October, 2008
Bali, Indonesia

Well, I went to Bali, Indonesia. I loved it. It moved me on many levels and now I'm thinking about how I could live my life there, and I'm seriously trying to figure out if I'm just dreaming or if it is a realistic possibility for my future.

I met a bunch of friends in Indonesia for a week-long retreat / vacation. We had the time of our lives.
When we arrived in Bali we did some quick negotiating with the cab drivers and then piled in a van to head to our "hotel." It was on Sanur Beach and was very peaceful and simple. Grass roofs on our small bungalows, each room had a porch connected to it, the bungalows were all set within a lush garden full of flowers, landscaped ponds, and singing geckos. We were right on the beach. It was perfect and exactly how I always dreamed that a beach vacation should be. We spent a while just taking it all in.
   

In the morning we set off on our first adventure activity; white water rafting. We went into the mountainous jungle of Bali to take our rafting trip. Along the way we passed some good spots to take pictures of the scenery.
         

We got suited up and headed off for a great day of rafting. The water wasn't too high, but the rapids were still big enough to make us work hard and give us a thrill. After we finished our rafting trip we hiked up the side of this hill to eat an authentic Indonesian lunch buffet from a spot overlooking the valley. It was great food and a great view.
           
            

We got back to our hotel that afternoon and my friends decided to cool off in the ocean. It wasn't really that deep. They just all decided to squat down in the water right before I took their picture. Later that night we got together for our first evening meeting. We met on the beach and spent time singing songs and hearing a good word from our speaker. We all wore our special Bali retreat t-shirts and then took some funny pictures in them later.
           

The next morning several of us got up early to watch the sun rise from our beach. It was so beautiful that I ended up getting up at 5:30am the rest of the week to catch the gorgeous sunrises. It was a perfect peaceful time each morning.
           
          

The next morning we rode back into the mountains and jungles of Bali to go "Extreme Mountain Tubing." I had a general idea of what this would be. I think the rest of our group had no idea. Each time we went into the mountains it took around an hour. The whole way there we played Mafia. There was a couple from Germany in the van with us. I tried to get them to play but I think they were a little weirded out by the Mafia game and how we kept "killing people" and calling each other liars. It was pretty fun.

We arrived at a really rustic base camp where we suited up with our life jackets and helmets and then headed deeper into the jungle to go tubing. Several people in our group saw monkeys in the jungle around us as we set out on our adventure. It was just crazy how remote and raw and wild everything was. There were literally vines hanging down all around us while we were tubing and I kept thinking that if Tarzan was going to swing from some vines; these would be the kind he would swing from. It was beautiful and totally natural.
              
The mountain stream we floated down was so perfectly carved into the canyon that it felt fake. It was TOO perfect. It felt like a ride at Disney World, where the conditions are so ideal that they could never exist in real life. But here we were, floating through the jungle in a mountain stream, in Bali. It was awesome.
               
Once we finished our tubing trip, we hiked up a steep hill and then a jeep met us along the dirt road. There wasn't enough room inside for everyone so some of us rode on the roof.
                  

We went over to Kuta Beach that night at had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was right on the boardwalk, so we got to see a beautiful sunset. Kuta beach was really crowded and I was glad we were staying on Sanur. I'd keep my peaceful sunrises over the crowded sunsets any day. Dinner was great, but finding a Starbucks around the corner was even better! After our meeting that night we hung out outside my room playing cards and talking.
                 
                

More beautiful sunrise pictures to show you:
               
               
              
Our hotel gave us a pretty decent breakfast along with our rooms. Each morning as the sun had finished rising I would take about 5 steps from my seat on the beach to my seat in the beach-side restaurant and have fresh fruit and coffee, along with a selection of other foods for breakfast each morning. I'm telling you, this was a pretty great setup.

On Wednesday our adventure was going SCUBA diving. We went to their office, got fitted with our diving gear and wetsuits, and then went on the boat for about an hour ride to a small island off the southeast coast of Bali. I was the only certified diver in our group, which I was grateful for because I got a free review as they were instructed in diving. The last time I was diving was while I was doing my open water certification in Hawaii 4 years ago, so I definitely needed a refresher course. We did have a couple of girls in our group who never really felt comfortable with the whole "breathing under the ocean" thing, but everyone else loved the whole experience. We were given some brief instructions and then did two dives where we saw amazing coral, tropical fish up the wa-zoo, other strange sea creatures and every kind of plant you can imagine. We also watched each other fall onto the plants, coral, and each other, as well as accidentally floating to the surface several times. I think we had a very successful day of diving with a group of beginners. The water was completely clear and the weather was great all day. This was one of my favorite days of the trip.
I was overwhelmed by the beauty I saw under the ocean. Every time I go diving I am struck with the thought that this is part of the world that wasn't necessarily made for us to see. Dad made a huge part of the world that humans can't experience, and yet He filled it with beautiful that I can hardly believe. It just makes me think how much He loves beauty, and how He has created so many things that human eyes will never see, and yet He made them beautiful for His own enjoyment. And seeing a glimpse of the creation full of color and life and uniqueness that exists in the ocean, I am amazed at the new way that these things can testify about the beauty and glory of the One who created them.
               
               
               
               
               
               
               

We didn't get a very long night's sleep after our day of Scuba diving. The next morning we were up and leaving our hotel at 2am. We drove for about 2 hours to get to the base of the active volcano on Bali; Mt.Batur, at 4am. We drank down some coffee and started our hike up the volcano in the very chilly dark. There weren't enough flashlights for everyone and the hike was pretty challenging as the mountain got steeper and steeper. But every single person in our group reached the top before the sun rose at 6:15am. It was well worth the early morning and the strenuous climb once we saw the glory of the sun rising over the island, with the clouds and mist rising off the lake below us. I'll never forget it.
               
                  
              
              
              
After spending some time just taking in the view, our guides fixed us breakfast of eggs, Balinese biscuits, water, and more coffee. I'm telling you - it was a perfect morning. When we were ready to move on, we hiked into the crater of the volcano and saw several places where steam was coming up through the ground. We could see down into the crater, but it wasn't like the inside of the mountain at the end of Lord Of The Rings or anything like that. We watched them cook some eggs on the hot steam coming from the ground and after we hiked around the crater rim, we headed back down the volcano. It took another two hours to hike down. When we all finally reached the bottom we were really surprised at the size and steepness of the mountain we had climbed up in the dark.
               
  

We were back down at the base of the volcano by 9am, and then had some vans waiting for us to explore the north side of the island for the rest of the day. It was incredibly beautiful everywhere we drove, but we were all so tired that everyone fell asleep in the vans. We ended up at this small town called Lovina where we stopped for lunch. One of our drivers had grown up there so he took us to this great Indonesian buffet right on the ocean. The food was great and it was very inexpensive - like everything else in Bali.

We decided to revise our sightseeing itinerary for the day, since none of us could stay awake for more than 5 minutes of driving. We headed down to one of the key landmarks in Bali; the Temple on the Lake. It happened to be a religious holiday during the week we were in Bali, so many people had come to offer sacrifices and worship at this temple.
                 
               
After we looked around the temple and had a drink of refreshing "Pocari Sweat", one of our vans took a group to head back to the hotel, and the rest of us went off to find some monkeys to play with. We found a ton of them, along with gargantuan bats. A woman selling goods at the place where the monkeys were roaming around became my friend. Her name is Putu. She has a young daughter who's name is Putu number 2.
               
                
                 
                 
              

The next morning four of us went down to Uluwatu Beach to pick up some surfing pictures taken of my friend earlier in the week, and to enjoy the beauty of the southern point of Bali island. There were a ton of surfers out that morning and it made me want to become one of them. The water was clear, the waves were perfect (so I was told...) and there was a whole surfing community on this part of the island with its own culture and atmosphere.    After being amazed by beautiful Uluwatu for a while, we headed over to Kuta beach where we ate at a Mexican restaurant for lunch and the got foot massages before calling it a day.
                
      
                

During the week, our evening meetings were definitely one of the most important parts. We had our own tribal counsel thing going on with the torches and the cool beach meeting place. The hotel gave us a great setup and our times of singing together and hearing messages were unforgettable to me. If you ever go to Bali, I recomend the LaTaverna hotel.
                
                
On our last night together, our speaker gave us each a small gift as a reminder of a fun memory we had shared during the week. It was customized for each person and it really made our last night a special time.

It's hard to emcompass all the feelings that went along with these experiences. Ultimately I would describe this time as one of the best weeks of my life. I loved it and I would do it again in a second. I can't wait until the next time I go to Bali!