Bali Bliss

Bali

We picked up cheap flights with Air Asia from KL to Denpasar, Bali. Travelling from Malaysia to Bali overland would have required far too much effort and time, so we opted for the easy cheap flight option. Cheating in a sense, but also wise.

Bali was a magical, magical place. The pictures will do most of the talking here. Everyday I was presented with opportunities to snap fabulous pictures. The sunsets on Bali was magnificent, like no other I'd seen previously.

Lucas and I got a room in Legian slightly north of the terrorism plagued Kuta. Leagian was lively but not over the top like Kuta. We got a nice big aircon room with en suite and balcony very cheaply.

Not long after arriving we hired motorbikes and cruised south to Ulu Watu on the southern tip of the peninsular we were staying on. Ulu Watu is one of the surfing meccas in Indonesia with world-class waves rolling in everyday. It was the first time I had encountered waves with such raw power. We sat and watched the dare-devil surfers waiting to catch a break. The guys out there were clearly not beginners!

We stayed until sunset, which, as you'll see, was a bit special.


I picked up an underwater housing for my camera on the cheap in KL and had plenty of opportunity to get some pics that wouldn't be possible without it. This was taken on our day trip to a beach, the name I'll have to update after consulting my diary.

I also snapped this whilst there. There were some great surfers there. I had a go but quickly realised it was something that takes a lot of practice to get good at. Plus it was a touch dangerous for the inexperienced. Sitting and watching was as good as taking part for me!

Here is another sunset taken on the beach at Kuta. The colours, as you'll see, are stunning. This picture was taken with a touch of tampering on the white balance, but the result is pretty cool. The Frisbee sunset.

We got a couple of days diving in too. Our first trip was to the north of the Island to Tulamben. Tulamben offers an old U.S. Warship wreck sitting at around 20 metres underwater. This was a memorable dive, and one of the best I've done to date.

The only time I was seen standing up on a surfboard in Bali. I couldn't resist!


We took a cultural tour up to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali. Ubud was great. One of the major attractions in Ubud is the Sacred Monkey Sanctuary. Monkeys walked the grounds free to interact with their human onlookers. This is a great picture of a mother and child.

They were extremely well behaved, up until the point where one decided to jump on my head and check through my hair for nits!



This I took in the grounds of out guest house in Ubud. I was getting totally obsessed by photography by this point.

We booked another dive trip out to Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida, the two islands off the east coast of Bali heading for Lombok. The diving was again very nice indeed. The water was a little too cold for me. The silly thing is it was 27 degrees C! Not cold really, its just that I had been used to diving in the bath-warm waters of Thailand and Malaysia. 27 degrees had a bit of a chill to it! This is myself at the end of the second dive of the day.

After the days diving we got dropped on Nusa Lembongan to stay for the night. What a beautiful place this was! Another gem! I was due to fly to Sydney, Australia in a couple of days so unfortunately we could only spend one night here. However one night was enough to take this picture, which, for me, is without a doubt the greatest sunset picture I've taken.

To Australia it was. Another continent. The end of my Asia chapter and the beginning of a very new and different chapter.

My six months in Asia were phenomenal. Truly an experience of a lifetime. I gathered enough memories to last the rest of my life and for this I am so wonderfully lucky. I left Asia feeling content that I had seen and done everything and more than I ever imagined.