Let's share some impressions from our recent trip to Bali! We spent 10 days there in the north-east at the magnificent newly built Siddhartha hotel by Werner Lau (www.siddhartha-bali.com) and had a very nice stay. The vacation was intended to be a dive holiday and we spent 6 days diving at beautiful (partly seemingly untouched) dive spots in the area and on Nusa Penida, an island in the south-east. The critters and 'macro' stuff in the deep blue Balinese waters (no turquoise because of black/dark lava sand) are amazing. And we were also lucky to see: MANTAS!!! (manta point, nusa penida) - just simply magnificent!

 But although the dives were great we 'took two days off' and had an island roundtrip. And that's where we can share: no underwater camera, but 3 point-and-shoots that managed to make close to 700 shots in the two days. Here is a distilled 'Best Of' - hopefully a quick glimpse on how beautiful and mystical this green tropical island is.

 Let's start with rice terrasses (which never stopped to amaze us) near Amlapura in the east of the island:

Then the 'Bat Temple' in the south-east, a holy place which centers around a cave with hundreds (or thousands) of bats. And two holy snakes that luckily didn't show :o)

Next stop Besakih, at nearly 1000 meters above sea level the largest temple on the island (therefore called 'Mother Temple'). The 3100 meter Mount Agung in the background also chose to stay hidden. But this seems to be most common at this time of the year. We'll have some 'Mount Agung' pictures for you later, as the large vulcano was very visible from our Hotel all the time.

Then we drove to the volcano next to the Agung, also very impressive because: - it's still active - it is about one third flooded with magnificent Lake Batur. You can see the edge of the crater in the first shot and the black lava trails from the last eruption in the year 2000 in the second.

And off we went to the south-west of the island to be in time for a sunset at the famous (and Tourist plagued) Tannah Lot water temple. Which is not in the pictures. Too many tourists. We found watching the sunset of the adjacent arc with small temple on top more compelling.

Then we stayed for the night in Ubud which not only offers loads of restaurants, bars and art shops, but also a mystical monkey forest at city limits. We went there at 7.30am, even before the ticket office opened and got some extra 'mystical boost' from the early morning light. Pure rainforest / jungle experience...

Fresh out of the jungle we drove the short distance to the Royal Temple:

And after that we stopped at Lake Bratang for another (tiny but picturesque) water temple. With low dark clouds hanging above us for extra dramatic effect.

For the contrast, here come the Hot Springs near Banjar, with their flourishing surrounding forest.

After so much change, we needed to tick two more temples off our list. With a funny detail on a side wall of the first one (Meduwe Karang) - pretty obviously a dutch person (to be more specific an anthropologist who visited the island in 1903) on a bike - who seemed to have left some impression on the islanders!

And one final temple, that was only described in our 'Baedeker' guide by one word: strange. Which seems to mean that it's - well - different to the others. And we really liked it. Not least because it contains a statue of Varuna, the god in charge for the oceans (and therefore also for us divers).
 
You'll also notice that we usually don't dress up like this for our sightseeing, but you're required to wear a sarong and those hats (at least as a male) for being allowed into the temple. After a short cleansing ceremony with holy water.

Back home at the Siddhartha there's that promised shot from the Mount Agung in evening light. And some impressions of our incredible 'Villa Pantai' seafront double bungalow with open lounge area in the middle and our own pool. Life's sweet! ;o)