The Johnslingtons

We spent April 16 – 26 on the beautiful island of Bali, splitting our time between Sanur, a beach town in the South (near the airport and capital city of Denpasar); Munduk, a mountain town in the central highlands; and Pekutatan, another beach town in West Bali.

Bali is part of the country of Indonesia, but has a culture all its own, including its own language (Balinese) and religion—while most people in Indonesia are Muslim, most people in Bali practice Hinduism. Fiona loved the bright and beautiful temples we saw and the fresh, flower-filled offerings we found in those temples, as well as on sidewalks, atop statues and pretty much everywhere else.

Below are a few stories from Fiona about her adventures in Bali. Suksema (thank you in Balinese) for reading!

An Interview With Fiona About Our 10 Days in Bali

Tell us about Tandjung Sari (the hotel we stayed in in Sanur).

Tandjung Sari is an outside hotel, and we have our own little room. There are lots of statues, and a pool, and it’s my favorite pool ever!

They do lots of givings [offerings] on the floor for the demons, which are the bad spirits so that the bad spirits stay happy and won’t take their land. And they also [make offerings to] the goddesses, and they put those up to say thank you.

Tell us about Munduk.

We walked up and down 350 stairs to see two waterfalls. The first waterfall was okay, and there were some other people there. Then there was a longer hike over to the other waterfall. At the other waterfall it was pretty amazing. It was just spraying us, it was like taking a shower! There was supposed to be a bridge to go back home but apparently we couldn’t go across it [the bridge had collapsed], so we had to go back up the stairs. It was not very fun. My legs hurt.

We ran into some dogs on our hike. What were they like?

They bark a lot. They don’t know how to sit, they don’t know how to roll over, nobody trains them!

What could we see outside the place we stayed in Munduk?

Mountains, big mountains! And we ate lunch at a place that was kind of like the top of a tree house.

What was your favorite thing about our stay in West Bali?

At the turtle conservation [center] I got to see some baby turtles and the baby turtles grow up to be about that big [arms spread super wide apart]. They were like this tiny [fingers close together], but they grow up to be that big. And then, also, one of the baby turtles that grow up to be that big, I got to put it in a bowl and put it on the beach and it got to use its arms and squiggle out to sea. [At sea,] it’s going to swim and it’s going to have birthdays. It will have 25 birthdays before it comes back. When it comes back it’s gonna lay its own eggs on the exact same beach. I named my turtle Lily.

I went to the turtle conservation [center] with Clive, a boy I met in Bali [the 7-year-old son of the owners of our hotel]. You could touch the turtles’ shells but not their heads. I also got to see some fish and crabs all tied up [that some local fisherman had caught].

[At the hotel], we got to swim in an infinity pool. It’s a pool, but instead of just having, like, a pool-pool, the water goes down and you can’t really see the edge of it and you’re like, “whoa, where did that go?!”