Cruising Bali- Bali Diary – Part 3

Another post here from beautiful Bali Island. The island of Bali is of course known for it’s stunning beaches, but there is also another side of Bali, and that is it’s rich culture. One day we decided it was time to go inland and visit Bali’s beautiful nature and temples. For a very small price you can hire your own personal driver, who will drive you all day wherever you want to go. The driver will even wait for you while you are exploring. I mean how great is that?  It felt like such pure luxury. Robbie our wonderful driver was just the perfect host, taking us to the most amazing places.

We started at the monkey forest and then headed down to the famous Batuan temple and the temple of holy water at Tirta Empul. The Elephant Cave in Ubud, The coffee plantation Satria Angrowisata followed by mountain Butur Volcano and we finished at the Tegalllang rice terraces in Ubud. As you can imagine it was quite the adventurous day with so many things to see and impressions that left my head spinning. 

I was coming down with the worst cough, so I wasn’t feeling very healthy that day, but all the amazing things that we discovered totally made up for it. We took more then a thousand photos, but of course if I posted all of them you would have to scroll this blog all day long.Which I am sure none of you can find the time for.  Instead I’m leaving you with some memorable moments that I couldn’t resist sharing with you. Hope you enjoy! 

First we started at the monkey forrest. The monkeys just run around totally free. They are so cute to look at, but you have to be aware not to scare them otherwise they will attack. I couldn’t help it, they made me laugh so hard.

Look at the two baby monkeys cuddling?  I wanted to hold them so bad, but of course the mommy monkeys would not allow it.

I was wearing a bright yellow off-the-shoulder dress paired with my favorite snake skin sandals I scored at a local market in Legian. Comfort was key for that day and for some reason I didn’t want to bring any designer bags, so I borrowed my boyfriends camo army bag. perfect for everything I was carrying and as always way too much. 

For a few dollars you could buy bananas to feed the monkeys. You hold up the banana high and they will climb on your shoulders and grab and eat them. Of course as much as I wanted to be a fearless chick, I ended up being too chicken to do this.

Then off we went to the Batuan temple, You are required to wear a sarong when entering any temple in Bali. I brought and wore my grandmother’s sarong and it made me feel very close to her. How I wish she could see me now.

We got extremely lucky at the Holy water temple where they were holding festivites for the full moon ceremony. How beautiful and colorful do they look?

From the Holy water temple we ended up visiting the elephant cave in Gianyar Bedulu. It was huge and so impressive. It was way too dark to take any photos inside or we would have to use flash and I am not so much a fan of flash photos.

Fresh papayas on the trees as we passed. Our driver told us you couldn’t eat them though. To me they looked absolutely delicious, so that was a bummer.

Off we went again in the car with our driver. Meet the man behind the lens a.k.a. Emiel my photographer hubby.

Buddha offerings with a prayer happen every day all over Bali. I just love the way the locals do this with such grace. So serene and peaceful.

Handmade offerings for Bali’s rituals containing flowers and incense. They are so colorful and pretty and you see these sprawled out all over the Balinese street pavements.

Time for lunch! We went to the very popular restaurant Ibu Oka for a traditional Balinese dish called Babi Gulling. The restaurant is very modest, but the foods are amazing.

Fresh coconut juice called Kelapa Muda.

The dish Babi Guling looked very new to me, but I was willing to try it and it was really good! Very tender meat, Yum!

After a fabulous lunch we went to the Satria Agrowisita coffee plantation.

Fresh coffee beans growing on the trees.

I helped roasting the coffee beans in a huge skillet, so fun!

Then we were taking to this gorgeous spot with the most amazing view.

Such a cute and romantic place to be seated at right?

With a view like this we could taste all different kinds of coffees and teas and ended with the most expensive coffee in the world called: coffee Luwak. it tasted a bit sour, but it was very strong and good. Needed that to stay awake after such a long day already, because we weren’t done yet.

We drove for a while to visit the mountain Butur volcano, it was very misty, and the photo’s that we took didn’t come out right. Here is just a glimpse, although you can’t see the volcano from here. We will have to do with the beautiful Butur lake.

Last but not least we ended at the Tegalalang rice terrace. a perfect ending because the view was out of this world!

Photo’s shot by: EJC Maturbongs

I was wearing:

Dress and Snake skin sandals: Bali Local Market // Sarong (given by my grandmother) // Black Eye Wear: Dior // Bag: borrowed from my BF. Flash Tattoos: Hema, The Netherlands 

So many memories of this wonderful day and so special I keep thinking back to it almost every day!  Special thanks to our fun driver and new friend Robbie for making it so incredible!


Thanks for reading everyone!