Well it was tough getting through the holiday in Bali, but I think I came out of it ok on the other end.  Although I feel like I need a holiday from the holiday... it was hectic with so many things to do!

Seb from Valyside decided to stay a week with me in Bali and we both invited our girlfriends over to enjoy the holiday so the first day was just basically just checking out the sights in Kuta and see what would be the best things to do.  We also had to go try some of the local liqueurs, so I bought a bottle of dark rum.  It tasted a little funny and then found out it was ‘cake making’ rum.  Ah well, it certainly did the job on the first night while Seb was into his trusted Vodka and OJ.

Rach and I woke up the next morning to go do a massive mountain bike ride at an active volcano while Seb decided he couldn’t hack the pace of mountain biking on a hangover so he stayed at home.  The drive up to the mountain was awesome, we stopped in at a little coffee plantation and had a free tour of how coffee is made, even the rare ‘Luwak Coffee’ which is made from a Luwak (possum) that eats the coffee beans and then craps the beans out and then the pooed coffee bean is cleaned, roasted and used to drink.  Yep, sounds gross but it was actually pretty damn good.  I’ve heard of people paying up to $50-100 for a cup of coffee at home for the stuff... not sure why. 

We then headed up the hill to see Mt Batur which is near the central northern part of Bali, and is still an active volcano and you can see the different lava flows from 2004, 2001 and 1999.  The latest flow in 2004 has still got the dark black lava scars on the hillside which was cool to see.  We then zipped down the hill on the mountain bikes, stopping in at farms and local Balinese homes.  It was yet another awesome experience close to the trail ride with the Mayor of Malang a couple of weeks earlier.  Rach loved it, so I can somehow see us doing that again which is good for a bit of an adventure.

The next day shaped up well with white water rafting at Klungkung which is located in central eastern part of Bali.  It was a really good day, but it ended too soon.  The 4 of us got to do it and we were flying down the rapids, hitting big rocks, got stuck a few times and over-took all the slow rafts.  We got to jump out and look at water falls and other cool stuff but the fun part was doing a 4 metre drop in the raft.  Nothing like crunching your whole body as you hit the water at the bottom with 3 more people behind you coming down your neck.  But that’s all the experience.

To top the day off we went out to an Italian restaurant which was the first time I had good Italian in 3 weeks (not just Nasi Goreng ‘Fried Rice’).  And to make it better I had my first lobster with a pasta.  Oh man it was so good.  It was at least a good price, something like $20, whereas back in Australia it would cost probably $75-100 for a lobster.  So I enjoyed that one and didn’t really want to share with Rachael or anyone else.

The third adventure was to a safari park where I wanted to go play with some monkeys, Rach wanted to ride an elephant and Seb wanted to pat tiger’s.  The awesome thing was we did all of the above!  I was chilling out with a baby orang-utan and it was really good to see them close up.  They’re almost identical to us humans, and I guess in the photo it was really hard to distinguish between the 2 of us.  We then went and played with the tiger cubs and watched the white tiger’s have a massive feeding session.  I wouldn’t want to be in their pit that’s for sure.

The cool part was going for a ride on the elephants and walking through the enclosures with all the animals like rhino’s, zebras and other sorts of wildebeests.  It was all an experience I’ll never forget.  And then on the way out I stopped in to play with the cockatoo’s and macaws.  One cockatoo took a good bite out of me, but the second one actually hopped up on my arm and walk talking which kicked ass.  I didn’t expect that.

The last day we were in Bali was Christmas day, and what a better way to spend it than hiring scooters and riding all around the southern part of Bali.  I thought it’d just be a gutless little bike but we were doing 110k’s down the roads until we got speed wobbles and had to ease up on them.  Dodging traffic was one of the difficulties though, the only road rules are, there are no road rules.  You just pick a line and go for it and if someone gets in your road you just have to dodge them or you’re on the ground.  We went to Nusa Dua to go for a swim at the beach which felt like bath water.  But that’s my type of temperature.  Then we thought we’d go adventure up the hills but Seb’s motobebek (scooter in Indonesian) decided to die on him.  He pushed it 500 metres into a mechanics workshop but none of them spoke English which made things difficult.  In the end it turned out the breather wasn’t connected to the carby, so it was just sucking in dirty air and clogged the carby up.  But by the time they fixed it our day was almost over and we headed back to the hotel. 

It was an awesome trip, we got to do so much stuff in the few days we were there but Chrissy night Rach and I had to catch our plane back home and Seb and Maddie were staying until the next morning. The flight home wasn’t too bad, there was only 40 people on the plane so we all had a full 3 seats to stretch out on and sleep.  Not the best bed in the world but it was something.  We got into Brisbane and Rachael went home and I caught the next plane to New Zealand for the Red Bull FMX Battles competition.  So check back soon as the competition is on Saturday and I’ll have all the results from there.