Beautiful black sand beaches, well maybe…

Lovina Beach, Bali. Road tripping through Bali today – me, Joni, and Anton in our rented Jeep for $8/day. Decided to head north from Kuta, directly through the center of the island. Much bigger than I thought, took us more than 3 hours to get from the south to the north. On the way we stopped to check out some of the terraced rice fields, visited a temple, and walked up to see the GitGit waterfall. It’s traditional culture here for the men to wear a sarong in the temple so I let (or made) Joni and Anton borrow 2 of mine and it was very amusing watching them trying to tie them on and complain about the’girly’ colors. The waterfall was pretty spectacular but we didn’t stop to swim because we were on a mission to get to Lovina.

The beach town of Lovina is very small and is mostly known for it’s black sand beaches, dolphins, and good snorkling. We looked at several places to stay once we arrived, and finally found a spot right on the beach with a great swimming pool and a 2 story-cottage with breakfast included for $5/night each! Much more along the lines of my budget. We celebrated the day by drinking beers at the pool bar and hanging out in the water all afternoon. Must admit that I was disappointed by the whole black sand hype – it actually looks more like dirty, dark sand from New Jersey. Oh well – still cool to see because it was a first for me. Tomorrow is a full-on relaxation day by the pool.

For anyone wondering what it’s like being an American here in Indonesia (the country with the largest Muslim population in the world), I can tell you that it’s fine here in Bali. Well this particular island is mostly Hindu not Muslim, but there are plenty of tourists here and so far the locals have been pretty friendly. What it’s like in other more radical, conservative islands, I couldn’t say, and honestly I’m staying away from those places anyway so I won’t be finding out anytime soon. The bottom line is tourism = money so even if people hate your guts they will be sweet as molasses to get your dollars so you never really know what’s happening with that sort of thing. That’s my take on it anyway.

Scenery of central Bali

At the Temple

GitGit Waterfall

Add comment May 16th, 2002