Being Balinese

Hello Dear Readers!

So, now you guys know all about my sad SCUBA failures. Seeing myself incapable of accomplishing my certificate, I suddenly had two free days in Bali.

What to do?

I ended up spending the time with Steve and Deja. Our first day, we went to Kuta Beach, which is Bali’s most famous beach. It’s beautiful, but the persistent hawkers are really aggressive and won’t leave you alone. It kind of ruins the experience.

We ate lunch at Tony Roma’s. I know. But it was delicious!

It also happened to be David’s birthday, so Steve and Deja arranged for a cake for him and I booked us some reservations at a restaurant. I literally googled ‘best restaurants in Bali’ and this place came up. Called ‘Barbacoa,’ it took us an hour to get there…but the food was beyond incredible. We had fresh street tacos and Cuban sliders, followed by the world’s most amazing creme’ brûlée. Not to brag, but I picked basically the best place ever.

The next day, while David went off to finish his diving cert, Steve, Deja and I headed off on a tour of Balinese Temples.

I think this was actually my favorite day in Bali overall. It took the entire day, and we stopped in so many cool places.

The first temple, named Batukaru, was located deep in the mountains:

 

Then we stopped off at Bali’s largest rice paddies to get some incredible photos:

After this, our guide took us to the top of a mountain, where we could see Bali’s twin lakes, Tambinglan and Buyan:

And listen you guys, I’m a total sucker for animal photos. While we were walking around taking pictures of the lakes, I saw a guy advertising photos with a bunch of different animals. I mean, I couldn’t say no to holding a bat! I even peer pressured Steve and Deja into doing it, which is how we got these photos:

I still crack up every time I look at them.

After hanging out with all those guys, we headed down to the lake temple, Pura Bedugul, which is apparently really famous and iconic, but I’m kind of clueless so I didn’t realize:

Also, here’s a photo of our guide accidentally taking a selfie while trying to photograph us:

We ate lunch here, which like all the rest of the food in Bali, was delicious. We didn’t have a single bad meal while we were there.

Finally, for our last stop, we headed to the cliff temple, Pura Tanya Lot,  which is Bali’s most famous. The reason why is obvious:

After all this, we headed back to our villa to meet David for dinner. Yes, it was great.

 
-Carissa “Cultural AF” Ragland