We woke up around 5:15am, with David getting around 1.5 hours of sleep and Caitlyn getting maybe 2 or 2.5 hours. We packed our bags back up and headed downstairs to check out.
We ordered a grab, which showed up in less than 5 minutes (look at that – our grab driver last night DID lie!). Our new driver was super nice and we got to the airport in no time.
We dropped off our bags and got our tickets, and headed through the most relaxed security we have ever seen. It was very confusing, as they only scanned our bags and didn’t even have us go through a metal detector for an international flight. We had some security concerns, but were happy to have gotten through.
We eventually got to a nice area with lots of restaurants, cafes, and shops. Caitlyn was feeling tired so she went to lay down on a few chairs while Laura went to another area to charge her phone. David sat in the row in front of Caitlyn and worked on the blog. After a bit of time resting/blogging/charging/drinking Coke Zero, we went downstairs to head closer to our gate. At this point, we realized that we had gone through a preliminary security and had an actual security ahead of us. Thankfully, it was pretty fast, though we were upset that we had to throw out the water that we literally had just purchased from a shop within eyesight of the security point. We kept walking and got another bottle for our flight. We eventually got on the flight, with David being in the middle seat and Caitlyn in an aisle seat. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to pick our seats and Caitlyn’s aisle seat was in the row right behind David. The woman who was supposed to sit next to David didn’t mind at all, so we did get to sit next to each other.
We got a good amount of sleep on this flight, which was nice with the night we had. Once we got off the flight, the girl who switched seats with Caitlyn told us how funny it was that apparently 4 flight attendants tried to wake us up before we finally woke up! We were a little embarrassed as we only thought one flight attendant woke us up to tell us to put our seats up. We told her that we got almost no sleep last night in an attempt to make it seem better.
We were picked up by our driver, Yendira (spelling?), who explained lots of things about Bali including culture, the large amount of Hindus here, and the ins and outs of the family compound. Apparently, most families live in a family compound together. The sons will live there for their entire lives, bringing their wives to the compound and having their children there. The daughters will move to their husband’s compound. We asked about what happens if a family has only daughters, and apparently they will try to find a family with a son who is not the oldest son who is willing to move to a new compound. We learned about the different buildings, including the central building which is where the head of the house lives. It has open walls so that he can hear anything in the compound and protect the rest of the family. We also learned about “Split gates” which are large pillar/gate like structures that separate different towns and villages. We learned that the size and opulence of the gate usually corresponds to the size and how nice the town or village is.
We were fascinated and learned so much on the way to our first stop: Tegenungan Waterfall. This waterfall was down a large flight of stairs in an area that was very tourist-centric. There were a few bars and hotels along the cliff side playing loud party music, and lots of young people swimming in the waters and pools at the base of the waterfall. It was pretty, but didn’t feel very natural, and we didn’t really have clothing prepared to swim or really enjoy this area.
After an hour or so, we went back up to the car and were taken to the ferry depot. The traffic was horrible and eventually we were worried about time and got out of the car and carried our bags a good distance. Yendira was awesome and we are very excited that he is supposed to be our driver once we get back to the main island of Bali in a few days! We walked towards the ticket office and Laura went inside to grab our tickets. Afterwards, we quickly walked to the depot itself and made it in time to get on the ferry.
It wasn’t large, but the waters were calm and it was a fairly comfortable 40 minute or so ride to Nusa Penida, our first true stop in Indonesia.
We arrived and there was a driver there to bring us to our hotel. The roads were very rough, with almost more potholes than road. There were a TON of stray dogs walking around everywhere. We were pretty surprised in the shape of the roads, but really enjoyed taking in the sights and culture of this small island. We eventually get to the Dagan Bungalows, which will be our home for a few days. This is a very cute area with a nice small pool out front and a few “bungalow” villas surrounding the pool. We checked in with a lovely woman named Wayan and were given our keys. We headed to our room and Caitlyn took a quick shower before we headed out to dinner.
We were relaxing for a few while we waited for Laura when suddenly we both heard a *splat* noise. We look around and eventually see that a medium-large lizard fell out of our air conditioning unit onto our floor! While David is usually the exterminator, Caitlyn is much more comfortable with reptiles/rodents and agreed to handle any of these on this trip while David handles the bugs. She used a water bottle to get the lizard out of the room, and eventually it jumped and landed on the bottle. We threw it out front and shut the door to prevent it from finding its way back in. After this we decided to head back to the check-in/employee building to see what was in a refrigerator we had seen. We were happy to see sodas, waters, snacks, and beers. We got a large beer for ~$2.50 and shared it on our front porch while we waited for Laura to get ready.
We looked on google and found a very close restaurant named Father Field Bistro and walked the short 4 or 5 minute walk there for dinner. They didn’t have any seating, but found 2 small tables to push together out front for us. We ordered the chicken with sweet and sour sauce, the fried squid, and some chicken satay.
The food was fine but unless we needed a close spot to eat, probably would not come back. Exhausted after the long day and little sleep, we headed back for an early night.
Steps walked: 12,754
Miles walked: 6.08
Bluming Travelers 