Return to Bali

the flight to Bali was uneventful

Flew from Kota Kinabalu, Borneo back to Bali on 8th September.  A mere 2.5 hour flight and we were back on Indonesian soil. We’re intending to stay around 3 months this time.

The weather is great, not as humid as Malaysia and slightly cooler (29℃).  We’re told that it will start to rain in a few weeks but that’s hard to imagine at the moment.

We started off in Sanur where we spent the first few days looking for a place where we’d be happy to spend a month or two.  Not thinking we’d ever be able to afford it, we stopped by Aleesha Villas.

Villa Bella – Aleesha Villas, Sanur

We stayed here for 2 weeks in May when we first retired and absolutely loved it. Anyway, we ended up getting a fantastic deal for 2 months (October and November).

To pass the time until moving into Aleesha’s we decided to spend 3 weeks in Ubud. We found a great place which had only been open for a month “Bali Bohemian Huts“. It’s in a completely different area to where we’ve normally stayed.  Right on the edge of “Monkey Forest” and in the quiet village of Nyuh Kuning (Yellow Coconut). A beautiful place with a few small warungs  (family run restaurants), a few hotels and still within walking distance of the centre of Ubud.

The hotel was indeed very Bohemian. Great art work everywhere and very much in keeping with the surrounding nature. The staff kept the monkeys at bay with catapults and are intending to equip each room with one (a catapult, not a monkey!)

Art in our room

the best towel arrangements

monkeys regularly visiting our balcony

After a week here, we moved to a villa with a private pool Gino Feruci Villas. Nice place (not as nice as the photos suggest) but a cheap price and the staff were great.  In order to thank us for our “long” stay, they presented us with a plaque when we left 🙂 I know it’s the thought that counts, but ………

mmmmm!

Unfortunately, it’s too big for our backpacks so with heavy hearts we disposed of it.

Harvesting rice – stage 1

Hard work in the sun

Stage 2

Preparing dinner

Back in Sanur we moved into Aleesha Villas, where I’m now sitting, next to the pool.  Its 09:00 in the morning, the sun is shining and it’s 28℃.  At 10 O’Clock a staff member will show up and make breakfast for us. Life can’t get much better. It’s been just over 5 months now and we were always slightly worried that we may get fed up with this nomadic life style.  At the moment we feel like we want to go on forever!

forever summer

We’re planning to leave Bali for a week at the end of October to visit Australia. We’re flying to Darwin and on to Brisbane where we’re looking at the possibility of buying a camper van. But more of that in the next post 🙂

Ending with a Hindu funeral procession. which, as Hindus believe in reincarnation, was a very joyous affair.

Cremation procession

Hindu funeral

body on the way to cremation site

Crucial to the reincarnation of the spirit,  the complete rites of death begin weeks before the cremation and continue for weeks afterwards, making it a very expensive affair.  For poor families unable to pay for the ritual themselves, mass cremations take place every few years. The bodies are temporarily buried in the village cemetery (no head stones) until then! Sometimes the death will have taken place as much as 5 years previously. The procession above was for an individual person.