Bali: Poop Coffee, Diving, Heavens Gate, Monkeys and a Water Palace! Oh, and Lunch in Kuala Lumpur!

Adventures in Bali!!

With my full validity passport in hand, it was time to head farther south to Bali! Bali is supposed to be a yoga teacher or practitioners dream. For me it's always been a place farther down on my list of must see's. We were so close though, we made it happen and I'm grateful we did! Now let me tell you, I didn't take one yoga class, but instead had many a yoga experiences. I did manage to film a class for my online studio and as soon as I get good wifi for more than an hour, I'll upload it! Check it at stream.k10yoga.com

From Thailand we had a layover in Singapore. We thought for sure with 6 hours we would be able to go out for a few minutes and have a look around before continuing our onward journey. Wrong! It took almost 2 hours just to get through immigration. When we booked our discounted ticket, it was booked as two separate bookings meaning we had to go through immigration, check in again and enter back into the airport. With almost two hours eaten up with immigration we didn't have the time, but we did get passport stamps and enjoyed a nice bus ride from one terminal to another, that counts right?! We checked in, breezed through immigration, grabbed some dinner and walked around in awe of how amazing this airport is! It is incredible cozy and comfortable, large but not overwhelming. The seats in the bathroom are even heated! We didn't have a lot of extra time after all the rig-a-ma-roll and the next thing we know, we are off to Bali!

When we arrived just before midnight we were incredibly happy to be done with flying for the day. The airport is in Despasar and we were staying in Ubud which is about an hour away. We walked through the deserted airport and into the immigration area where there was the line from hell. Almost another 2 hours to get through this one. With it now almost 2am we made a decision to stay close to the airport for the night and be done with it. We grabbed a grab which we later learned is illegal in Bali, and got to our new hotel.... the one that didn't get our booking from booking.com and had to move us to a neighboring hotel for the night. The next morning we slept in, walked to the beach to watch the surfers play and the airplanes land and then hired a driver to take us to Ubud. With traffic it would take almost two hours. After a bit of haggling we were able to set a price and took off! Our driver was great and made a number of stops for us. What we thought would be just a boring day in the car ended up being an adventure!

First stop, Batik! I'm sure you have seen it, its a method of using wax on cloth in a pattern or stamp that you dye. Once round one is complete, the wax comes off and you can add more in a varying pattern, dye it again and continue the method until you have the multi colored image or design you want on the fabric. Think of it like the very first version of screen printing!

Next stop, drinking Kopi Luwak! Now this is an experience! This is something that @brandonfrye has wanted to do for a while and it did not even register with us that it was in Bali. To be honest, I don't know where I though it originated but we were excited to try it. What is it? Poop coffee! ha! So the Luwak eats the coffee berry, they digest everything except the bean which ends up coming out the south end, if you know what I mean! The beans are then collected, cleaned, roasted, chopped up, ground and made into a cup of very smooth coffee. In the states a cup of Kopi Luwak is quite expensive, if you can even find it. Our driver knew exactly where to go, of course. So we found ourselves sampling a flight of tea and a cup of Kopi Luwak in a really beautiful jungle wonderland with the best tree swings ever!

Finally arriving at our hotel, our driver wanted to take us back south to go diving, while he was explaining it to Brandon, I was texting another guide that I found through a blog and we were setting things up to go with him instead. With an early morning arranged we were quick to sleep in a super cozy, comfy bed.

Here comes the best part! Our guide, Kadek, is hands down the best! We wanted to go diving and I wanted to see an old temple called Heavens Gate. Kadek knew just where to go and what to do and made all the arrangements. Seriously, if you go to Bali, contact him! He picked us up at 7am and we drove 2 hours to Tulamben where we would do two dives with Sea Hua HaHa Dive Shop. On the way we stopped for a few pictures in a variety of places and even for banana pancakes!

Our dives were amazing, the first was on the USS Liberty and amazingly it was a shore dive. I don't love boat rides, I always get seasick on the way to or from a dive, so to hop in a truck, ride to the beach and walk in was perfect for me. The USS Liberty was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the 40s and beached on the island of Bali. In the 60s one of the volcanos nearby erupted and the tremors caused the boat to shuffle down into the the water. It now sits in about 5 meters of water and is a beautiful and easy dive, one of the top spots in Bali actually! We saw all kinds of cool stuff, a really spectacular dive! After a vegetarian lunch as part of our surface interval we were off for dive two. This one was just a simple ledge dive with tons of schools of fish everywhere! As we returned with smiles on our faces we can chalk off another amazing place that we have experienced both above and below the surface!

Next stop, Heavens Gate! I was so excited to get here and it was a quick 30 minute drive from the dive shop. We hopped out, Kadek gave us all the gear we needed, aka a sarong and shoulder cover and we walked into the temple. There are two gates that look like bookends and when you look though them you are looking out into infinity. On a clear day, you can see the volcano in the distance. It recently erupted so there was some cloud cover over our special day. As we stood in line to have our photo made, we began to think about the rule in diving about altitude... The rule of thumb is not to go above about 1,000 feet after a dive. In fact if you dive in California, you cannot drive back to Arizona until later the next day because of the mountains you have to cross. As we stood in the line for this once in a lifetime photo our heart rates rose, we became nervous we were going to get decompression sickness because we were at around 1,800 feet. We decided to risk it and got the photo. Absolutely amazing and this one is going in a frame!

We quickly descended and headed back to town. One more stop for the day and that was to simply play at the Water Palace! What a quirky and fun little spot. There are concrete squares in a pond that you can walk across. It's like a weird game of frogger! I felt like at anytime one would drop down and someone would get like 500 points for dropping a human!

It's time to head back, Kadek was great and dropped us off at our hotel and were certainly ready to rest. We went out for a quick bite to eat and settled in for the night. The next day we slept in, had breakfast delivered to our private bungalow and then set out to find the Sacred Monkey Forest! There are hundreds of monkeys that live here. About six different barrels of monkeys in different parts of the forest. They are not trapped, this is where they live and they can leave at anytime. This is not a zoo! The best part was watching humans react to the monkeys!

A little shopping and we are ready to call it a day. Our flight the next morning leaves at 7am and we were happy to hire Kadek to take us. He picked us up promptly at 345am and had us at the airport with plenty of time to catch out flight. This trip to Bali was really incredible. I feel like we were able to get the local experience, not just a run of the mill tour. As I write this from our 9 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, I have to say that you DO have time to store your luggage, take a "grab" to the Patronas Towers, have lunch and get back to the airport with time to write a blog about your past weeks experiences!

Now, get out there and plan you trip to Bali!