"Bali Holiday"

Life continues in much the same way so much so its really hard to distinguish one day from another. The concept of days and dates has gotten as difficult as ever. Days are spent at the beach with whoever is hanging out there that day and evenings at the night market with the occasional night spent in the one and only Apache!

Apache can only be described as a shrine to Bob Marley. A regaee club tucked behind the clubs on the main street- Legian- in Kuta, its where all our friends go every time they go out. Keching, one of the guys that sometimes comes to the beach, is the singer of the band who play there most nights. He has a wonderful singing voice which really adds to the comforting feel of Apache. The club is decorated with large picture of Bob, and of course is decorated in yellow, green and red! I will forever have fond memories of this place and the many good nights I spent in there.
Any night in Apache is definetly not complete without the local spirit of choice though: Arak. More vile than straight vodka, Arak is thankfully diluted mostly in a concotion in what is known as Jungle Juice, which everyone passes around with a shot glass- continuing with the sharing culture of indonesia.

To mix things up a bit I decided to take one of the guys, Gangan, up on his offer to take me to one of the temples at Uluwatu, which has also become the name which the whole area in the south of Bali has become known. About 45 minutes drive on a scooter and we arrive at the Uluwatu temple. In my experince temples have always been serene places to visit, a nice place to gather your thoughts and admire the beautiful architechture and learn something about the religion. However this was a place where you have to make sure you tie everything down and be on guard- this was a place with very mischeivious monkies! Literally two minutes after I walked into the temple ground I had a angry looked beast of a monkey charge towards me going straight for my feet! While I tried to kick him away and hold on to my flip flop I was hitting him with my other one!... there was no way I was going to loose my shoes to this thing! After sucessfully battling with the monkey (and hitting one for the first time in my life.. and with a flip flop!) me and Gangan wandered around the temple and admired the views of the bays below which were breath-taking.
The water was such a clear torquise, swirled in patterns with the crashing waves looking as if it had been tie-dyed.
Unfortunetly after the calming views of the tides, even though I tried my bst to afford the hairy robbers, one flew out of nowhere landing on my head and grabbed my sunglasses straight off my face and continuted to mock me by sitting on a wall wearing them until he got bored and snapped them in half. They were in pretty bad condition anyways, I guess he just saved me a job throwing them away!

After the temple and my attack of the apes, we headed to a couple of different beaches, one I dont know the name of but is concealed within a cave and another called Padang Padang where we grabbed some freshly cooked cooked and sat on the sand and ate before we headed back to Kuta via Gangan's cousins house.

Sometime when travelling a place can easily just pass by as another place you've been, another thing to tick off you 'seen there, done that' list but its an amazing feeling when you visit somewhere that really stands out to you and brings a kind of happiness and contentment you can really feel within, and for me Bali has done this. Even more so when I visited the small town of Ubud.

Ubud, made internationally famous by the book and film 'Eat. Pray. Love,' is a gorgeous rich green leafy town renown for its strong cultural and arty influence. Everywhere you go in Ubud there are budding artists selling there paintings- most showing enormous talent. Its a great pleasure to be able to walk along the streets and peer in the shops just to look at their work. Its a beautiful place and I can easily understand why some people choose to come here to live, even if it isn't the most lively happening place.

The second time I visited Ubud with Wawan, I went to the Antonio Blanco museum, a man that is known as 'The Bali Dali.' And this fits him perfectly. Orginally an Italian man, Blanco lives in the town of Ubud and this beautiful gallery stands within a garden, home to allsorts of strange and wonderful birds, houses his many many works of art. As with many artists a lot of his work focuses on the female form but also he has painted many weird and wonderful paintings aswell.

(Ubud also is famous for it's 'monkey forest'.. which lends its name t the famous 'Monkey Forest Road'... but after the events at Uluwatu,I decided to stayt clear of the monkeys as I'd rather hold on to my specs and flip flops!)

Before long it was time for my friend Merel to head back to Holland and leave Bali. The night before she left we headed to a lovely little bar situated on the beach lit up with laterns and softly glowing globes used as tables. The setting was beautiful but a bar on the beach can have it draw backs
"Oh the tides coming in!... Oh no no its really coming in!!!"... and the tide can become a problem washing the chairs away into the sea! Luckily we managed to grab our things before we were washed away too and ran further away from the tide! Within a few days Phillip also left (only to return again less than two weeks later mind you!)

Before i knew it a month has gone by and its time to leave, but I couldn't leave this place without doing the one thing that Bali is world renown for, and that is surfing!

Unfortunetely I have the worst fear of water and tides which is quite a disadvantage in surfing!!!... so at first I was terrified, and poor Rachman had his work cut out! Through his percivierence he got me into the water and into the waves. Within the hour I was standing on the board and caugh my first surf successfully! He is a wonderful teacher and I owe him a lot, not only did he get me in the water (finally!) he helped me overcome my fear and even managed to teach me a thing or two! Now not only do I want to return to amazing Bali, but I really want to surf again :)

Just before I was to leave there was one last thing that I was to experience properly for the first time, and that was an earthquake. On the Thursday morning at around 11:20am there was a quake just southwest of Bali which was felt in Kuta which measured between 6 and 6.8 on the scale (sources vary) but to me it felt like the world was about to fall down. At the time I was with Wawan in my room, and I'm so glad he was with me, otherwise I wouldn't have known what to do. Thankfully it didn't cause much damage, but it certainly scared the hell out of me (not that I let on to him!) and I can surely say thats an experience I rather not have again!

I was sure gonna miss this place, and the closer it got to me leaving the more I realised how much I loved it.

I would like to thank Rachman, Adan,Sonny, August, Mama, Wawan, Gangan, Okky, Dee, Sunny, Gungun, Bohno, Keching, Gil, Natale, Sarah, Edwin, Ahmed, Johnny X2 and of course Philipp and Merel (and anyone I've missed!) for really making Bali feel like a home from home. The month I spent there and all the good times (in and out of Apache!) will forever be in my memories :)... and I shall definetely being returning, in the not so distant future!