We didn't get to sleep in today as our driver was scheduled to meet us at 9am. Hurriedly, we packed, had breakfast and settled our bill.
As a souvenir of our stay here, I bought some admittedly overpriced pajamas from the hotel trying to take a piece of the Komaneka experience back with me. But hey, I haven't bought anything yet!
They presented us with another gift bag for our departure, another two scarves! I think actually they probably forgot that we already got a set.
Because the hotel was so memorable, along with the feedback survey, I left a thank you note and tip for the staff.
We set off with our driver, the first stop being Munduk for a hike.
Artha was more chatty than Darma, our driver to Tulamben. Along the way, he pointed out a bunch of things, talking about rice agriculture, his two children getting married at 17, his son marrying because he got his girlfriend pregnant, driving him crazy.
He visited Hawaii once sponsored by a friend her worked for, and although the place was nice, he liked it much more in Bali because there was more "power." Here there was a lot of spirituality and worship. They make offerings all the time and the calendar was full of ceremonies in the Hindu religion. Hawaii seemed "empty."
The landscape gradually turned mountainous as we neared Munduk. No, not Rocky Mountain mountainous, but lush green mountains, cool with a view of lakes on one side and visibility off to the northern coast on the other. We stopped at a viewpoint between lakes Tamblingan and Buyan for some photos.
The Munduk waterfall was quite easy to find, being a well beaten track now paved for accessibility. It was pretty nice and unique in that you could walk up quite close to the base of it along a shallow shore.
Instead of heading back like most tourists at this point, we went for an hour hike off to the second waterfall. To get there, you continue down the paved walk down past the sign to the coffee plantation. At a main dirt road, take a left down hill and keep going. Passing by barking dogs, villages pointed us in the right direction.
The second waterfall was really nice, more natural and bigger. We didn't follow the stairs to the end, and even then had quite the sweaty work out getting back to the car.
Munduk was nice, but not great, considering we've seen so many waterfalls already. I thought about staying a night up around the area, but for us a day trip was sufficient.
Artha suggested stopping at the Temple by the Lake. Here was a beautiful temple packed with both Indonesian visitors and Western tourists. Javanese tour buses were paying a visit with offerings to the temple and we say a couple of ceremonies performed.
The crater lake was peaceful with a pagoda built off on the water. Small boats floated lazily around.
Shannon remarked that there was so much more to Bali than just the beaches. And it's true. Our impression of Bali from back home is one of beaches, sand and warm waters. Very similar to maybe Mexico beach resorts, but just a little more exotic. But really, the beaches aren't even the main part of the island, at least not on our vacation.
We thought it was really too bad that some people missed out on all of this. Some friends of ours only made it to Kuta and Nusa Dua and didn't enjoy it much.
The landscape is so varied, it's people full of character, all sorts of foods to try and sights to see.
Artha suggested stopping to pick some strawberries. He drove us up this side road where he usually went because the prices were much better. We picked a kilo of strawberries while the farmer picked us another kilo, so we ended up with too many strawberries for $5. Artha also got a bag and told us about how he liked strawberry shakes, mixing it with milk and honey.
We went to Candikuning market. Before our car even shut off, a woman ushered us to her stall and began giving us all this fruit to try. We didn't know what half of it was, but we tried things like white mango, two types of passion fruit, snake fruit, tamerino, and this purple one that looked like a small squash.
We eventually bought some fruit. She started off the price with a crazy $20 for four purple fruits, two passion fruits, some crackers and cashews. The bargained her down to $4, but even at that, a Javanese woman who saw the spectacle whispered in Shannon's ear that she was getting ripped off. Later, Artha told us our bag of goodies looked like about $2, so that wasn't too bad and we treated the other $2 like a tasting, which was really quite good.
The market is definitely tourist geared. Reading about it, I was expecting something louder and dirtier, more local like the Klungkung market. Shannon bought a belt and a gift for Julia.
Our final stop was the big highlight of the car trip. Jatiluwih is famous for its rice fields, protected from development and I think an upcoming UNESCO heritage site. We had already seen lots of rice fields, so I wondered if it'd be any different, but this place was amazing!
We stopped for lunch looking out to the terraces. Rows upon rows of fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Flooded rice terraces with newly planted rice stalks terraformed the entire hilly landscape.
Artha was disappointed we couldn't see weren't able to see the tall rice which was planted here, as they must have harvested just a few weeks ago. Tall rice yields crop twice a year, as opposed to the newer GM short rice that's harvested thrice. He said it also tasted better and was quite a sight growing much taller.
An entrance fee of $2 along the road afforded an even more wonderful vista.
We were very lucky today with the weather. Not a drop of rain, and the fog that usually blanketed Bedegul lifted so that we had great views of the lakes and mountains.
It was 6:15pm when Artha dropped us off at our new hotel Pertiwi, just next to our old one. We paid Artha the 500,000 we negotiated and tipped another 100,000. Drivers usually quote $66, but I've been able to negotiate down to $55 easily. We've heard of one couple getting $44 (400,000), but that's really good.
Pertiwi has beautiful grounds, nice decorations and two pools where we went swimming as soon as we checked in. It's definitely no Komaneka unfortunately, now that we've been spoiled by their exemplary service.
We had a tougher time than expected booking a boat to Nusa Lembongan. Several shops along Monkey Forest do tours on the side so they aren't familiar with all the ferries. As a result, we got some sketchy quotes and details about getting to Lembongan, with one shop telling us that the boats weren't running because of rough seas.
We eventually booked the trip at one of the stores specializing only in tours and transportation, who knew what they were talking about.
The manager was pretty talkative that evening. He thought I looked just like his nephew who was a doctor in his village he told me. Now, he was working at a government hospital in Denpasar to get experience before gradually shifting over to private practice. He himself was a lawyer, but was over worked and changed careers to tourism as the pace was better.
He first started learning English in the mid 80s when two students from Vancouver stayed at his uncle's as a homestay. I can only imagine how undeveloped tourism was back then. Judy, one of the girls, was studying law at the time and now a judge in Vancouver.
We stopped off at an Internet cafe charging 10c every 5 minutes. I caught up with emails and we made a few more travel arrangements.
An older woman next to us was from Toronto and we got chatting about traveling. She was headed to NZ for two and a half months, traveling on her own and planning to work along the way.
She told us she loved Luang Prabang and ended staying there 2 out of her 3 weeks in Laos when we asked her what she thought about that area. Ben told us that that was his favorite SE Asian country, and we've heard great things from pretty much everyone about Laos that we may have to see how it goes and potential cut out Thailand altogether for another trip.
Back at Pertiwi, we ate as many strawberries as we could and went to bed, looking forward to the beaches and snorkeling of Nusa Lembongan.
