And so to the North.....

So after 4 days spent in Bali's cultural capital, we decided to head to the North coast of the island to the sleepy seaside town of Lovina. The cheapest mode of transport turned out to be a local shuttle bus, which the very helpful staff at Warsi Bungalows booked for us. It was advertised to take 3 hours, leaving at 11am and would take us across the hills and mountainous volcano areas down to the sea. We were really looking forward to a leisurely drive taking in the fantastic scenery - oh how wrong we were!! The journey began being squashed into a mini van with our bags and those of it's other passengers - 3 very loud French couples. Tom and I were sandwiched in between them all and as you can imagine Tom very quickly began to lose patience and pulled out his ipod and headphones to drown out the noise! I think at one point I could even see a vein bulging on the side of his forehead!! They didn't speak very good English so I resigned myself to trying to understand what they were all talking about (A level French was a very long time ago but I could still make out some of their conversation).

After about an hours driving, we stopped at a coffee plantation to admire the views and to taste the coffee - 'all free' he assured the bewildered looking passengers in the car. So we wandered through the plantation with the driver and found ourselves stood next to two cages which contained the infamous mongoose that creates very expensive coffee. It is fed coffee beans which it eats, ferments in its stomach and then poos out! The coffee beans are then collected, and ground down for drinking. Sound delightful stuff hey?! The poor things were very scrawny and had no water to drink. So thirsty were they that we watched one drink its own urine. One of the French guys that was with us had his water bottle so we filled up the containers. The driver continued to tell us that we could sample some of the coffee if we wanted down on the terrace - none of us took him up on his offer! However, we did try some amazing teas (ginger, coconut, lemongrass, vanilla). Tom put his haggling skills to good use and bought some ginger tea. Then we all piled back into the van to continue the journey.

As we approached the area surrounding Mount Batur, our van was stopped by the police demanding money from each of us to pass along the roads. At this, the van was filled with loud, angry French and English voices telling them we had already paid for our journey and we were not going to pay anymore. It turned out that one French couple were actually staying in the town near Mount Batur and for this reason they had to pay money to do so, the rest of us did not have to. This was met with cries of 'corrupt bastards' from who else but Tom and the French guy behind us reiterating this by repeating 'corruption' (say in a French accent) over and over again! So we dropped them off by Mount Batur, taking some amazing pictures from the van window, as we continued on towards Lovina. By this point we were 3 hours into our journey and were not even close to Lovina!

We continued on through the mountains for another VERY hot and sticky 2 hours before we eventually reached Lovina. The driver pulled off the main road into the driveway of a hotel and told us we could all find rooms here. However, this hotel was a fair distance from the main part of town and not where we wanted to stay at all. The driver refused to drive us anywhere else and out came our bags onto the floor as he parked up the van. After looking at the map, our only option was to walk back up to the main road and along it towards the centre. Not happy is an understatement! We made our way towards one of the guesthouses in our 'bible' (the Lonely Planet guide!!) and Tom went in to suss out availability and prices. It was too expensive so Tom set off on a mission to find somewhere whilst I slumped down in a heap with the bags. Ten minutes later Tom came back with a fab deal on somewhere to stay (some more good haggling was done!!) and a new friend in a local captain of a boat.

So after a fairly sticky nights sleep in our thatched bungalow, we've had a super lazy sunbathing day to try and start off some sort of tan! We've made it to Happy Hour, drunk some cheap Bintangs and eaten some more amazing food (a huge Indonesian sharing platter). I think we could get used to this!! Shell xx

Same, same but different...

So after another tasty concoction next door to 'Havanas' at a place recommended in the guidebook called 'Jus bar' of tuna sate and milkshakes, we rose at 6 in the morning the following day to be greeted by our eager taxi driver Wayan. Just as a side note, he could have only have been called any of three names as all Balinese boys are only ever called Wayan, Nyoman or Catuk, in respective order that they were born.

So off we went after quickly eating and slurping our next installment of fruit before our longish drive north to Goa Gajah and then onto Gunung Kari, a temple of Indiana Jones magnitude. First stop Goa Gajah and the driver had provided us with two incredibly fetching sarongs to wear as entering any sacred temple site without sarong would, apparently, be incredibly disrespectful. Although I did see around four French men wandering around in denim, but they are you know..French. The complex itself was quoted in the book as being 6,000 rupiah to get in but had miraculously catapulted to 15,000 rupiah which, although it had some discernible features, was a tad over-hyped. Although the remains of various spiritual figures were impressive they were only worth a half an hour visit before we dodged past the souvenir stands and now compulsory stray dogs and into the comfort of the Toyota mini-van, the only car the taxi drivers drive. It's all about economy apparently although they look like the automotive equivalent of corrective walking shoes...

Onto Gunung Kari and again passing through the fifty or so stalls selling essentially the same products- wood carvings, weak lemon drink, paintings of the devil, that sort of thing, we ventured down the two-hundred and seventy steps down into a spectacular cauldron of temples, fountains, incense, and statues. It basically looked like, if you are up on your Indiana Jones, the set for the Temple of Doom. Visually stunning it also smelt amazing. Basically a mixture of incense, wood smoke, humidity and fresh water. After three hours circling temples, pretty much all to ourselves due to the time it was time to head back to Ubud for the sanctity of a cafe and a chill out.

After a much needed rest bite back on the terrace of our homestay catching up on reading we woke the next morning early to get to our pre-booked Balinese cooking class. After we arrived and introduced ourselves and sat down we were then told to follow our chef, Catuk, to the market to snuff out the produce and introduce our tepid western pallet's to Balinese spice. The market was phenomenal, literally no space was wasted with something happening everywhere you looked. As we headed down into the lower level things became even more chaotic. After sharing his knowledge about some amazing produce we headed back to the school after about an hour to prep the spice paste, involving about thirty ingredients, that is so integral to everything the Balinese cook. The whole day was a blast, we learnt six dishes and shared our final product out after each with the other twelve students. We both went up in front of the class to both mix and plate food. I have definitely got the taste for my own show, imagine that! Shell conquered her own chicken demons in front of the class by hand marinading twenty chicken thighs with the spice mix. A great day's work.

Tomorrow we roll on up to Lovina on the north coast to hopefully try and work up a bit of a tan. As we are now entering the start of the low season we are hoping we can wangle some money off our hotel too. Ubud though, like a less aggressive but bigger version of Southsea or Brighton with it's eclectic mix of shops and people, we will miss. For the past few days it has supplied us with some amazing food and given us a much different feel for the island we are so quickly getting used to. Tommo xx