fisher man


posing for Thomas camera


just georgous, aren't we?? ;-)


lunch break at the lake






kiss kiss, Thomas


goofing around


Yvonne, Martin and I


Yvonne and I


the motorbike gang


coffee and tea break at a rice terrace




although it has a totally different meaning here than in Germany, it's still strange to see it


Agung Batur


lunch break at the lake


just awesome


another rice terrace

Gili Islands (Gili Trawangan)

About 3 weeks ago, Johannes, Holger, Martin, Robert, Nina and myself decided to go to the Gili Islands (near Lombok) and visit our “fellow student” ;-) Gili-Chris who’s already been on the island for a while. I don’t wanna write too much about the trip, you should rather have a look on the pictures. All we did was relaxing…. We spent all day at the beach: reading, swimming or snorkelling (which I really enjoyed!!!!). And we deserved it! University is stressful sometimes and if it’s not, it’s boring. Actually, it’s always kind of boring.

Anyway, it took us a whole day to get to the island (motorbike, ferry, bus, boat), but it was definitely worth it. The islands (Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan where we stayed at) are so small that there is no police. Of course everybody is taking advantage of it, just look at the Magic Mushroom picture. J It was a fun trip although one of us got sick on the last day. We had pizza in a restaurant next to the Irish Pub on the island on our last evening. Well, what can I say: one of us almost didn’t make it back home (nope, it wasn’t me – thank God!!). Little “food poisoning”. Funny that I told Judith the story about our sick man including a detailed description about where the restaurant was – did she learn anything from my story??? No, she forgot and took her boyfriend to the exact same place the next weekend. Guess who ended up in the toilet and having fever afterwards???

Anyway, have fun with the pictures:



Holger and Martin


Johannes and the monkey




no comment :-)


yes, I also had some exercise...


waiting for the sunset


there it is...


our beach


view from our outside deck


the beach




life is great

having fun with the locals


wedding ceremony


the bride and the broom



Gili-Chris