Easter Weekend in Uluwatu

The kids had a 4-day weekend and Matt was fresh off a really busy work and travel week, so we were ready for a little beach time.  We flew into Bali late on Thursday but still made some time for Don Juan's, naturally.  Then we headed to our villa and checked in late in the evening, so we didn't get any idea of how it looked until the next morning.

The Bukit Peninsula of Bali is really interesting and hard to get an impression by looking at the map.  It has sheer cliffs with villas and hotels built all over them, so you don't really have any idea how you're going to get there until you see it.  We had a decent walk from the nearest road to our villa.  First, down the cool alley with 10,000 electrical lines.

There was some pretty solid looking electrical connection work done here, safely sealed off in a coke bottle.

It was about 8 flights of stairs down to get to our villa.  You better hope you didn't forget anything in the car! Thankfully, the staff helps with the suitcases when you arrive and depart.

Inside the complex, there were several villas along the staircase and each one was different and elaborately decorated.  Definitely not like any other place we've stayed in Bali.

While it turns out the villa itself was a bit oversold, the view was awesome.

We got to see a lot of rain over the main parts of Bali and each time it cleared, we had beautiful views of the mountains, sometimes as far as East Java, too.

Breakfast was nice and delivered straight to our porch!

We made a quick visit to Uluwatu temple with the kids.  There are a few things we've neglected to show them on our many trips to Bali and this one is a must. You can't actually go in the temple but the views around it are beautiful.

This has to be my favorite picture in Indonesia. We watched the monitor lizard crawl out of the bushes and onto the ledge and the monkey let it have all the space he wanted.

A little throwback to 2007 when Matt and I made our first trip to Bali! 

We remembered the monkeys being really aggressive when we went the first time and now there are signs all around warning you to hold onto your glasses and cell phones.  We were pretty careful to put our phones up each time we finished taking pictures and as we were walking out, we heard a woman scream as a monkey ran off with her iphone! She had even paid a guide to walk her around and "protect" her from the monkeys.  I hear they're good at bargaining and trading the monkeys bananas for valuables, so hopefully she got her phone back.

We spent the afternoon at Bingin beach in front our our villa and enjoyed the low tide and calm lagoon.

Sunset time from our jacuzzi tub!

We went to the villa's restaurant (just two flights of stairs!) and enjoyed fresh tuna while watching lightning all over the sky in the distance. We saw a lot of rain over the weekend but nearly all at a distance.

On Saturday, we went to Uluwatu break and Matt finally got to see where the pro surfers go.  Thankfully, it was a small day as far as the waves here go, so it was a lot of fun for him.  The only way out is through the waves in this cave.

While Matt was surfing, the boys and I paid our 100k to spend the day at this pool and warung.

Iced coffees all around to give the local lady a little business! We were actually talking to tourists there, which was really exciting for everyone. It's the first time we've met people coming in from international locations in two years!

Pretty fun that Matt could just paddle over and talk to us as well. The pool is built on the rocks and the whole thing would shake a little when a big wave came in.  I'd love to see what it's like when the real swell arrives!

Ahh, more stairs going up!  My calves were pretty sore after this weekend! But going up and down all the cliffs was more than worth it to experience the unique places.

We had lunch at Single Fins up at street level and watched the tide go out over the reef.  It was a wonderful place to take in the view.

One more pretty sunset from our porch and our weekend was almost over!

We went down to the beach to have barbequed seafood for dinner and got to enjoy our neighbor's fire pit as well.

Easter morning was bright and perfect for a sunrise service from our porch! We caught the Saturday night service from Houston and celebrated a risen Savior before breakfast. Even had a little more US chocolate, too.

When the service ended, we looked up and saw that we had a perfect ending to a lovely Easter morning!