Bali - What's not to love

We arrived in Bali late Sunday night. It was the smoothest airport exit ever, we already had our visas so missed a mega line-up there, our luggage was waiting for us. In a sea of signs held by drivers for various hotels we quickly spotted ours and we were off. As usual the narrow and curvy roadways meant it was a fairly long trip to the inn. We turned into smaller and darker streets and finally after travelling a few blocks down a narrow lane we landed at the Sarinande Beach Inn. It is quite sweet and old worldish. Our room was simple yet tasteful and comfortable,(www.sarinandehotel.com). We felt we were in just the right place after the intensity of our mission. We stayed in Seminyak which is just up the coast from the craziness and bustle of Kuta. We booked here on a recommendation from Mary (aka Sylph) and Douglas- thanks a million.

There were only a few days in Bali and as usual we needed to check out as much as humanly possible within a 3 day period. The hotel offered tours with drivers, and we chose the Tanah Lot sunset tour for that first day. We went to a temple, called Temple Taman Ayun. It is one of the over 20,000 Hindu temples that are on the island of Bali. This temple was peaceful and flowers lovely. Dawna once again challenged herself to cross a rickety bridge of bamboo to be sure everything was seen and experienced. We survived this and then enjoyed some heckling from locals as we walked the shoreline path. Hey mister and so on. There was an artist in residence (or so it appeared to us) in the temple grounds. Sadly most of the work we saw in Bali was just for the tourist so nothing special to get excited about.

Next stop was a monkey and bat forest. Over 600 monkeys lived there and we walked around as monkeys jumped at us looking for food. The bats were more sedate, hanging from the trees during the daylight hours. Still the monkeys did enjoy climbing up each of us and hanging out on our heads until a tantalizing peanut distracted them – thank goodness.

The final stop of the tour was Tanah Lot, a floating temple on the sea. The temple grounds were surrounded with hawker stalls selling everything from Crocs to Gurci (yep you read it right) sunglasses. We made our way down to the temple and it was quite stunning. This was also the first place we had been to in Indonesia that was packed with other tourists and tons of newlyweds who couldn’t get enough of taking each other’s photos. It was a beautiful spot for a sunset and we sat for a bit and then walked around to watch the various views of the sun setting.

We met some Australian women while at the Serinande, Vicky and Guyatri. They were seasoned Bali travellers and we dined with them on the first two nights. They gave us many useful tips and suggestions about where to go and what to see. Most notably, we now each have two pairs of antique batik fisherman pants, made from Guyatri’s design.

Our flight home is being called so you will have to wait to hear about the next day’s adventure in Bali.

There is lots to see but mostly there is shopping. It is actually a pretty cool place for home furnishings and fashion, with designers from France and all over the world represented here. We know we have landed on a different island as on the first day we visited a kind of Pusateri style grocery store, called the Bali deli. We knew then that we were no longer in Aceh.

So where did we go: we visited a Batubulan barong – which was basically a Hindu folk musical and dance show. The Japanese photographer tourist didn’t have any qualms about basically becoming part of the show by getting right on stage beside the performer in the pursuit of a good shot. Next we visited a silverwork factory and then the Batik factory. It was great to get batik tools there to bring back to Canada. In Ubud, supposed to be a cultural center we quickly went through the famous Sukawati market which was no great shakes. Ubud did have some lovely stores and restaurants and we had lunch at Wayan’s café which had an eclectic menu and a classy garden setting with one or two tables at selected intervals so it was quite lovely and peaceful. This amounted to another full day and we landed back at the inn in the late afternoon.

The beach was just a short walk down an alley and the waves crashed in with tremendous power which explains why the area is called the Seven shores and is a mecca for surfers.

Once again we shared a meal with the lovely Aussie gals – DebO and VickO. DebO is known these days as Guyatri, after her Ashram visits in India. VickO will tell you a few tales with great dramatic flare and is a Bali aficionado, she is on her 7th or 9^th visit- she’s been coming since 1996. We ventured into Kuta with them for dinner. Kuta has its own flavour, picture Hard Rock café and the like.

Wednesday was terrific with a full day bike ride. Some of us felt we could have gone a bit faster but basically it was downhill all the way (25 Km). It was very well organized. The first stop was at a hillside restaurant that overlooked a valley, lake and the volcano Kitimati (spelling might be wrong). With mist at the top and sparkling water below it was truly spectacular. The evidence of past eruptions could be seen with blackened landscape and heard as there was a continual stream of dump-trucks taking volcanic rock down the mountain. We also had stops at a plantation: coffee, cocoa, bananas, ginger, jack fruit, mango, lots of different plants were shown and we tasted traditional Balinese coffee (o.k., thick stuff), ginger tea, lemongrass tea…and so on. Down the road we ventured into a family compound that housed four families. We had occasion to see a group of villagers created handicraft items out of banana leaves and stuff to be burned at a mass cremation. We saw all the various stages of rice production and even whacked some mature rice plants to dislodge the rice from the stalk. We were in a party of 6 some older, some younger. We were very well treated with refreshments and a fine lunch.

Our guides were a lot of fun. Here are a few of the bon mots that were shared as part of the presentation: “Smoking is good, not smoking is better.” And the unforgettable “These red peppers may be small but they are really hot. Just like Balinese men.”

We had been told about batik addiction, but had no idea how easily it could take hold. Debo/Guyatri had told us about a tailor she used for her business (she designed patterns to be made with fabrics found in Bali and India and sold them at a market place in Oz). Ade, her tailor sold antique batiks and once we found his little shop we selected some batiks. Time was pressing so we asked him to cut out some fisherman pants for us (ala Guyatri’s design) with Katherine doing the sewing once we got home. We went by his shop the next day (departure day for us) and he not only had cut out the pants but had sewn us three pairs. In a fit of excitement we ended up buying about a dozen batik handbags between us and another pair of pants. We made it to the airport, ready for our next adventure.