Day 7: Cruising on scooters

Surprisingly, the muscle soreness from trekking was minor, so we rented a scooter. Luckily, Padi is an experienced scooter rider and is used to driving on the left side of the road. We had a 125cc scooter, so we were able to adapt well to the traffic here. The average speed in town is around 80 km/h.

We drove to the famous rice terraces and visited them. We didn't feel like walking, but the rice terraces are quite touristy and everywhere you're supposed to buy something, quite annoying.

In the evening, we watched a parade in a small town outside for Nyepi (New Year's festival on 28.03.). But we left early because we have a terrible patience. The locals were waiting by the roadside from 5 pm, which was the start of the parade. We quickly went out for dinner at 7 pm, thinking that if it already had a two-hour delay, we didn't mind. When we came back at 10 pm (which according to the schedule was supposed to be the end of the festival, where everything is burned), everyone was still waiting. We finally saw the performers shortly before 11 pm. Then we drove back to the hotel because it was still about 1 km to walk to the bonfire (and the people walk really slowly).

Other than that, we picked up our laundry from the laundry service, washed and ironed for 8€.

In the restaurant, we met two backpackers, one of them had her 5-month-old baby with her. She uses her parental leave to travel (we've seen this several times now), but the babies are always so relaxed, really cool. We talked about the waste problem here as we often do. The Australians have already introduced waste separation and waste collection here. It is also shown that recycling is possible. But as long as plastic is so cheap here, everything will continue to be packed in bags. It is also common to simply throw your trash by the roadside. And since plastic does not decompose, they make a fire out of it in the evening when it's dark. Truly shocking, the world community's politics should take care of this.