On our way to India

After the Gili island, we slowly made our way to India, trying to transition ourselves from a peaceful island to the craziness we'd been told to expect. This path first took us to the heart of Bali in Seminyak, close to the international airport, where we re-encountered traffic and people.

Rolling in style

 Seminyak is supposed to be a slitghtly less crazy version of Kuta, with a little less tourists but still great big beaches perfect for surfing.

Fast times at superslow Gili Air

When we left Lovina early, we took a car to a small harbor town called Amed, then a boat to the Gili Islands, off of Lombok. Out of the three islands, We chose Gili Air due to the overwhelming number of friends who recommended it, and we were not disappointed. After settling down at out hotel by the ocean, we both had the same thought: "This is the paradise we were expecting in Lovina."

The island is very small (we walked around it in 1:10hr) and as far as we could tell there are no vehicles on it, save for small horse carts used to carry stuff and people around. As a consequence there is no road, but just a dirt path. It's impressive how the absence of vehicles just makes everything more peaceful.

The route to forgettable Lovina

After Ubud our next step was to be Lovina, an area that had been recommended as a place to relax and not do anything. We picked a guide from Ubud to drive us all the way to Lovina with a couple stops along the way.

The first spot was a big temple area by the lake Beratan, up the mountain from Ubud, and almost halfway to our destination. The area is very pretty, with a couple of temples located on their mini islands only a few meters away from the side of the lake. These are dedicated to the dead and have usually 7 roofs to symbolize the 7 steps the dead have to go through before being completely let go. The process is supposed to take 5 years. As you'll notice, one of those even has 11 roofs. I asked if it took longer to go through that many steps, but it seems like it's 5 years all the same.

Strolling through rice paddies in lovely Ubud

Right after saying our good byes to Australia, we were ready to say Hello to Bali. Almost everybody had told us to avoid the south area of Kuta, as it's just a big touristy area so we did just that and went straight for our first destination, Ubud. It's a town situated inland, slighly up the mountains and surrounded by rice paddies.

Welcome to Ubud!

We could quickly tell that if the town's original economy was based on agriculture it is now very much centered around tourism. You can still find some paddies in the middle of town, but chatting with the locals we learned that they are becoming rarer over time while hotels, stores or restaurants are being erected.
No to worry though, if the main roads of the center feel very much tailored to us, westerners, Ubud is still very much a beautiful authentic town. There are no big buildings and a lot of the accomodations have you stay within a traditional family coumpound. One doesn't need to go far from the center to really be immersed in the country.