Bali ...Days 7, 8 and 9

Day 7 dawned to heavy rain showers in North Bali. Nonetheless, the middle of the day wasn't too bad. The rain let up and we enjoyed a quiet day poolside with massages tossed in during the middle part of the day. The massages here are delivered in the top story of a two story bale, overlooking the beautiful ocean view. I have no complaints about that at all. We have a package rate at Agung Bali Nirwana which includes one massage per adult guest per day. :-)

I managed to get some reasonably decent photos, although because of the overcast skies, they do not show the true beauty of this place. The other amazing thing about this resort is that I have yet to notice any mossies. With mossies supposedly at their peak in Bali during the rainy season, I have been impressed never to have had to apply any repellant. Nice!

Our villa

Painting in the living room of our villa....love the detail!

The view from our villa.  The spa building is on the right in this photo.

The pool.

The next day also started in a rainy fashion. We had planned a road trip to the Botanical Garden, but quickly vetoed that plan as it looked like there could be heavy rainshowers on and off during the day. Some of our group opted for a trip to Lovina, but my family decided to stay put and enjoy a quiet day with the resort all to ourselves. I believe staff outnumbered us at least 2 to 1. This place has a special pace...slow, but beautiful. If this suits you, then Agung Bali Nirwana should be on your list of places to visit. I will say that staff is not as “polished” as they were at Villa Teresa, but they try hard to please. And, they are all local to Samberenting, the village which is home to the resort.

My husband and I decided to take the 300 meter walk into the local village to see what was there. The answer is “not much.” LOL! We did draw the attention of many local villagers, which tells me they don't see too many Western tourists in these parts. They were all friendly, and the children delighted in trying out their English on us. “Hello, how are you? What is your name?” They would deliver these lines and then laugh with the most winning smiles imaginable.

The third day dawned a bit more promising, and we decided that today was the day for our road trip. We drove about 90 minutes before stopping at the Gitgit waterfall...this is actually three different waterfalls, and we saw the lower most falls, which is allegedly the tallest of the three. On the way, we passed many hawker stalls, and I got caught up in the unique crafts and fabrics. I ended up with two crochet tops (total about $13 US) and two batik sarongs (again, about $13). My husband purchased a dressing gown, although I am not entirely sure why. Of course, the same can be said of my purchases...not sure what I will do with any of them. At least they were inexpensive. I may use the sarongs as wall hangings.

We also passed a picturesque rice terrace. So beautiful. We stopped here to enjoy a soft drink. Some pictures of the walk and the falls.

Rice terraces

Gitgit and my daughter

Guardian of the small temple near Gitgit

We then traveled another 30 minutes uphill to reach Bedugul and the Botanic Gardens. This is a very large place, full of interesting tropical plants. It also contained the Treetop Adventure park, which is a ropes course with varying degrees of difficulty. Much to my daughter's chagrin, they made them work through the courses in order from least to most difficult...she made it to the second highest level before ran out of time...a good thing because I am not certain my heart could have withstood her traversing the so-called “black” course. It was scary enough on the one she did complete. My son stopped one course before his sister...he was not quite as fearless as she was. I sense mountain climbing in her future! Again, much to my surprise, we encountered no mosquitos at all in the gardens. It was significantly cooler at that altitude though so perhaps that explains it...I would say it was around 72 degrees, which to me was a nice respite from the extreme heat and humidity of Bali. Our friend from Singapore found it too cold, however, and was bundled into her hoody.

My son on the tree top adventure course

My daughter...you can see her white shirt high in the middle of the photo

Cheerful chap in the garden...

Our visit to the gardens complete, we next stopped for lunch. I will use my best Minnesota speak and say “that was interesting.” It was one of those lunches you feared was going to come back to haunt you, especially after you saw the rats traversing the beams above your head. Ugh! I completely lost my appetite. So far, so good on anyone becoming ill from the experience.  To top it off, it was also quite expensive for what it was.  It cost about 330,000 rupiah, with no drinks.

We had one more stop before we headed back down the mountain, and this was at the water temple called Ulan Danu Beratan. This is my favorite temple so far, I think...situated as it was on a lake under one of Bali's volcanos. Beautiful. The sun peeked through just long enough to get some nice photos, and then a hard rain began to fall.

On the way back, it was pouring down rain. And, we got behind a large (and slow moving) truck. With the extremely curvy mountain roads, there was no way to pass and it took quite some time to get back to Singaraja. It was on this road, however, where we spotted the first monkeys of our trip to Bali. They are quite small...with the largest being around the size of a dachshund, and the babies being impossibly cute and tiny. We have heard them at our resort, but not spotted them. The kids seemed pleased with that.

We stopped in Singaraja at a harbor cafe and had a banana pancake. To me, it was nothing terribly special...ok, but that's about all. I was anxious to get back to our resort. It had been a long day, and not being terribly fond of long car rides, I am happy to spend the next day or so doing nothing by the pool except reading and enjoying the tranquility of this place.