Ubud - The long road to enlightenment

Our stay in Ubud has a number of excursions in store for us in the coming days. In the east of the island lies Padang Bai, the small fishing village is the departure point for speedboats to the Gilis and Lombok and is also a popular snorkeling and diving spot.

Finding Nemo was our motto. After we had chartered a small boat, we were driven to the spots Christal Bay and Blue Lagoon. Equipped with goggles, snorkels and GoPro, we went into the water. The underwater world is colorful and diverse. With some fish food, we were able to guide the colorful creatures in front of the underwater camera. We were able to get the clownfish, which we have known since the film "Finding Nemo", to parade in a tourist-friendly manner by gently brushing through the sea anemones.

According to our guide, the coral world has suffered greatly in recent years. The rise of mass tourism is particularly responsible for this. Tourism is both a blessing and a curse for Bali, which is evident in many ways. The negative effects: congested streets, garbage next to the streets and, unfortunately, clearly visible in the sea. Sometimes one gets the impression that the islanders themselves do not see the avoidance of garbage as a top priority. However, the revenue that tourists bring to Bali is indispensable... The 3 years of the Covid pandemic with the complete lockdown there have left economic traces in Bali.

The Tirta Gangga Water Palace and a traditional Balinese village were the other stops on our trip. The pictures certainly speak for themselves.

Afterwards, we planned to visit Bali's gate to heaven, the Lempuyang Temple. I'm pretty sure that this temple is on every Bali tourist's bucket list. However, when we heard that you can easily wait two hours or more for a photo there, we weighed up the income from our influencer career against the time and stress involved, and especially the expected protests from the children, and decided against it.

The many impressive sights make Bali a great travel destination. The people we have met so far make it even more special. We had our lunch today in a small warung near Ubud. When I told our driver that we didn't want to go to an air-conditioned restaurant and would rather eat like the locals in Bali, he looked at me a little confused. Apparently that's a rare occurrence. The owner of the street food stall, his employees and the guests were just as amazed by our visit. We were actually the first western tourists to set foot in his stall - he was accordingly delighted. The stay culminated in a fantastic, authentic lunch with funny exchanges and lots of photos for promotional purposes and memories. These are really the experiences we had hoped for before our trip.

At the Luwak Coffee Plantation, we were first given an explanation of the general process on the "educational trail". From feeding the fruit of the coffee plant to the palm civets, the "poo-seeking" afterwards and the further processing. We thought that the excreted beans are washed first, but that they are then peeled after the first light roasting or drying and then "only" the kernel is processed further was new to us. The taste was less intense than we thought. But the experience was interesting in any case.

At the end of the day we went to the local bathing establishment, which is decorated with the Tegenungang waterfall. The waterfall is surrounded by jungle and offers lots of great photo opportunities. This too has been "developed" for tourism. As a result, there were too many people here for us. You get kind of weird as you get older... So we only stayed for a short time.

Tomorrow it's going to be wild. Rafting is on the agenda!