Eat, Sleep, Dive

We came to Ubud (a town well known to fans of the book/movie “Eat, Pray, Love”) and one of us went straight to bed and stayed there for 2 days – a nasty cold took its toll. That really was too bad, because Ubud is a beautiful place to visit. It is the cultural center of Bali and as such offers more museums, galleries, temples, traditional dancing shows, musical courses and Yoga classes than any other place on this island (and quite frankly around the whole region). In addition to that there are cafes, tasty restaurants, little handicraft shops and beautiful nature – what’s not to love?! Well, maybe the crowds and the noisy traffic that runs through the tiny, winding streets of town, but other than that it is pretty much like right from the book.

After visiting real monkeys in their forest the first day, we saw lots of their statues in the temples around town the next morning. We didn’t bring Sarongs to wear so we weren’t allowed to enter any of them, but they looked pretty cool from the outside as well. They are very different from the temples we have seen in other countries of Southeast Asia, which is no surprise as they are Hindu temples, not Buddhist ones. What makes them very special are the pagodas that look very distinctive – they are made from wood and have thatched roofs, and the delicate carvings that depict Hindi gods and what looks like big eyed monsters.

We also caught a traditional music and dance show at the Ubud Palace that was just astonishing. The dancers dance with their whole bodies, even with their faces – rolling eyes, staring, grins…it’s all in the mix. We tried to imitate some of their moves after the show and failed majorly. The way they bend their bodies (especially their backs and hands) and how they can move with only parts of it while standing still with all the rest is mind blowing! 

After having spent some time in Ubud we went on to the northwestern end of Bali, to Pemuteran. We stayed at the wonderful Taruna homestay where the Taruna family welcomed us very warmly. Tasty local food, relaxing Spa treatments, fresh drinks and the most homely bungalows all under one roof – we had an awesome time. On the way there, we saw waterfalls, stopped in the middle of tropical rice terraces infused with their fair share of palm trees and explored two more temples, one of which was sitting right in the middle of a beautiful lake. Bali is blessed with stunning scenery – we wished for more time to get closer to it, maybe on a motorbike. We’ll have to come back for that, though, because this time we were after what was there to see under water. 

We went diving with the great Dusan Repic from Easy Divers and had the best time with him. On the first day we went down the ’sandy slopes’ of ‘coral gardens’ in front of Menjangan Island to get used to being under the sea again. We saw the rare Black Lionfish, escaped the jaws of Giant Triggerfish, played with tiny Clownfish and enjoyed beautiful coral life. With clear vision and waters of 30°C temperature down at 20 meters below the surface we had perfect conditions. The yummie lunch and great company on board perfected the breaks above the surface as well. In short – we had a blast! So of course we went out for a second time the next day. This time Dusan trusted us enough to take us down to a wall dive – that turned out to be the most beautiful sight we have seen on our whole journey so far.  We are still in a lack of words to describe what you see and the feeling you get when you float in front of the wall, beneath you only dark blue waters, liberated of all weights you carry around with you above the surface. So we won’t try. Some of the great sea life we saw includes Rays, funny Trompetfish, Longnose Filefish, Porcupinefish, Yellow Boxfish and giant Bumphead Parrotfish as well as astonishing hard and soft corals. Oh, and we spotted the exotic wild snorklers that even made flips and other funny stunts for us – hilarious sea life. We missed out on the reef sharks though, that were always hiding behind Dusan who blocked them from our sight as not to scare us ;)

 
To finish off the best day of diving we’ve had so far, Dusan invited us for nothing less than the best Mango pie – made by his wife Jana after a Slowenian recipe (though we doubt that the original recipe calls for Mangos…). 

After all this, we surely didn’t want to leave…but there are more water sports than just scuba diving, they say, so we are back in Kuta to finish our surfing course that we had to pause due to illness before. The first waves we caught were great, let’s see how it continues tomorrow and whether it can compare to diving at

Have a wonderful Advent time! They keep playing “Last Christmas” at all the restaurants and shops around here…Someone make it stop!

"It wasn't me..."