Back to Bali

Southern tip of Bali

After a wonderful four weeks in the UK, culminating in our youngest son's wedding we arrived back in Bali at the end of June. We have spent most of the last two weeks on Bali as we have been waiting for an extension to our Carnet for the car, so have managed to relax and recover from a hectic four weeks in the UK, and explore some of the lesser known areas.

Filming cigarette commercial

We found a great place to camp at the southernmost point of Bali where we spent a couple of nights, including one with Javi and Ines, (fellow travellers across China) and a couple from England, Aldo and Vera who are planning to ship to Australia in Mid July. It was great to catch up and share experiences before we each had to go our separate ways. We were nearly in a commercial for Lucky Strike cigarettes which when we woke up we found was being filmed on the road past our campsite. The location manager came and chatted for half an hour making sure we were out of shot.

Tiny temple for 6 houses by crater lake

As a mainly Hindu island Bali is very different from other Indonesian Islands, and is also very much more developed with western style shops and goods available, and a huge amount of traffic. There are thousands of temples, from tiny serving a few houses to large famous ones. We were surprised at how many ceremonies are held, especially at the period of the full moon, with one village where we stayed holding three days of celebrations which involved several thousand people from the village and adjacent villages. In other places where we camped were smaller ceremonies either for a community or for an individual family, all of which include quantities of offerings of flowers and fruit in small wicker baskets.
To avoid the crowds we headed for the centre and the north of the island. We spent two nights on a campsite, the only one we have found in Indonesia, by a crater lake and enjoyed wandering along the lake shore to a typical tiny temple for a community of half a dozen huts. As it was the school holidays there were lots of youngsters each night enjoying singing round campfires, so not the quietest of places at night, but very peaceful during the day.

Family ceremony

The north and east coasts are much less developed with very few tourists, mainly divers for the few ship wrecks and at Amed a very low key pebbly beach with a coral garden just by the beach, so great for snorkelling.
As soon as the Carnet extension arrived we wasted no time in stocking up on western essentials we are unlikely to see again in Indonesia and headed to the ferry for Lombok, where we were the last vehicle on, but packed in so tight we had to climb out of the passenger window.

Beach campsite

We are now on Lombok, a much more relaxed island with beautiful stretches of white sand and not a person, or hotel in sight. Desert Point - a basic surfers location at the end of a 4km rough track has one of the longest surf waves and surfers come from all over the world when the swell is up. Camping by the beach we were treated to the sunset over the rolling surf.

Boats on North Coast of Bali