Date: 22nd June 2024
Location: BeingSattvaa Retreat, Ubud, Bali
Well, this post is very different from the previous one. Not one mention of boatie issues (except to say the missing sail has now turned up - unfortunately on our friends' boat M2 which has just arrived 1,500 miles away in Fiji!)
Well, how amazing is this? We think this is the first time since Crete in 1976 that we have been on holiday together just the two of us (we don't count life on the boat as a holiday)! It's also our first visit to Indonesia.
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| Crete: 1974 |
I used to do a "first impressions" of a country. A bit late but here is Bali's.
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| Off to Denpasar, Bali early on a Sunday morning. |
Bali: peace, traffic, temples, rice fields, offerings, tourism, jungle, yoga, coconuts, mopeds, ceremonies, vegetarianism, monkeys, massage, cheap, laid back, calm, delicious fresh food, bamboo, spirituality, more temples, wood carvings, kites.
We love it. It's up there with our most favourite countries and just what we needed.
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| Wood carvings EVERYWHERE. Who buys them? |
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| In the towns - Traffic EVERYWHERE. |
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| Kite building on the main road. |
The place we're staying is in the middle of the rain forest. Yoga each morning, outdoor bathroom, you know just like the brochures show you. And it's warm again. How we've missed the tropics.
We've learned a bit about Bali Hinduism too. There are temples everywhere. Each family house has its own temple, then each village has one and then there are big public ones too. The public ones are open to everyone including the tourists.
We got talking to the Indian guy who built this hotel and he asked us if we would like to visit his village temple for a purification ceremony. It's a big deal. You are trying to empty your mind and body of everything. Open your seven chakras and cleanse your mind and body of everything. Early the next morning the two of us together with a translator went to the ancient temple. Down a hundred (very large) steps we wore properly tied sarongs (different for men and women). Once in the open air temple the priest took us to a raised area where we knelt and planted incense sticks in the paving as we took each of the offerings from our bamboo square and the priest intoned prayers and rang his little bell. Then it was down to the eleven fountain spouts where we stripped naked and began to cleanse our minds and bodies in the first spout, moving to the next when we were ready. At each spout we let the water fall over our entire bodies and over our hair before taking a mouthful and spitting it out and a further mouthful which we swallowed. Twenty minutes or so later and re-robed we were back with the priest for a final blessing with holy water and grains of rice on our foreheads and at our throats. It really was an amazing, beautiful experience.
Much of the time though we are just chilling out but one day we were recommended to walk the 4k to two hidden waterfalls. On the way we passed through the village decorated with religious statues and flags, white on the east and yellow on the west side. We learned this was for a village ceremony held every 50 years. There was to be dancing and prayers. At the waterfall we were asked to pay 50,000 rupiah each (£2.50) rather than the normal 20,000 to help fund the occasion. As this was more than we had been led to believe we would pay we (read Gill) were a bit suspicious we were being scammed but we paid anyway. In return we were given a voucher for money off local KFC equivalent meals! Weird or what. Anyway off to waterfall #1. Nice wander through the jungle, nice waterfall. Off to waterfall #2. As we sat on a step to eat our peanuts and unidentified dried peas the guy who had granted us entry came sloshing up the stream with the extra 60,000 rupiah we had paid. He had found out that our voucher didn't apply until August when we would be gone so we should take our money back. We thanked him and told him to keep it anyway. Cool dude and fair play to him. We finished the walk and chilled out with a shared coconut with two straws.
Yesterday though was 'tourist day'. We hired a driver to take us up into the mountains. There are really four types of holiday in Bali - forest (us), town and nightlife, beach and mountain. So this was a taste of the mountains.
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| Recent eruption (black lava) |
Bali is part of a long volcanic chain formed when one continental mass was forced under another. It's a bit like the Caribbean islands both in climate and topography but whereas the Caribbean islands have generally not made the most of their rich volcanic soils, in Bali there is barely a square metre of uncultivated ground. It's the first time we've seen rice fields. Everything is done manually though we were told tractors or 'Japanese cows' as they are known here are now used for ploughing. We saw no tractors until our driver pointed one out - a rotavator! No family is allowed to open more than two hectares (5 acres) of land and they can grow almost everything here. With coast, rich volcanic soils and highlands we saw everything from potatoes and strawberries to coconuts and papaya growing, along with the ubiquitous rice.
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| No uncultivated square metre. |
There are two active volcanoes on Bali the most recently active has black lava flowing down its side. Lower down every inch is covered with vegetables, fruit trees and small roadside stalls.
We visited Ulun Danu Beratan Temple beside a lake under a mountain, Mount Bratan. An amazing mix of religion and tourism. A large temple, out of bounds for us, but also other religions statues and monuments, perfectly set against the mountains and lake. As well as 'have your photo taken holding a large fruit bat, or python, or owl', ice cream parlours and cafes.
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| With our guide and driver. |
This was the first time we had seen rice paddy fields.
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| Rice terraces. |
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| Ready to cut. |
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| Drying in the street. |
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| Chaff left to rot. |
Other things we've discovered here.
1. Womens' clothes here really suits Gill (shame she forgot her debit and credit cards on her second visit into town).
2. Bali Hinduism is different from elsewhere. Nature seems to play a greater part. 5% are Muslim, the rest mostly Hindu in Bali.
3. Bali is one of 27 islands that make up Indonesia. The capital is Djakarta on Java. Most of the other islands are predominantly Muslim.
4. There is only one god in Bali Hinduism. All the others are manifestations to various aspects of the god like water, fire, ether, lakes, the ocean etc.
5. 70% of Balinese people are engaged on tourism in one form or another. COVID shut everything down for over a year.
6. Things are ridiculously cheap here. An hour's massage in town cost 120,000 or less than £6. A main meal is around 70,000 (£3.50). Gills beautiful Batik trousers were 100,000 (£5).
7. SO many temples. As each house has one and they are usually bigger than the houses themselves they appear to be everywhere.
8. For Balinese people their religion is part of daily life. They make offerings when they open their shops, at every crossroads, around each banyan tree and when they make their first sale of the day.
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| Pavement offering. |
9. Balinese life is on a very personal level.
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| Shiny wheelbarrows. Eat your heart out Harley. |
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| Street woodcarver... |
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| ...and his delicate work. |
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| Takeaway lunch. |
If you've never been here and it is a long way from Europe or N America but if you can stand a long haul flight I can thoroughly recommend Bali as a destination.
