On the plane leaving from KIX I was wearing two layers of heat-tech under my other layers of clothing. I wanted to pack light so I left my coat home. Luckily Osaka was warmer than Toyama (a solid eight degrees Celsius at least) so my plan worked alright. Once we got to Bali, we were hit immediately with the heat and humidity which we hadn’t felt since summer in Japan. Although I love my Kotatsu, the heat was a welcome change.
We stayed in the Kuta area, right on Legian street which it turns out is essentially the main tourist hub. The streets are loud, busy, and the streets are full of cars and tons of scooters. Our first afternoon there we walked a good five minutes down one side of the street waiting to find a crosswalk, before realizing that actually there aren’t any. So over the course of the week we slowly gained courage staring down motorists as we stepped into the street to cross the road. In actuality, the traffic doesn’t move that fast because it’s so busy and everyone seems to be excellent drivers who expect people to walk across the street so there was no need for fear.
I think our trip was a good balance of activity and rest. The first five days or so were packed, visiting temples and attractions North on the island, Scuba-Diving, and climbing Mt. Batur (which is one of my favourite things I’ve done all year!). We hired a driver to take us around the island and we took vans to and from the scuba-diving and mountain climbing. The drives were some of my favourite parts of the trips because it was so beautiful to drive through the lush fields and forests.
Another thing that was really cool about Bali was the multilingualism. Pretty much everyone who works in the tourist areas speaks English as a second language as well as maybe some of the languages most commonly spoken by tourists (Japanese / Mandarin/ Cantonese). I was mistaken for being fully Japanese a lot, and had a lot of people call out to me in Japanese. It came in handy when I went to transfer money and had difficulty explaining the amount in English and the lady who was helping me went through the transaction in Japanese instead.
Rices fields and terraces
Kopi Luwak – tea and coffee tasting!
and some other experiences… Click the photos for more posts!
Climbing Mount Batur for the sunrise
Maki Mountain 