I like seeing it, I just don't want to touch it...

" Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away"

-Sara Kay

     If its even possible we wanted the last three days of our vacation to be even more relaxing than the rest of the trip.  We started our even more relaxing time by spending the day at a beach club.  Now I don't think I would ever enjoy spending a holiday completely at a resort but it is awfully nice to spend one day there.  We just needed to spend $30 on food and drinks and we could stay for as long as we wanted.  I will be honest and say that we spent a lot more than the $30.  The resort was run by an Australian so we ate delicious fries and a bacon and leek pie with brown gravy.  

Now I love looking at the ocean, I just do not like touching it.  There are lots of things that want to kill me in there and salt is just not fun.  So the beach club was the perfect answer.  There were nice lounge chairs around a pool overlooking the beach.

 This is also the first time I have ever seen a black sand beach.

This has been my favorite dessert since I went to Malaysia last year, deep fried bananas with ice cream.

 Now come on you can't get any more relaxing than this can you? You can only see my feet in the photo but I am drinking a frozen cocktail with an umbrella in it.

After the beach we went to a castle to stay the last two nights.  Beth and I had a three bedroom, three bathroom villa all to ourselves.  It was magical.  This is the nicest place I have or ever will stay in.

To enter our villa you had to cross stones across the fish pond.

This was my bedroom.  Just as all baths should have rose petals all beds should have rose petals and canopies.

This is just the study connected to my room.  I definitely did not pretend I was a fancy lady while writing my postcards at this desk.  I definitely did not do that.

Bathroom/bathtub number 1 and the beautiful door from my study to the living room area.

And Beth definitely did not pretend she was a fancy lady sweeping up the stairs.  The castle was so beautiful.  It was built into the cliff side so all of these carvings are carved directly into the cliff side.

This is bedroom number two.  We didn't want to mess up the rose petals or towels folded into peacocks.

 There were only two villas in the castle and the pool divided them.

This was bedroom three and Beth's room for our stay.

And bathroom/bathtub number 2!

This is the 3rd and final bathroom.  While we only used two of the three bedrooms, we did use all three bathtubs.  The third bathroom was really cool because there was:

an entrance straight into the pool! Who doesn't want to enter the pool from their bathroom?

And the last part of the tour the living area.

The grounds were also stunning with seating down by a river.

Our final day Beth and I made the mistake of thinking that walking an hour into town to find an ATM was a good idea.  It was not.  I spent the last night alternating between sweats and chills with a fever.  I think I was super dehydrated and had terrible sunburn everywhere.  I really need to get better at drinking water while on vacation in tropical places.  

  

This trip was absolutely amazing.  Beth is a great travel partner and it will be very sad to see her leave to go home to England.  But you know what that means? I have a travel partner for a road trip around Great Britain!  But before that happens I need to get through kindergarten graduation.  Parents of small children: graduation might be adorable to you but it is hell for teachers.

So much water, and so many temples...

"Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least"

-Santosh Kalwar

     On the third day of our trip we decided to see more of the island.  At first we thought about renting a scooter to drive around ourselves, but the owner of the house we rented offered to drive us around for $60 for the day.  Having a driver turned out to be the best choice as it poured rain part of the day.  Its also super nice to sit back, relax, and watch the scenery go by.  

     

This is Fried duck, apparently its a traditional dish from Bali.  It was ok but fried chicken is definitely better.  Also Beth and I were able to renew a love of rice.  Korean rice is very different from the rest of the world's.  Korean rice is very sticky and glutinous.  Balinese rice was delicious!

 My new found favorite souvenir to buy is textiles.  Unfortunately I could not find an awesome antique textile shop like I did in Vietnam but hey these are pretty.

We were so lucky with the weather.  Basically whenever we were inside it poured, and when we went outside it stopped.  This was awesome as most restaurants had beautiful outdoor seating.   This delightful treat is a deep fried banana with ice cream.  

Every night we had to be careful walking home not to step on these giant snails.

The first stop on our day trip was to the Tegallalang Rice Terraces.  These terraces were built in the 8th century and have complex irrigation systems.  Its interesting to know that these are owned by multiple families.  Imagine farmers in the US having to get along enough to build and maintain a working irrigation system.  Unfortunately it was pouring when we arrived so we just took photos from the top.

I took about 500 photos from the same spot but I will spare you and only share these two.  Just know this is one of the most beautiful and impressive places I have ever visited.

Right before we left this person with their red umbrella walked across the terraces.  This is one of the times I would love a camera with a giant lens.

After the rice terraces we went to two temples.  I have no idea what the names of these places are but they were beautiful.  

The rain just made all of the moss and ferns pop up on all of the stone.

This little goat (is it a goat?) thing is fantastic.

Because water is so important to rice farming and the people of Bali, it has deep religious significance.  So at the very bottom of these terraces was a really cool temple and was the second temple of the day. 

 We couldn't figure out what each of these little caves were for.  Apparently the giant cliff carvings are shrines and were built in the 11th century dedicated to a king.  There is a carving somewhere in here that says, "The king made a temple here"  Original I know.

These rice terraces were again beautiful.

This path was so slippery.  The rain mixed with the waterfalls falling across the path in different places made for an algae covered very slippery path.

After the Temple, the sun came out and we visited a coffee plantation.  We were first guided through the process of coffee roasting.

This was the woman roasting the coffee beans over the fire.  There is something so beautiful about her wrinkled face.

Just like in Vietnam Bali likes to advertise its Civet poop coffee.  We loved that they had a giant sign saying Cat Poo Chino, even though the animal is definitely not a cat.

 After going through the process of the coffee roasting we were given these cute sample cups.  Half the cups were different fruit teas and the other half was coffee, all were delicious.

Beth had never had the Civet poop coffee, so she splurged $5 and bought a cup.

Then we got to meet the adorable little civet.  This one was 2 months old and was not a fan of posing for pictures.

Our next stop on the tour was to visit Batur volcano and lake.  The volcano is still active.  See the black line near the bottom of the picture? That is the lava flow.  The last actual eruption was in 2000.

Beside the volcano is a beautiful lake.  Our driver had never been here and was almost as excited as we were.  He even asked us to take a picture to send to his girlfriend and said he had to bring her here.

Our last stop of the day was at another temple, the elephant cave temple.  The entrance to this cave was amazing! How cool would this be to be the entrance of your house?

The front was really the highlight.  Inside was this statue.

Everyday we were in Bali, there seemed to be some sort of religious ceremony.  I tried to ask if it was a special holy day but I think basically everyday is religiously significant in Bali.  Besides the cool cave mouth the other cool part of the temple was the part that was destroyed, I'm weird I know.  These moss covered stones used to be a temple on top of the cliff but after an earthquake the temple tumbled to the valley floor.

Also this tree was amazing.  

Amazingly we were exhausted after this day sitting in a vehicle so we ate dinner and went to bed.  It was such a good day and we saw so many cool things that we would not have if we stayed in Ubud.