Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve started with a half day of work that was crazy busy due to the year end closing (life of a finance person).  While it was nice having so much to do that made the 5 hours in the office fly by, I probably could have used the other half of the day to really get some things done.  But in the end, I gladly welcomed the extra time to chill out in the afternoon before the nights festivities.

Weekend in Bali - Part Three Luwak Coffee

Have I made you fall in love with the sunrise yet?

It was 8am when we finished our hike and had you asked any of us at the time we would have told you it was well into the afternoon.

Our driver guided our tired group into the car where we took a 40 minute drive to a Bali Coffee Plantation.  Though I was tired and did end up taking a few snoozes, it was light out on our car ride so there was so much more to see.  The roads were still bumpy but didn’t bother my stomach.  I learned in the days of early Saturday practice in college that exercise is the greatest medicine.  Niles and Ethan would disagree, though they both made it all the way back to our resort without getting sick.  Driving in Bali is something that will never make my bucket list.  The narrow 2 lane streets have bumps that require cars to come to a complete stop every so often and steep hills that I still am not sure how trucks make it up.  It is definitely a place that “anything goes” as long as  you stay on the left side of the road (most of the time).  Luckily Ardi was a safe, reliable driver and we were in a nice car.

Weekend in Bali Part Two - Volcano Trek

Our big (and only) excursion for our weekend was to do the sunrise trek up Mount Batur.  There are many companies who do this trek but after a bit of research, Bali TrekkingTours.com has the best reviews and so we decided to book with them.  They were extremely accommodating with our last minute booking.  Disclaimer: all these thoughts are my own and I did not receive any compensation for this post or my experience.   

We were picked up at our resort at 1:40AM.  Our driver, Ardi, informed us that it would take 2 hours to get to the starting point of our trek so I figured it’d be a great opportunity to get some more rest.  Well with my unsteady stomach and headache from all the fruity cocktails mixed with winding, bumpy roads of Bali, I didn’t get much sleep and instead wasn’t feeling too excited for this trek.  Luckily the 3 of us made it through the entire trek without getting sick (though I thoroughly suggest not drinking alcohol the night before and getting more sleep than we did).  With not much street lights it was very dark and I couldn’t see much on the drive which was probably a good thing because had I seen the size of what we were climbing I probably would have crawled into a ball and cried hah!

Weekend in Bali - Part 1

Well hello my dear readers!  We are back from our first trip a tad sunburned, but had a great long weekend.

  

Where do I start?  A 4 day weekend in Bali, Indonesia means either one longgggg post or a couple broken out posts.  While I’d love to have your opinions I think it would only prolong me getting out my review of the weekend so I’ve gone ahead and chosen for us.  The verdict- you will get a few different posts recapping various aspects of my Bali weekend.

Getting to Bali

Friday morning our crew headed to Changi Airport and arrived with plenty of time to grab a coffee and find our gate.  Well unfortunately our flight was delayed by an hour, which turned into us not actually leaving the ground until an hour and 30+ minutes after our initial departure time.  But no worries, we were headed for paradise!  We took a budget airline which means no drink service or snacks.  Not a huge deal as our flight was only 2.5 hours.  Upon landing in Bali (make note it looks like you’re going to land in the ocean but you don’t), we were greeted with a 45 minute wait to get through customs!  Once through customs and getting our visitor visa, we started the hunt for our driver.  We were greeted by TONS of other resort driver services and I immediately became overwhelmed with the amount of people around shouting at us, pointing, trying to get our attention.  Due to our flight being delayed our driver was not waiting for us.  We found our way to the information booth where they would call our for our hotel to get our drivers attention.  While we were waiting taxi drivers kept coming up to us and offering to drive.  Most got the point and walked away, but one was INCREDIBLY pushy.  Uncomfortable, annoyed Laura + persistent taxi driver = MAD, rude, you’re messing with the wrong person Laura.  I repeatedly told this guy to leave us alone and tried to ignore him but he just didn’t get it.  Thankfully our resort driver showed up, an hour later, and took us to our resort.