I finally recovered my luggage from the airport late yesterday afternoon. I'm happy to report that everything arrived in tact. I was most excited to get my power cord, so I could retrieve my photos from the laptop. Thanks to a healthy dose of jet lag, I was up until 5am sorting through them and reliving some of the amazing experiences from the trip.
I went to Bali to get away from the February cold, take some colorful, tropical stock photos, and do some commercial photos for an Australian soap company (a woman, actually, who makes some pretty cool soap). It is an incredibly colorful and gracious island, with everything... culture, good food, friendly people, adventure, wildlife, and beautiful scenery.
I arrived in Bali a day late, due to my extended layover in Chicago, but fortunately my travel mate (Jennifer, who I was supposed to meet in Chicago) was still awake at 1am when I arrived at the
Villa Puri Royan hotel. It was an uninteresting, but cheap, room, but we were leaving early in the morning.
Our driver and guide, who I discovered online, was
Mr Wayan Sueta who was fantastic. He always showed up on time and took us exactly where we wanted to go, and never to places you don't want to go.
Early one morning we went for a short walk down into the river valley, and then back up the other side. There were some beautiful views of the rice terraces, with lots of fruit and chocolate trees along the way
We went to his village and his wife and neighbors showed me how to make an offering basket
Around Ubud, we also saw some young Barong Dancers. Later on we got the chance to see them practicing.
After spending some time up in Ubud taking photos of soap and uniforms (more on those later), Jennifer and I, along with Wayan, went to the village of Munduk which is up in the mountains, and away from a lot of other tourists. We stayed at the
Puri Lumbung Cottages. These rustic little cabins are perched on the side of the mountain with a view that extended all the way to Java
There are a lot of coffee, clove and cocoa plantations around Munduk. I got some great coffee up there.
We visited a spice market in Bedugul...
We drove along the north coast through sleepy dive towns like Lovina and settled in Amed for the night. It's a very relaxed place with, what seemed to be, a large selection of dive centers.
I caught a great sunrise in Amed
See more photos from Bali here
