The Island of Bali

Lovina--Northwestern corner of the island of Bali, Indonesia

Current Weather--Warm, not as humid as Java, and a bit overcast with the threat of thundershowers at the moment--overall...nice :)

This will be a short entry as I am running out of time on the computer and it will most likely cost me an arm and a leg since I have been sitting at this computer for two hours now. But it was time to get caught up on life and try to get a few job applications out there into the world. Yes, the ever search for seasonal work...a love, hate relationship. I hate it when I have to search for it, but I love it when it sends me to amazing locations for work. You win some and you loose some. 

We arrived in the the northwestern corner of Bali yesterday morning. We ended up taking two trains and then a ferry from Yogyakarta to get to the current small beach village of Lovina that we are sitting in at the moment. It was a long day of travel. We spent that morning doing a two hour Batik lesson in Yogya then we caught the local bus to get to the train station and it was non stop travel after that. 4 hours on one train, 7 hours on another and then a 40 minute ferry ride. We got on the first train at 1600pm and we got off the train to catch the ferry at 0440am the next morning. We managed to catch a few hours of shut eye on the bumping, swaying train but needless to say we looked like zombies as we walked off of that train, fending off the numerous,"Hey Misters! Need a taxi!?" as we walked the 200 meters to the ferry terminal. Felt good to stretch the legs. 

So yesterday was spent getting to know Lovina and catch up on a little bit of sleep from the journey. Today all three of us went our own ways to do a bit of personal exploration. John went to dive, Rachel went to snorkel and I relaxed with my book, journal and wandered around Lovina taking photos as well as doing some job searching to fill the next few months of my life once I return state side.

That being said, any of you faithful readers have any good job ideas for me? Something to fill the months of January to mid April...

Lovina is nice. Quiet and small and easy to walk around. No crazy, jam packed traffic mob here. So far Bali has a different feel than the island of Java. I wasn't sure if I would like Bali because whenever you hear Bali all that is associated with the island is the thumping soul rocking party scene of the expats. Not exactly my scene. But I have discovered that if you make it to the smaller villages you can escape the scene. You will find more of that down near Denpasar. We will only be in Denpasar long enough to pick up John's girlfriend and then we're hitting the road again for bigger and better things. 

Bali is primarily Hindu so we have left much of the Muslim/Arabic influence behind although you can still find hints of it here and there. The temples we have found in Lovina are very different, the feel as well as the architecture of the place. People still pray to their God several times a day, but the call to prayer is not heard throughout the entire village. 

So that's that really. No real soul searching in this entry. Just some rambles. Until next time...