Today we woke up fairly early (6am), since we had gone to bed so early the night before. We got ready and walked to a nearby coffee shop called Refresh. I had a breakfast wrap and a chai latte, and Julie had an oatmeal bowl and a chai latte. The coffee shop had a cute dog named Coco, who constantly wanted to be played with.

After breakfast we rented a scooter from our hotel , a Honda Scoopy for $7/day, to go exploring for the day. We made our way towards Karang Boma Cliff, but had to stop and get some gasoline before continuing on our way. Gasoline on the island isn’t typically obtained at gas stations, but rather from 750ml booze bottles from people’s houses, since they are few and far between. The gas is green / blue in colour and smells distinctly different than it does at home, since it is much less refined. At home gasoline can’t contain more than 10 ppm of sulphur, and minimal amounts of benzene, but in Indonesia it contains 500 ppm of sulphur, and very high percentages of benzene. It gives it a very sweet smell, but the exhaust fumes are pretty overwhelming when stuck in traffic.

After obtaining gas we drove to Karang Boma Cliff, which involved a few kilometres of driving on a very rocky and bumpy gravel road. When we arrived a local lady showed up about 30 seconds later on her scooter and charged us about $1 to park our scooter there. She also had a wide variety of drinks for sale, so we purchased a Coke Zero for about $0.80. Karang Boma Cliff was absolutely stunning, and I even threw up my drone for a bit, but it was fairly windy, and I was exceeding the maximum winds it could handle for the majority of the time. At the cliff we met this lovely young lady from California, and her photographer friend who lives in Malaysia. We chatted for a bit before continuing on with our adventures.

Next stop was Uluwatu Temple, a Hindu temple sitting on top of a 70 metre (230 foot) cliff overlooking the ocean. The temple was established in the 11th Century, and has been expanded a few times since. The temple is inhabited by over 500 Macaque monkeys, who are notorious for stealing visitor belongings. In fact, while we were there someone’s cellphone got stolen 30 seconds before we arrived. A fun fact is that Scientist and experts on primate behavior have conducted studies on the Macaque monkeys in the area and have concluded that these monkeys are quick to learn bartering behavior, and pass it down to their young offspring.

Upon leaving the temple I noticed that the front tire on the scooter that we rented was quite flat, so I asked some locals where the nearest spot was to get it fixed. It was about 3km away, so I drove there slowly to get it topped up with air for $0.10. Apparently this Honda Scoopy scooters use innertubes inside of the tire, and the bouncing around on the bumpy gravel road early on this morning let the majority of the air go. After topping it up, it didn’t give us any grief for the rest of the day.

After topping the tire up with air we went for lunch at Nourish Cafe & Pizzeria. I had a Truffle Cheese Pizza, and Julie had a Falafel Bowl. Following lunch we picked up our laundry that we had dropped off yesterday, and went back to the hotel to relax for a bit.

In the evening we rode to Suluban Beach to watch the sunset. There was roughly 200 steps down to the beach, which wasn’t a problem on the way down, but gosh it was brutal walking back up in the sweltering head. Afterwards we went back to Uluwatu Temple, and watched a traditional Balinese Fire Dance, which lasted about an hour.

Following the Fire Dance we stopped in at Loca Warung for dinner. I had a salad, and Julie had some crispy vegetable rolls. After dinner we went back to the hotel, dropped off the scooter, and crawled in for the night.