While our 2-week vacation in Bali earlier this year wasn’t flawless, we had a fantastic time there. The little one especially liked nasi goreng (fried rice), mi goreng (fried noodles), dancing and pool time, while my husband and I enjoyed all the temples, traditions and green landscapes. Bali really had something for each of us.
I can’t deny though that we suffered from the heat. While adults can more or less deal with 30°C and higher, young kids struggle. Our daughter is usually a good walker, but in Bali 200 metres were waaaayyy too long for her. So we had to do a lot of carrying, which isn’t enjoyable under such conditions. You might wonder why we carried her instead of using a stroller; the road and pavement conditions make it impossible to go for a walk with a baby buggy (especially in Ubud).
So we did a few trips with our Deuter Kid Comfort (which is a life-saver) and spent a lot of time in taxis to visit different places in the cultural Centre, relaxed East and buzzy South of the island. Word of advice: if your kid is too small to properly sit in a regular car seat with a regular seat belt, you should pre-book your taxis with a service like Bali Bubs, who do not only offer airport transfers with baby conform vehicles but also rent out baby equipment if you plan to travel light. We were lucky in a way, as our girl is way too tall for her age and was comfortable and safe in the middle seat of the taxi back bench.
Time wise, two weeks were perfect without being in a constant rush. Quiet days are essential when travelling with kids and so we spent 7 days in Ubud, 4 days in Amed and 5 days in Benoa Beach. But even the lazy days at the hotels were an adventure (pools, restaurants, kids club, …), so I would have been glad to stay for a third week.
Our accommodation was always kid friendly, which is why we can recommend:
The gallery below is chronological. Read the image captions to discover Bali the way we did and learn more about this beautiful place in the heart of Indonesia.
My favorite temple photo! Pura Tirta Empul is a holy place for buddhists and we were lucky enough to experience this wonderful Hindu Balinese water temple in the quiet morning atomosphere before the tourists rushed in.
Getting ready for a bath in the holy water…
…of Pura Tirta Empul in Bali.
Judging from the faces, gestures and screams, even holy water is cold.
Most temples in Bali come with ponds full of koi, which symbolize good fortune, success, prosperity, longevity, courage, ambition and perseverance.
We were surprised by some of the daily offerings made by Balinese Hindus, especially the ones including real bills.
Welcome to the jungle, welcome to Bali!
Enter and enjoy!
Loved those amazing details in Balinese stone art.
Another example, from a Balinese temple in Ubud.
Small detail from a Balinese chair #WoodCarving
View over the rooftops of the Ubud outskirts as seen during the Campuhan Ridge Walk.
Just strolling down the streets of Ubud and stumbling across the Water Palace.
Now that’s a Starbucks location! #OnlyInBali (Ubud)
The beautiful rice terraces of Tegalalang.
It’s hot in Bali. Even stones threaten to sweat if not protected. :D
Bali is a scooter country. That’s how the kids go to school here!
Ubud’s market…
…full of souvenirs and kitch.
The landlord of our Ubud accomodation recommended us a very nice Balinese dance show at the Peliatan Royal Palace in Ubud.
Look at this costume; the headdress and ornaments are fantastic!
Visiting a traditional dance show in Bali is a must for travellers.
We loved how they dance with their faces, even the eyes move in the rhythm of the music.
Hand positions and gestures, the mudras, are also extremely important for Balinese dancers. To see these dancers in action and listen to some Balinese music, please have a look at my video further down below in this blog post.
The king of the spirits, a lion-like creature, is a popular character in the Balinese mythology and can be found in most dance shows as well as various temples and palaces.
Tirta Gangga Water Palace was a great location to discover more characters from the Balinese mythology.
Tirta Gangga, …
…the Koi pond invites you to walk over water.
A protected idyll and home to many animals…
…and colorful flowers.
My daughter and I loved it here!
Is there anything more Balinese than Mount Agung, a temple and frangipani in one photo? Amed was our location of choice to explore the waters around the island. We had a couple of snorkeling days. Check out the video below to get an idea of the underwater landscape near Amed.
Travelling Bali end of April has been fantastic, just like our eco friendly Hotel Uyah Amed. We had this gorgeous pool side almost always to ourselves during 5 days.
Don’t you want to swim in such a pool too?
Or such a pool?
That’s the waterfall in the pool of Hotel Nikko Bali in Benoa Beach.
Tanah Lot was an interesting place to see; not so much for the rock formation, which is home to the pilgrimage temple, but because of the crazy amount of tourists showing up there to get a blessing during low tide (when you can actually walk to the temple). I have seen nicer temples in Bali (especially since this one is mainly hidden by trees), which means I wouldn’t really recommend going there when it’s not on your way. We arrived here after a 2.5 hours trip in a taxi, passing lots of traffic jams, just to stare at hundreds of tourists. If that is not your thing, go visit another temple. Bali is the country of a thousand temples, so you should find one you like.
Tourist crowd at Tanah Lot.
Sunset at Benoa Beach.
Lucky enough to witness a blood moon in Bali (May 1, 2018).
Can’t get enough? Here are two bonus videos I created.
Enjoy a compilation of various Balinese dancers that appeared on stage at the Peliatan Royal Palace in Ubud on the 21st of April 2018.
Get a feeling how snorkeling in Amed can look like.
On our way from France to Australia earlier this year, we did a one-week stopover in Hong Kong — a great way to make the huge time difference more tolerable for kids.
My weather app had optimistic news and predicted 4 sunny days that week. Check out below how that turned out…
I couldn’t be bothered though. I admit I was impressed by what I saw. Growing up in European cities with architectural height restrictions, Hong Kong was both overwhelming and a brand new photo playground for me. Due to the tall buildings I admittedly couldn’t let go off my GoPro and I took most photos during this one-week trip with it.
So did my 2.5 year old daughter (see second gallery in this article). For some reason she loved getting into photography in Hong Kong and I gave her my GoPro with a lanyard around her neck to secure my precious tool 📷.
Bubble explosion in the streets of Tung Chung, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
High, higher, Hong Kong Central
Hong Kong Island souvenir stalls
I could spend hours in the narrow alleys of Sheung Wan with heaps of art stores trying to bridge traditional and modern tastes
Of dragons and dogs, Hong Kong Island
…
A kitschy but modern idea at the same time: the digital wishing well in the Hong Kong IFC Mall
Hong Kong graffitti art in Sheung Wan
Man Mo Temple: A beautiful little temple in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Island
The Hong Kong Observation Wheel, Hong Kong Island
Overlooking Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Island
An impressive location: Tian Tan Buddha
“The Offering of the Six Devas”: Well, two of them at least, praising the Tian Tan Buddha
The entrance to Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
Offerings made in Po Lin Monastery, Hong Kong
Po Lin Monastery is a photographer’s dream, but sadly the holy places are off limit for cameras. These statues are just at the entrance
A beautiful pagoda at Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
The Wisdom Path in the Ngong Ping hills features 38 timber columns that have the Chinese word for the Heart Sutra inscribed on it
And here are my daughter’s takes on Hong Kong:
Let’s get out and explore the streets of Hong Kong
Voila, mum in Hong Kong
Et voila, dad in Hong Kong
While I clearly enjoyed photographing Hong Kong with my GoPro Hero 6, I came across a few situations when I preferred using my regular DSLR, especially for views over vast landscapes, night shots and close-ups. Who would have guessed?
Here are some of my favorite Canon 60D photos to complete the Hong Kong gallery above.
The impressive skyline of Hong Kong Island and Tsim Sha Tsui on a sunny day ;)
Welcome to Hong Kong Real Estate
Probably the most classic view over Hong Kong, taken from The Peak (Hong Kong Victoria Peak)
Can’t say that Hong Kong isn’t very green after having taken this photo on top of The Peak
The first time I saw a bamboo construction area was in the movie Rush Hour and I remember that I thought it was a joke. I learnt in the meantime that it isn’t and actually has quite some advantages, but I was still impressed to see this live. I wouldn’t want to climb up there…
The AIA Great European Carnival as seen from the Hong Kong Observation Wheel
Hong Kong Observation Wheel by night
Panoramic vistas of Lantau Island in the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car connecting Ngong Ping with the town of Tung Chung and Tian Tan Buddha
Po Lin Monastery close-up of the richly decorated walls
Incense sticks, making the atmosphere at Po Lin Monastery even more special
As some of you already know, or guessed, we moved back to France after 3.5 aMaZiNg years in New Zealand. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be taken! I adjusted my blog’s “About” section accordingly.
Right now, we are enjoying French food as well as Paris’ flair and history. And that’s the reason why my coming blog posts will focus more on Europe again. Moving on. C’est la vie!
I have been using Snapseed, Google’s free mobile photo editing App, exclusively over the past months before sharing my photos on Instagram. So when I read this morning that my favorite App has been completely revamped, I wasn’t even aware that it was a “much-needed overhaul”. Admittedly, it lacked some professional “Photoshop features”, but guess what, some of us like when things are kept simple (though not as simple as the Instagram editing tools).
Of course I still tapped the update button in my App Store. Curiosity 1, Anja 0. To my relief, not THAT many things had changed. Sure, the interface looks completely different; I’m not certain though if the term “modern” really nails it. I noticed that I need one more tap than before to get to my wanted settings and filters. Oh well… But behind the new packaging, not everything had changed radically.
Added features:
A slider for highlights in the “Tune Image” section (neat addition to the shadow slider)
A feature to transform the image perspective (horizontally and vertically)
A brush to add a different exposure, saturation, color temperature or dodge & burn effect to specific parts of the photo
A spot repair feature, which sadly neither offers to choose the exact pixels you want to repair, nor the pixels you want to interpolate
A few new filter sets (Noir, Glamour Glow and Tonal Contrast)
An image stack feature to re-edit the same image lateron
A copy feature, allowing you to copy edits from one image to another
Deleted features:
The Grunge filter set (not that I am going to miss them)
All style presets under “Vignette”, which is truly a shame as they often helped me to see at a glance how much outer and inner brightness I was looking for
I am glad that not more features have been erased, and the new ones have been added in a way that won’t disturb my current workflow, which gives me time to actually go through all new features in the coming days to test them more on various photos.
On a first side note though, the new transform and brush tools look pretty neat and could soon become part of my image editing routine. Here is a first before and after comparison, after playing with “Transform” and “Brush” for around 10 minutes.
Original GoPro photo without any edit. This one looks a bit dull and could need some straight lines.
Edited with Snapseed 2.0: The new “Transform” tool interpolated pixels from the Louvre building and the fountain in the foreground (that’s a terrific job!). No need to crop, and the photo looks even more fish-eye than the GoPro original, which I personally love. I changed the saturation and color temperature of single image parts with the new “Brush” tool to make them look more like taken during sunset (which actually was the case).
I certainly think today’s changes put Google a big step ahead of Instagram (with regards to photo editing), and I am glad to see that the App stayed free, without paid “pro options”.
Are you a Snapseed fan too? What are your thoughts?
Which other mobile editing App appears on your primary smartphone or tablet screen?
As we travelled from Cairns to Brisbane (North to South) we discovered that Queensland is much more than sunny beaches, surfers and adventure parks. There are also endless stretches of straight boring roads, millions of acres of sugar cane and in between — these treasures…
Mossman Gorge, not far from the Daintree National Park
On hot summer days, bathing tourists at Mossman Gorge often become victims of peculiar thiefs
After a short ferry ride, Daintree National Park and its mangrove forests lie ahead
Cape Tribulation
Huge carpets of sand balls created by millions of crabs
These crabs have a different technique
Tall fan palms are a great rain protection on gray days
Ants are green in Daintree NP
And then there is also this: The Cassowary is a big flightless bird native to north eastern Australia and New Guinea. It’s rare and you need to be really lucky to see one. This one decided to cross the street in front of our campervan :)
A fig tree skeleton
Typical for Daintree: Trees with enormous roots. You see me standing behind it?
Teaching a whining wallaby
Mereeba is a beautiful location to get in touch with these cuties
There are 2 of them!
Cairns is clearly the “Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef”
We took the boat till the Outer Reef…
…and discoverd a different universe
Heaps of fish
Big fish (it doesn’t look like on the photo, but this one was at least 1,5 m)
Tourists
Curious spectators under the boat
Hervey Bay thunderstorm
Hervey Bay
This is the perfect spot for some serious whale watching
Humpback Whales reside in Hervey Bay
This one enjoys the fresh rain water as a change to the salty water he lives in
Whale waves rainbow
Fraser Island Beach
Fraser Island is a sand island which can only be crossed with 4WD, or special tourist buses
Funnily enough, a tropic rain forest is growing on the sandy soil of Fraser Island
Fresh water lake on Fraser Island (Lake McKenzie)
Maheno shipwreck on Fraser Island
The coastal walk at Noosa is spectecular (and popular)
“Wild Horse Mountain Lookout” over the Glashouse Mountains
Snorkeling the Outer Reef of Cairns gave us a tiny glimpse into an uncomparable underwater universe. Our goal that day was to see a sea turtle; we were lucky enough to swim with one. We hope to be back one day!
Please excuse the camera shake. We actually went out several kilometres to get to the Outer Reef. Big waves were rolling in right behind the corals, making quiet snorkeling almost impossible ;)
Hermit crabs are usually extremely shy and patient creatures, not performing any big acts in front of an audience.
However, the crab in my video below was changing from a very perforated shell into a less draughty home. Urgent matters can’t wait I guess!
I filmed this short “crab-changes-shell” movie while stumbling out of Rarotonga’s lagoon with my GoPro. I was actually quite close, but the camera’s fisheye lens makes it look like I’m far away. Just watch the video twice in case of doubt ;)
