No money no honey, no woman no cry.

It's the beginning of April and we have a week off for Easter break, cue 8 day trip to Bali. Bali is an island of Indonesia, very destitute but has great beaches so it is a popular holiday destination nonetheless. The trip to Bali was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had. Traveling to such a radically different culture allowed me to learn a lot about my own culture, and see how others live beyond what I see on TV. I met a lot of other very interesting travelers as well, mostly from Europe. I traveled by myself, but I knew about a dozen other people who were going there as well and I made friends with everyone in my hostel, so I was never alone.

The streets of Bali are hectic and dominated by scooters.

Construction work on an old building, the scaffolding is made of bamboo. 

Here are some pictures of the hotel I stayed at for most of my time. The Island Hotel, highly recommend it. Resort quality atmosphere, good food and you can get a dorm for $19. More importantly, the staff is awesome and they look out for you. I ended up adding a few on facebook before I left.

Awesome little bar area upstairs.

The pool was our gathering area most days.

           

The 'Sunset Lounge'. On the roof of the hotel, had a great view of the sunset and could get food and drinks delivered up there.

Some of the people from the hotel.

We're at a restaurant on the beach where you sit on bean bags and watch the sunset.

We took several day trips, where for about $30-40 someone would drive you all over the island (the first guy was with us for 13 hours) and stops at all the touristy destinations. The first trip was with Allie and Megan.

Our first stop is at the home of the world famous lewak coffee, hailed as the world's best. They gave us a tour of how it's made and let us try samples of all their other teas and coffees.

Coffee, cocoa, vanilla and tons of other plants grow around here.

Here they roast the coffee beans for about 30 minutes...

   

...and then feed them these guys. The famed lewak of lewak coffee.  The coffee gets its named because  of this indigenous feline, which is fed a stable diet of coffee beans. After eating and excreting them, the coffee beans are then collected and washed to be ground up into fresh coffee. The coffee hailed as the world's best is nothing more than cat shit brew.

Also, cocks they raise for cocks for cock fighting.
Thought that was noteworthy.

The girls and I in front of the cocoa trees.

Next stop was the botanical gardens and Ubu Temple. Beautiful scenery and breathtakingly serene, it's very easy to feel at peace here. As a matter of fact, there are regularly groups meditating, praying or doing yoga.

 

                                                            A parade at the temple.

Definitely not staged.

This was probably sacrilegious.

The next day we head out on another day trip, this time to see some native Balinese animals.

Okay, so maybe the elephants aren't native to Bali, but we rode them anyway.

We see some monkeys on the side of the road and we pull off. Just don't pull the banana away when they  reach for it. They won't hesitate to bite your face off.

Next stop is the monkey forest. It's just some walking trails cut out of the forest, and it is crawling with monkeys. They are very grabby. I wasn't even offering this one the banana, he just ran up my back and sat on head until I gave it to him.

There were a lot of places with sculptures like these in the forest.

If you've been paying attention, a lot of these pictures aren't in the right order. Oh well, you'll get over it.

The view from Mount Batur, Bali's largest and still active volcano. Was a 2 hour hike to get here. Sadly not the highest point in Bali though. I wanted to cross Bali off the highest point list for Dad, maybe next time. In one day I saw the sunrise from a volcano and the sunset from a beach.

This is where steam from the volcano is collected, it is considered holy water. Locals will come up here and place incense by the opening.  

Another temple in Semenyak. The robes are required before entering, they said our legs must be covered.

If there's anything I learned about Hinduism, it's the idea of serenity. These places are so peaceful.

Tried surfing out the last few days. Not the easiest thing in the world. Stood up on my first try though.

It's amazing how differently the people here live. The live off a few dollars a day. One night at the bars for us could be a month's rent for them. They call McDonald's the "American Temple", explaining how they could hardly ever afford to eat there. Inherently though, they have a completely different set of values, perhaps for the better. There was one day that I was getting very suspicious of everyone around me, wondering why there were so happy. I thought everyone was up to something. I think subconsciously somewhere I was thinking "they shouldn't be happy, they're poor." That's when it hit me how ingrained in our society this idea of materialism is. We think that we can't be happy unless we're making lots of money and spending more of it. It's estimated that the average American sees over 3000 ads per day. That's 3000 little tiny messages telling you to spend your money on something or you'll never be happy. Sad as it may be, it's no wonder people are the way that they are.