Aggressive monkeys, early mornings, and so many waves of gratitude.

I've met some pretty fabulous people while studying abroad this semester. One of these great individuals is Sydney. "I met Sydney in Sydney" = Perfect. Sydney and I have spent lots of time together these past months, and I don't think my study abroad experience would have been quite the same without her smiling face and contagious laugh. While hanging out at school and traveling together, we have gotten to know each other very well. There are, however, some things I didn't know about Sydney until our trip to Bali. For example, the random fact that she knows all the lyrics to La Bamba (she sang it for me), her nickname back home is "Squid" (I totally prefer Sydney), and she also really enjoys playing rummy. She was going to teach me... But alas, we never bought cards. 

Though there has been no rummy playing, these past few days in Bali have been spectacular. Sydney greeted me with open arms, a big smile, and a sigh of relief that I hadn't been abducted on my way to Bali when I finally arrived to her hotel at 12:30am. After all the delays, the 6 hour plane ride, and long slow moving line at immigration, I was happy to be reunited with my friend. After some chit chat, we dozed off quickly.    

We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning. We had breakfast, checked out, and made our way to Legian, where we would check into paradise (also known as the Swiss-Belinn Legian Hotel) for our remaining two nights we had together. We found this spectacular hotel on Groupon (of course), and it included a late check-out, 6 beers at the bar, and breakfast. Everything was clean, the beds were comfy, and the buffet breakfast was to our liking (very important). The Legian location was nice, and the beach was only a short walk away. We didn't spend any time laying on the beach though; we rather lounged by the deep blue infinity pool on the top floor. The view was breathtaking! 

Though we didn't lay out on the beach, we did walk to Legian Beach a few times to eat. The five minute walk was through a quaint alleyway. It was very narrow, but scooters still managed to pass by us every now and then. As we stood there plastered against the wall, I prayed our toes would not be run over.  

We spent our first full day (June 21st) just lounging by our awesome pool, and walking around the area of Legian. We ate dinner at a restaurant by the Legian Beach promonade, and tried out the local cuisine. The nasi goreng (fried rice) was very tasty! We walked along the beach afterwards, and saw a beautiful sunset. 

First sunset over Legian Beach 

Bali is a very lively place. The streets are full of both tourists and locals, and shops selling all sorts of things line the streets. There are quite a few cars here, and scooters zip by quickly between all the cars. The low rumble of traffic and honking can be heard at all hours of the day. It's surprisingly clean here. It reminds me of a toned-down version of certain towns in India. Ordered chaos! 

Supposedly, the nightlife in Bali is very fun and exciting. Not that we would know anything about that; we were typically in our extremely comfortable beds by 8pm. In our defense, we did wake up at 6-7am every morning, too. I was happy that my travel companion shared my love for early bedtimes and mornings. She also didn't seem to mind me obnoxiously proclaiming "Good morning!" loudly at the start of each day. The funny thing is that Sydney responds to me waking up happy in the same way that I respond to her being "hangry" (being so hungry that you become angry, frustrated or both); be as quiet as humanly possible and try not to disturb the beast. 

Lovely Snapchat that Sydney sent. We're so wild! 

On our second day (June 23rd) we decided we should see other things than just the area surrounding our hotel. We did some research and figured out what we wanted to see, and hailed a taxi after eating way too many pancakes at our buffet breakfast. It proved to be a great day for sightseeing; it was overcast for the majority of the day. What is it with me and bad weather on vacation? 

Our taxi driver, Maddi, was very entertaining, and you could tell he enjoyed practicing his English. He asked lots of questions between telling us how beautiful we were (we responded by talking about our made-up boyfriends back home). For the first part of our journey we enjoyed listening to old 90s hits like Uptown Girl by Westlife and Hero by Enrique Englesias. Maddi handed us off to his father, who was also a taxi driver, after a while; he apparently had to go to school. Maddi's dad was a happy fellow who also enjoyed practicing his English. To our annoyance, he also enjoyed honking his horn for every little thing that happened on the road. 

We passed many beautiful rice fields. 

I'm glad we didn't rent scooters here. The traffic isn't too bad (at certain times of the day), but I don't think I would be able to drive here. There's so much indiscriminate honking; they honk when they pass, they honk when they wait for you to pass, they honk to say thank you,  They honk when they're annoyed, they honk all the time. Or maybe it was just Maddi's father who honked all the time... 

Our first stop on our sightseeing trip was to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sancuary in Ubud. Though only approximately 30km/19miles, it took us over an hour to get there. We were very excited about seeing all the long-tailed macaques when we finally got out of the car. 

We were greeted by an interesting sign when we entered the Monkey Forest. We found the advice about not hiding food (the monkey will know) particularly amusing.

Unfortunately, our encounter with the monkeys wasn't ideal... The sign warned us about hiding food; it did not, however, warn us about the fact that the monkeys will bully you into giving them all the food you have by hissing at you and showing their freakishly scary fangs. The six bananas we bought were pretty much gone after being in the park for 2,5 minutes. To be honest, I was actually pretty scared of the monkeys. Many of them were really aggressive! I wonder what would have happened if we hid food... That would have been terrible! 

Hello, lille monkey. Want a banana? 

Ok, sure. Keep the bananas!

There were lots of monkeys in the forest: big monkeys, little monkeys, old monkeys, and baby monkeys. If you held your hand up high with a banana in your hand, monkeys would jump on you to get the food. It took some time getting used to having monkey climb on you. We heard that if you tip the guys that work in the park $5, they will help you with the monkeys. Being too scared to try to get the monkeys on our own, we tipped a nice guy and got some help. 

Sydney's first encounter with the monkeys 

Once Sydney got used to having a living creature jump and climb on her, she relaxed a little. She had a bonding moment with this cute little guy. 

Unfortunately, the monkey wasn't gazing fondly into Sydney's eyes; it was plotting an attack. Not only did the monkey grab her nose, he also bit the side of her face. Notice how unfazed the monkey looks as it does this. 

Bad monkey! 

I was lucky; the worst I got was a tail in my face as a little guy was trying to get the food in my hand. 

This big guy aggressively shooed another little monkey away to get the banana. Once he got the banana, he was pretty calm. 

Not all the monkeys were aggressive and intimidating. My favorite monkey, by far, was this awesome monkey who was just chillin' on the ground. Look at him! AW!

The forest in itself was beautiful. Lots of tall, green trees, creeks, and beautiful stone carvings. When taking a selfie, I decided to do my new signature move: wave. I have noticed that I wave in many of my pictures lately. This started out as something I did when Isabelle and I were in India, walking along the river in Alleppey. Sydney loves it when I wave in pictures. 

"Don't wave! You always wave!"

As there are heaps of beautiful temples all around Bali, we decided we should probably see at least one. After giving away all of our bananas (and being bullied to give away my half-eaten ice cream to a monkey in the parking lot), we decided it was time to get away from there. Our next stop was the Pura Tanah Lot, which literally means the Tanah Lot temple. The temple sits on a large offshore rock which has been shaped continuously over the years by the ocean tide. We were pretty exhausted due to our encounter with the aggressive monkeys, our honk-happy driver, and the heat, but the temple was beautiful. 

Looks can be deceiving. Sydney and I were both very hangry at this point. Thank goodness food was on the way. 

We headed back to the hotel to recuperate a little before heading to the Potato Head Beach Club in Seminyak for dinner. Sydney took me out for a belated birthday celebration, and oh my goodness, I cannot begin tell you how fabulous place this was. People were lounging in daybeds, sipping cocktails by the infinity pool, and enjoying the beautiful day. Potato Head is a popular place; there was a line about half a block long outside. Sydney emailed ahead of time, made reservations, and made sure we got a table with a GREAT view of the sunset. What a sweetheart! 

View of the sunset from our table

The atmosphere, the view, the drinks, the food, and not to mention the company... Everything was perfect! Sydney even had them surprise me with a happy birthday dessert. 

I've previously mentioned how I get these waves of gratitude that come over me, and they make me just want to hug everyone in sight. Well, there have been quite a few of these when in Bali... Especially while watching the sun set over the water at Potato Head. I can't believe how lucky we are to have experienced all the things and places that we have. Poor Sydney, seeing as she was my only travel companion (and thus the only appropriate hug target), she was the only one that had to deal with these waves of gratitude. 

Yesterday, our third and last day together (June 23rd), was a weird day. It was time for Sydney to fly back to Sydney in the evening, leaving me in Bali for another three days on my own. We were both in weird moods the entire day, just avoiding the topic of departure and having to say goodbyes. We laid lazily by the the gorgeous pool the first part of the day. Music was playing loudly, which made having a conversation difficult. I think Sydney and I both appreciated being distracted by the music. I couldn't tell you who was playing for the life of me, but I enjoyed it. The music reminded me of the music my Uncle Will and Aunt Nancee play when they make dinner. They are quite the gourmet chefs, and I have fond memories of observing their techniques with lovely jazz music in the background. For a brief while my mind was not thinking about Sydney's departure. 

We managed to pull ourselves together, and get out of our funk as the day went on. We checked out of the Swiss Belinn Legian, and went to my new hotel, Favehotel Umalas in Seminyak. As we jumped on the bed in my small but nice hotel room, we suddenly realized that Sydney's iPhone was missing. To make a long story short: What happens in Bali, stays in Bali... Especially Sydney's phone. 

Saying goodbye to Sydney was naturally very sad. We had tried avoiding the topic the whole day, but we both knew that our trip together was soon coming to an end. While studying abroad I've been counting down the remaining time I have left, trying to fit in as much as possible. Saying goodbye to Sydney made me realize that my time abroad has almost come to an end, too. I've been able to shove this fact in the back of my head lately, but her leaving marked the beginning of the end. As we sat in the hotel lobby teary eyed and saying our final goodbyes, we both agreed that we had really made the most of our time while abroad. We had no regrets; we did all the things we wanted, visited lots of awesome places, met great people, and ended our time together with a bang in Bali. 

(Insert wave of gratitude here) 

Love, 

Suzy