Bali - Matyas's View

First day

We landed at Bali’s only airport. We went through security, picked up our bags, and Dad ordered a taxi. We got to our place, and it had a pool. After that, we went to the beach.

To be honest, it was gross. Dirty, and you couldn’t actually swim in the ocean. We sat down at some beach spot and wanted to cool off with a chilled coconut… but they brought us a huge old coconut filled with plain water. When we got back home, I saw a whole swarm of termites flying around the lights. I really didn’t like that.

Trips

The whole family went to Reptile Park. It was awesome. I even held a snake and an iguana. We saw reptiles that looked kind of like a spinosaurus, and there were lots of different monitor lizards.

My favorite was the Komodo dragon. It’s venomous, and it’s the only monitor lizard that can’t climb trees. After it bites its prey, it chases it until it dies from the venom/infection.

We also saw crocodiles. There was a huge saltwater crocodile, probably around 5 meters long. We even saw a giant non-venomous snake that eats a whole goat about once a month. The venomous snakes included a king cobra, which is shy and famous for its “hypnotic” dance. But it’s not hypnosis at all, it’s defense. Snakes don’t really hear. It watches the trainer’s movement, and then it gets bigger and defends itself if it needs to.

There was also an area where kids could wash their hands and then pet the reptiles, like iguanas, turtles, and even a Bluey skink (blue-tongued skink) and monitor lizards. But the one I wanted to see was asleep, and it didn’t move.

Right next to it was Bird Park (or kind of like a reptile buffet 😈). There were tons of parrots, and we could even hold them on our hands. They also had a Komodo dragon. There were shows too. We watched carnivorous birds fly around us: vultures, eagles, owls, and more.

In another show, it was like a rainforest, and we could feed the biggest pigeons and several types of parrots. The baby birds even sat on us. In the next show we saw the most dangerous birds there: cassowaries. They look like ostriches, but they have sharp claws like velociraptors. The claws can be about 10 cm, and on their heads they have that “helmet” called a casque that helps them push through thick jungle vegetation. They can be aggressive, so you have to be careful around them.

At the Bali Butterfly Park, I wasn’t really interested in the butterflies. But I liked the predators in the insectarium a lot. On my hand I had a stick bug (a long “pakobylka” bug) about 20 cm long. In one terrarium there were scorpions, and in the other there was a praying mantis with stag beetles.

We visited the Bali Botanical Garden. Tata rented a little golf cart for us because we wanted to find carnivorous plants, but the place was huge, so we needed the cart to cover enough ground. Even then, we didn’t find any, because apparently there aren’t any there. I was disappointed.

We also looked for them in the rainforest area, where a leech actually attached itself to Mom’s hand and sucked her blood. The only good part was that my brothers and I got to try driving the golf cart.

At Bali Farm House, we saw farm animals: goats, chickens, rabbits, donkeys, ponies, peacocks, and alpacas. One alpaca looked like Leo because it had the same haircut. Like a broccoli haircut.

In the restaurant, I tried a new pineapple dish - a hawaii burger. It tasted like a normal burger. I couldn’t really taste any pineapple at all.

In the Water Temple, there are artificial stones in the water that you can walk on. There was also a throne where you can sit down and take a picture. I didn’t like it because we couldn’t really do anything there.

At the Uluwatu Temple, we saw lots of monkeys climbing, fighting, and even stealing things. There were also tiny baby monkeys. From the cliffs, you could see the ocean.

In Ubud, we walked around and I bought a Balinese wooden chess set at the market. We also went to rice fields. Everywhere you could see rice. Then it started raining really hard, so we went and hid. We hid in a restaurant. We ate fruit with ice cream.

When it stopped raining, we went to another restaurant. I ate sticky rice with coconut ice cream. We wanted to go to the Kecak dance, but there weren’t enough hours left, so we went up to a hill where there is a small village. On the way, we saw swings right at the edge of the cliff. Going up was a workout, but we made it. We got popsicles, and we even saw puppies. Then we went back down for the Kecak dance.

I liked the Kecak dance. They sang, they danced, and at the end one person kicked hot ash. It was really interesting.

Experiences

In Shooters, there are games like axe throw, a box machine, billiards, ping pong, mini-golf, and a dunk tank. In the mini-golf corner there were 14 stations. In the first station there was a crocodile in crocs. In another station there was a machine that worked like this: when we hit the ball into it, everything moved up, and then it dropped the ball into the hole.

When I tried the motorcycle ride for the first time, I was nervous. I was scared I might fall. But in the end I liked it.

We went to a restaurant with a billiards table. I ate pizza there and we played billiards. Next to it there were also darts.

Once I was swimming in the pool, and I saw an Asian ant mantis (Odontomantis planiceps) on the edge. I picked it up and put it in a box to protect it from Simeon. In the evening I put it back in the garden and placed it on a leaf. The next day I found it in the same place… dead. I was sad.

Conclusion

In Bali, I liked seeing monitor lizards everywhere and being able to keep swimming in the pool. I didn’t like that you couldn’t swim in the ocean.

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