Ubud to Lovina
We arrived in Bali to one of the most, if not the most beautiful sunsets
we have ever seen. The sky was blazing orange, purple, and red. The
plane landed and we got into a shuttle bus that had gamelan music
playing over the stereo. A gamelan is a Balinese instrument that is
like a xylophone. It is played quickly and loudly. When you have a
whole band of gamelans playing, it is a crazy affair. The instruments
are used both in popular music and religious ceremonies. In ceremonies,
the loud music is thought to confuse the evil spirits and thus keep
them away. We took a taxi to Ubud and were able to get a room at the
Honeymoon Guest House which was recommended to us. Ubud is in the
center of Bali and is considered the art and cultural center of the
island. It is kind of like a large artist's village. This was our
first glimpse of the architecture and design of abodes in Bali. It
was unbelievable, albeit we were in the dark. As we soon discovered
there is not a large distinction between the style of houses and temples
in Bali. Our guesthouse was reached by passing through large stone
gates that looked like large wings. We found out later that this is
what the entrance to Hindu temples look like as well. Our villa was
an ornate red and gray bricked temple-like structure. The roof had
the typical ornate decorations similarly found in many Asian cultures,
but the structure of the building itself was decked out with ornate
carvings. There were flower designs, god images and animals carved
in relief on the walls. It was as if we were staying in a mini palace
or temple. We also discovered that there actually was a small temple
near our villa. Many "compounds" in Bali have their own
temples. As we checked into our room, a staff person asked us for
our breakfast order that would be delivered to our porch the next
morning. We just had to roll out of bed onto the deck! We each found
a book from their library read. We sat looking into the dense green
foliage outside our villa while reading and drinking tea. There were
monkeys and night creatures screeching and howling in the forests
near us.
The next day we walked around Ubud a little bit after breakfast.
Our earlier assessment of our surroundings were miscalculated a
bit. If we thought the architecture was ornate and the landscaping
was beautiful, we were underestimating. If you can imagine the most
beautiful tropical paradise, multiply it times three. Everywhere,
the most precious and rare orchids just grew haphazardly from under
garden walls. Along aged stone walls, vines choked ornate carvings.
Idols and stone gods jutted dramatically from the ground. The statues
were covered in moss. We swam in the pool in the afternoon, and
this was no different. One end of the pool had a statue (fountain)
of a woman pouring water into the pool. The walls that surrounded
the pool had idols perched above them, and Bird of Paradise bloomed
everywhere.
That afternoon we took a yoga class. The class was a little bit
out of town and we took a free shuttle to the Indus Restaurant where
the class took place. Tony scoffed at the idea that yoga might be
difficult. He was sorely (literally) mistaken. Yoga is not just
stretching and breathing, it is hard work! We stretched our bodies
to positions we didn't think possible. We knew that the next day
we would feel the effects of our labors. After we punished our bodies,
we went to the top of the Indus Restaurant and had dinner. It was
a breathtaking view over a river valley of terraced rice fields.
From Ubud we took a bus to Lovina on the north side of the island.
On the way there, we stopped in the mountain town of Penelokan for
a 15-minute stop. The weather was considerably cooler here than
everywhere else, almost chilly (which felt good to our Minnesota
bodies). The place where the bus stopped overlooked an extensive
valley which held a massive lake (Lake Batur) and next to that,
a staggering mountain (Mount Batur or Gunung Batur). Gunung Batur
is an active volcano, a bit smaller than the largest volcano on
the island (Gunung Agung), but pretty massive in and of itself.
Gunung Batur is the most popular place in Bali to climb, as it is
not extremely high (1,717 meters), but has stunning scenery, and
you can actually look at red hot magma in craters and watch steam
rise out of it. Unfortunately, Gunung Batur didn't make it into
our plans for Bali, but we did get a great picture of it. As our
bus continued toward Lovina, it promptly broke down somewhere on
a mountain road. Us and the Australian couple that made up the passengers
of the bus laughed and exchanged travel transportation stories.
You find when you travel around Asia that swapping these stories
comprises a large portion of conversation between travellers. Soon
however, the driver got something fixed in the engine and we were
on our way. We got to Lovina, which is an area of small towns and
a tout urged us to check out a beach resort called the Bayu Kartika.
We decided to check it out. It was very nice, and we decided to
stay. It overlooked the black sand beaches of north Bali, and had
a beautiful swimming pool. And hey, for seven bucks a night, we
couldn't go wrong. We ended up staying for 6 nights.
Dolphin Watching
One of the mornings we got up at 5:45 a.m. to take a ride on an
outrigger to look for dolphins. This is a popular activity in Lovina,
and usually people see upwards of 50-100 dolphins. We thought for
a while that we wouldn't see any, because our boat driver went a
totally different direction than all the rest of the boats. After
about an hour, he turned toward the other outriggers, and shortly,
many dolphins were spotted breaking out of the water in unison.
It was interesting because one always thinks of dolphins as being
a grayish color, but these dolphins were very dark, almost brown-black.
The dolphins feed for shrimp off the north coast, and they do it
every morning. We heard that sometimes the dolphins will come very
close to the small boats and do loop-the-loops in the air, but that
didn't happen. We saw about fifty dolphins in all, and mostly from
a distance. It was a pretty funny scene however, with five dolphins
jumping out of the water and 15 boats turning in unison toward them,
trying to close the distance, and then four dolphins spotted somewhere
else, and all the boats turning toward those dolphins. We tried
to take some pictures, but every shot ended up being a second late
or too far away. There is one picture on the "Bali Pictures"
section of this web page, but it is suspect at best. The first person
who can correctly identify the number of dolphins in the picture
and email us at tracislost@hotmail.com, will win a free can of tuna
(dolphin-free, of course).
One night in Lovina we went to a Ristaffel. This is a traditional
buffet dinner of Indonesian food which usually includes a troupe
of dancers accompanied by gamelan music (for clarification of my
badly worded sentence, we didn't get to eat the dance troupe or
gamelan music, just the buffet). The food included many stir-frys,
gado-gado (a vegetable dish), curries, and deep fried stuff. The
funniest thing that happened here was that when we got this one
chunk of deep fried "surprise", we couldn't understand
what the lady told us it was called. We couldn't exactly tell by
the taste what it was either. Tony and this English guy decided
to press the issue with the waitress. She thought for a moment and
then thought of another name for the deep fried chunk; MICE! We
all grimaced, and further inquired. Finally, after much joking around,
we realized she said "maize." It was corn. It was pretty
funny. You had to be there.
Bali is primarily a Hindu island and the religion is evident everywhere.
Many offerings are put out for the good and bad demons. As you walk
around Bali, there are many of these put on the ground in front
of stores, on sidewalks, on the beach, near statues of gods, in
temples, and everywhere. These offerings consist of beautiful little
baskets made of banana leaves that have flower petals, rice, fruit,
and other things. They are mini works of art. The Balinese believe
spirits are everywhere and good spirits tend to dwell in the mountains
and bad ones tend to lurk beneath the sea. We understand the offerings
put on the ground are to placate the bad demons while ones put elsewhere
are to pay homage to the good gods. Many black and white checkered
material pieces are put on statues and/or draped in places to demonstrate
this living between two opposites - good and bad. Traditional Balinese
dances often play out these themes as well.
While in Lovina, our new local friend Alex asked us if we would
be interested in going to a cremation ceremony. This is obviously
not a tourist thing in most places, but we had read about these
and were encouraged to go if we had the opportunity. Tourists are
welcome at these because they add to the noise and confusion and
disorient spirits. While we missed the processional, but found the
ceremony to be the colorful, noisy and exciting event we were told
it was. The body is carried to the cremation grounds in a large
yellow (yellow is holy color) tower decorated with bamboo, silk,
flowers, and other colorful things. The body is then taken out of
the tower and put into a funeral sarcophagus, and in this case it
was the shape of a black bull. All during this the gamelan musicians
are pounding away at upbeat and fast tunes. There were many people
there walking around socializing and very happy. After a time, the
papier machè bull containing the body was lit on fire and
burned. We were told that later in the day the ashes would be put
into different coconuts representing different parts of the body
and would be put out to sea.
There are temples everywhere and we decided to visit one on our
last day in Ubud. Our driver told us about the temple and how bad
the touts would be when we arrived but informed us we did not have
to use a guide and to enjoy the beautiful temple. He was not allowed
to take us in because the touts get mad at drivers doing this. So
we were dropped off and walked to the top of the hill in hopes of
looking in the courtyards of the largest temple in Bali. We were
there before all the tourist busses and there were signs that said
non-Hindus cannot enter the temple, and we had known that. We also
knew the temples were inside the main gates. Our persistence got
us past most of the touts willing to show us the temple we already
paid an entrance fee to see and as we approached the gates, someone
who called himself a guardian of the temple told us we could not
go inside. He said there was a ceremony this morning. We both were
a little skeptical, but we did not want to be disrespectful so we
took a few pictures and began to walk back down the hill toward
our ride a little confused as to why we paid an entrance fee and
walked all the way up this hill in our sarongs only to see the outside
of one of the most holy and most visited temples on the island.
As we started leaving the "guardian" said we could go
in with him for $20 US per person. Well, when we reached the bottom
our driver looked pretty disgusted at our story and politely told
us it was bullshit. He then complained about touts because tourists
have bad experiences like this and never get to see the wonderful
things in Bali and decide to not return and discourage others from
visiting. This did not make us feel that way, but nonetheless, it
was pretty frustrating and we were not willing to walk all the way
back up the hill as we wanted to get to Nusa Dua.
Christmas in Bali
For Christmas we stayed for three nights at the Nusa Dua Beach
Resort. We arrived on Christmas Eve and got settled in our place.
We planned on splurging for the holidays and we found a good deal
on a spa package for the Nusa Dua consisting of three nights in
a room and two massages per person at the hotel spa. We arrived
to the huge place with Indonesian details everywhere. Exotic plants,
flowers, water gardens, fountains and many Indonesian touches are
everywhere.
We arrived and were given keys, maps to the resort, booklets, brochures
and walked around the compound for a while before taking a swim
in one of the pools. We then got ready for the Christmas Eve festivities
of the evening. As we were getting ready, we had a few knocks at
the door. One to turn down our bed and another to deliver a plate
of assorted Christmas cookies, peanuts and a Christmas stocking
from the hotel. At 6:30 about 30 children between the ages of 10-15
came to the hotel to sing Christmas tunes and some traditional Balinese
songs. They had great voices and Tony and Traci both had a few tears
in their eyes. Afterward a collection was taken to support the orphanage
in which these children lived. We really missed home.
We next went to the Christmas Eve buffet at the resort. This was
one of the most beautiful spreads we have ever seen. The elaborate
dishes spread throughout a huge dining room. It was a sumptuous
buffet that like we had never seen. There were sculptures of Christmas
scenes placed between trays of smoked salmon. There were tournedos
of beef with Stilton cheese in a port wine sauce, salmon en croute
with a white wine sauce, Christmas English puddings, trifles, pates,
vegetables done in decorative styles, and many other beautiful gourmet
dishes. As we began to eat, a band, complete with string bass and
conga played Christmas songs. They were very good. We even had a
wonderful Chardonnay made in Bali! The buffet lasted for three hours.
We hadn't eaten like this in a long time, so of course we both ate
too much, but it was great, and we knew that we wouldn't get to
do that for a while again. The band that had playing Christmas songs
came around to individual tables and played whatever the guests
wanted. We were surprised by their versatility. We had them play
a Bob Marley tune. They were very happy about that, seemingly because
Marley is a very popular artist on the island. They played "Everything's
Gonna be All Right." I don't know if that is the correct title,
but that is the theme. Soon, we spied a fairly recognizable figure
off in the distance. We heard a "Ho-ho-ho," and soon saw
a 120 pound Balinese Santa Clause with two elves wearing black come
through the dinner hall. The funniest thing is that we are used
to Santa being portrayed at least with a belly, but this Santa's
coat hung straight down over his stomach. The elves wearing black
was interesting too. They were carrying sacks and had black makeup
smeared on their faces. They looked likes burglars. Maybe that is
a European tradition or something. What a great night. We missed
our family and friends very much, but the children singing songs,
the food, the music and Santa made us feel like we were able to
grasp a little bit of home while we spent our holidays far away.
Last Night in Bali
As much as we wanted to stay at the Nusa Dua Spa Resort, we
only had a three-day package, so we had to spend one more night
somewhere before we left Bali. We chose the beach town called Kuta,
which is close to the airport and known for its spectacular sunsets.
We had not seen a sunset since our plane first arrived in Bali.
None of the places we stayed faced the right direction, and mountains
and clouds always blocked out the blazing orange setting.
We found a cheap (relative to its surroundings) bungalow hotel
right across from the beach and this was after we had been walking
for well over an hour with our heavy backpacks. We swam in the pool
at the hotel, and then watched the sunset on the beach. The beach
here in Kuta was very busy. We had been lucky enough on this trip
to not encounter many crowds on beaches, but we had never seen anything
like this before. The long beach was packed with people for as far
as the eye could perceive. There were surfers catching the rolling
surf, hawkers selling their wooden carvings or massages, and thousands
waiting for the sunset. Soon the sun began to disappear beneath
the horizon. We were a bit disappointed at first, because it looked
as if the many clouds would blot out the sun. When it appeared that
it was all over, a strange orange glow began to appear throughout
the sky. The fluffy white clouds began to appear dark blue, and
the sky behind us began to blaze a neon shade of orange. Soon, the
whole sky was this surreal blaze of orange, the clouds dark blue
splotches here and there. We couldn't figure out how this was happening,
but we loved it. It was worth the crowds.
The next day we walked around a lot, just killing time until our
flight. That evening, we tried to board the plane, until we were
informed that we didn't have visas to enter Australia. We were sure
that we didn't need any, but we were wrong. So we were convinced
we would not be leaving Bali for a few days, but the woman at the
ticket counter just had us wait until her supervisor made us some
visas. We couldn't believe that they could just make us a visa,
but they did, and didn't charge us for it! Our plane left Bali at
10:45 p.m., and we flew all night and arrived at Sydney, Australia
the next morning.
Bali Highs
- Honeymoon guesthouse in Ubud
- Beautiful carved doors everywhere
- Watching dolphins in Lovina
- Tony's cooking class in Ubud
- Kuta sunsets
- Scuba diving in Menjangean Island (Bali Barat Nat'l Park)
- Women carrying baskets on their heads
- Interesting Architecture
- Yoga class
- Breakfast delivered to our room during stays in Ubud
- Artistic offerings to the gods everywhere
- Javanese Lulur -
(we did not talk about this much, but it was a 2 hour treatment
of a Balinese massage with oil, a tumeric exfoliation of the skin,
a splash of yogurt, and a soak in a tub with flowers drinking
ginger tea and eating fruit. It was awesome!!!!)
- New and exotic fruits - jackfruit, rambutan, and snake skin
fruit
- Monkey forest/ monkeys eveywhere
- Traditional dancing everywhere
- Gamelen music everywhere (click
here to go to a webpage with gamelan music sample...scroll down
to yellow highlighted text)
- Nusa Dua Resort
- X-mas buffet
- Orphanage concert
- Great massages - traditional Balinese massages
- Beautiful pools
- Taking bike tour
- Wet spa and plunge pools
- Wonderful spa smells
Bali Lows
- Touts
- Crowded Transportation
- Besaki Temple (touts wouldn't let us in without paying them)
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