Bye bye Bali

2 full days of Bali is enough for now. After publishing my last blog, Mimi got up and we had our hotel breakfast. Banana pancake and fruit, very simple but tasty and the sugar hit was welcomed, what more can you ask of $10 a night accommodation?

Working the magic rice fields

We headed out in the morning and toward the monkey forest of Ubud, but actually it was away from the forest. I realised this after about 10 minutes but instead we saw a sign to the "Magic Rice Fields of Ubud". The sign pointed down a sketchy alleyway that eventually opened into rice fields.

Maybe my favourite photo

After wandering the fields, we headed back to town and in the actual direction of the monkey forest, a 20 minute walk from the hotel. This has been our highlight of Bali so far. Seeing all the monkeys was awesome and by following the simple rules of the forest (don't have plastic bags, don't approach the monkeys) you can freely walk around without worry. One tourist we saw had a plastic bag in his backpack, a monkey opened the bag and pulled out the plastic bag, which turned all the monkeys in eye shot to savages, one of them biting through the skin on the thumb of this tourist.

I have too many photos I like from here and so will have a few more at the end of the blog.

Mimi blending in with the locals

In the afternoon we were approached by a taxi driver looking for work so gave us a good price to look around at 3 of the local temples, the terraced rice fields, and a local waterfall. All these places had entry fees of roughly $1.50 per person.

We ate lunch between stops at a small restaurant that only seemed to be visited by locals. Food here was really tasty and cheap, mi goreng and some sort of gelatinous rice dish.

At night I sorted out the charging cable for my laptop, and we also bought a bus and ferry ticket from Ubud to Padang Bay to Lembar (Lombok island).

Waiting for the bus

This morning we were up early to get the 7am bus, which ended up being another local van driver. This was good as we had a much more comfortable ride and the only other people was another backpacking couple from Spain.

View of Mt. Batur? from the ferry

After arriving at the port it was a bit confusing what we were supposed to do. But the locals were friendly and helpful, and we found our way onto the ferry. The ferry is simple but comfortable and the main seating section is air conditioned. They started pumping out some hilarious Indonesian pop videos when we were first on board, and have now put on an awful Chinese movie "Kung Fu Dunk" with Indonesian subtitles. I can't understand it and Mimi can't hear it, damn.

The ferry is 5 hours long and we've been onboard for 1.5 hours now. Thinking of heading to Kuta Lombok this arvo.