Well, after the great Formula 1 weekend it was time to travel again! The destination this time: Bali.... We booked a small Villa for six persons in the South of the island. Lara, Peter and Fabian arrived there earlier on Monday, because they had spent their weekend on Lombok. Philipp and me arrived late in the evening after our plane landed during the sunset. That was already a great moment. At the airport we got our Visa for Indonesia. Our passports are getting filled up! Thereafter we tried to find a cab to our residence. In Bali you always find a person who is willing to take you where ever you want, but they tend to charge you ridiculously high prices. (Please keep in mind that "high" is a relative term. If you compare it to European prices everything is very very cheap. Nevertheless, you don't want to waste money even if it is only a few cents or maybe a Euro.) Only few cabs make use a meter to calculate the appropriate price. Most likely a so called "driver" will offer to take you for a fixed price. After negotiating for a while we found one driver that offered a fair deal and he took us to our Villa. On our way we could already see how poor the country is. Furthermore, everybody driving on the streets tends to go the way they prefer: Traffic lights are ignored as well as lanes. You just drive where there is space. A really exciting experience. In addition dogs are like birds on Bali. They are everywhere and tend to scare you a bit if you are not used to it. At the Villa we met up with the others and exchanged our stories of the weekend. We went to bed early since we had booked a volcano sunrise tour for the next morning. Pick up time at our villa was 1:00 am! So all of us had roughly 2 hours of sleep only. But it was really worth it. The driver who picked us up was very friendly and the ride itself was quite comfortable. When we arrived at our starting point we got fresh coffee and water as supplies for the trekking trip. Even though it was early, we had a lot of fun already. Walking and climbing up the mountain was very cool! First it was completely dark, but the sun brightened the sky more and more as we got closer to the top. We arrived at the highest point around 6:00 am and enjoyed the spectacular view on the surrounding mountains while the sun rose. A unique and one-time experience! Our guide provided us with coffee/tea and a breakfast which was partially cooked in the steam of the volcano. Even the trip down afterwards was really exciting since it revealed the beautiful nature which we had passed in total darkness in the beginning of out trip. When we were back we asked our guide to drop us off at one of the most beautiful beaches in Bali. We spent the rest of the day there and tried to get tanned. In the evening we took a cab to Jimbaran beach to watch the sunset. we decided to go for dinner there at one of the small seafood restaurants. This was one of the greatest moments of my stay here. Our dinner was still alive and we could chose the crab we would like to eat. After it was grilled it was served as a three dish menu to our table on the beach with view on the sunset. In those moments you are happy and very thankful.
The next day we went snorkeling. Again we got picked out and transported to the north of the island. At a small harbor we got our equipment and together with a guide we went on a boat to get out to the reefs. The water was crystal clear and warm. The guide showed us the best places to see beautiful fish and plants. We even saw "Nemo" and "Dory" and all the other fishes from the movie. But snorkeling also requires some work. Diving becomes easier but you get deeper so easily that you can feel it in your ears. A very unfamiliar feeling to me. In total it was a great trip and I think everybody enjoyed it a lot. Later in the afternoon we went to Jimbaran beach to have dinner at the same restaurant as the evening before. This may sound boring, but the food and the service were so good and convincing that we felt like going there again.

On Thursday we booked ourselves a car for the whole day including a personal driver. (Really great to see what is possible if everything is cheap) He first took us to Ubud, a small town in the middle of Bali which is famous for its great cultural offerings. The city itself was great: Small nice restaurants next to impressive temples. We decided to have a look at the monkey forest and its temples. The name doesn't promise too much... there are a lot of monkeys and they are not at all shy. they climbed our backs and tried to open our bags! Good opportunity to take pictures! The temples in the forest were nice as well even though they were all closed for prayer. Afterwards we went a bit further north to see the rice terraces of Ubud. Thy are so beautiful!  Definitely worth seeing. Walking through them is also fun and very relaxing as long as you stay in the shade. On our way back south we stopped by a coffee plantation. Some locals explained us how the different coffee beans we grown and how Luwak coffee is harvested. A very interesting process and the coffee smelled so good. But it was still relatively expensive so we only tried the free to taste drinks (Mangosteen tea, Cinnamon tea,...). All of them were really good. We asked out driver to bring us to the Single Fin restaurant and bar in Uluwatu which is the southern end of the island. It was an awesome place to eat burgers, enjoy drinks and watch the sunset. It is the place to be in the evening on Bali! Very very nice!
On Friday we slept in and wasted a bit of time in our pool, before we had to leave to the airport. It was a very great trip and everyone of us enjoyed it a lot. Bali is a great place to see and stay. Awesome memories....