10.24.10
How can I put into words all the things I have to describe? Beautiful, incredible, amazing, gorgeous, mystical…. Those words don’t even start to skim the surface. Bali is just as magical as I have always imagined it to be. It is everything… precisely what you see in images and documentaries. The photos of Bali need no computer retouch or effects. Every color is true and just as dazzling in real life. I wish I could attach some sort of scratch and sniff with this blog, because the smell is beyond describable as well. It’s a shame that so many people (from the states) have so many negative pre-dispositions about this country, and that so many people are too afraid to ever visit. They have no idea what they are missing.
John and I arrived in Bali around 10 pm on Sunday. After our long layover in Darwin, we were exhausted by the time we landed in Indonesia. We carefully merged our way through the airport, checking through customs and gathering our luggage. I somehow summoned any last bit of energy I had to dance about and sing my praise about how excited I was. The resort we were staying at was supposed to have sent us a taxi to pick us up, but after carefully weeding our way through the mass of taxi drivers waiting to pick up their guests, we realized our driver never arrived, so we hired one from the street. We stopped to quickly change over our money, and bought happy panda cookies (my favorite!) and a can of lychee juice (my new all-time favorite!)
Being that it was dark outside, we didn’t have the opportunity to properly digest our surroundings. What we did notice was the chaos of motorbikes and cars, fighting each other like cats and dogs, trying to beat one another in some sort of race. Everyone is beeping, you have motorbikes on either side of vehicles, speedy past, and they hardly pay any respect to the white line dividing one lane from another. To them it’s one big road. Frankly, I think they enjoy he challenge of speeding past one car by merging into the opposite lane while a truck is speeding towards them at the same time. Did I mention there is no speed limit here? What we eventually learn about motorbikes is that 90% of Balinese people drive them. The few, and more well off citizens, drive cars. One per family is enough. We have seen an entire family of four riding on a two person bike. We have seen women carrying their extremely young children, even infants, on this open vehicle. Most wear helmets, though its completely optional, and just because it is a small motor bike, doesn’t for one minute deter these people from hauling large and oversized items. Surfer boards… no problem. Glass panes and large stacks of boxes that far exceed any space allowance…why not? In fact we have seen 4 or 5 mattresses, folded into one another piled onto the back of a single bike. Most of the times they are so wobbly, you wonder how they don’t blow over. It’s a mad house when it comes to driving, but somehow, it all works out.
I was so tired, I fell asleep. An hour and a half later, we arrived to our resting place, Rama Candidasa Resort and Spa. They gave us a refreshing drink of some variety and checked us in. We tried to take in our new surroundings, but had a hard time through glossy eyes. We fell asleep the minute we hit the bed.
I was woken up by the sunshine, and the minute I realized I could finally see where I was, I jumped out of bed and walked out on the balcony. It was a moment similar to when Willy Wonka opened to the door to his candy garden and chocolate river. I couldn’t help but stand there, mouth wide open, thoroughly overwhelmed by new sights, sounds and smells. I just started to run around in circles, not really looking at one specific thing, half way shouting to John… ‘youneedtoseethisweareinbaliohmygoodnessIcantbelievethis’. I was on sensory overload to say the least, and once I got myself under control, I started to focus in on all the little details. Our verandah overlooked a tropical mecca. Palms of all sorts scattered as far as our view point would allow. Red ceramic roofs took to a point in clusters, sheltering the Bali homes that we shared as neighbors. Green moss had mystically covered statues, waterfalls, and rock laid tiles making everything look ancient. I could hear in the distance a clamoring of bells. There was not much rhythm or pattern but made such a beautiful song. The air smelled of incense and flowers, of heat and moisture and of course… the ocean.
We spent the first few days exploring the tiny town of Candidasa which rests on the lower East coast of Bali. We started to learn our ways around bargaining and how to mentally convert rupiahs into dollars. We walked around a lot, shopping and admiring this cultural wonderland. We quickly found out that every Balinese person has something they want to sell you, and they aren’t afraid to get up in your business to finalize a sale. Every day the hotel offered a free shuttle at 10 am into town (which is only a short walk anyways). The taxi (taksi) driver handed us a brochure of all the wonderful sights they could tour us on, if we paid the right price to do so (20 or 30 dollars for each tour). We kindly rejected (a million times) but tucked the brochure away. After several inquiries, we discovered that we could rent a motorbike for as little as 5 bucks a day (50,000 rupiahs) and decided that at some point, that’s exactly what we would do.
Mid-vacation, John acquired pink eye…again! Driving in Bali is a bad idea, driving in Bali with one eye ball is an even worse idea, so we took it easy for the duration of our week resort stay so that John could get better (not going to lie, it was nice to just watch TV and movies for a few days).
In the meantime, I took advantage of all the hotel had to offer. There was 3 o’clock tea time in the quite garden area, in which I greatly look forward too. They displayed traditional Balinese dishes, all in which I am far from recollecting any sort of name (but I did take pictures).
I researched all the locations listed on the brochure given to us by the taxi driver, carefully tracking down each place on a map. Before you knew it, I had a three day adventure planned out for us to go see each and every item by ourselves.
Our first day, we traveled up to Amlapura to see the market place. We stopped on our way to play and gawk at the wild monkeys alongside the road, and got our first glimpse at the coveted Bali rice terraces. With what little road signage we had, we somehow found the market place. We walked around and fought our way through the millions of hawkers (though not nearly as bad as the ones we would later encounter). We ended up buying traditional sarongs and I later found a traditional top for myself (the guys just wear plain button ups).
After, we drove ourselves to Taman Ujung of the Tambu Village. It’s a complex water palace for the last king of Karanagasem (the regency is known as Karanagasem, which is like a state). It was destroyed in 1979 by the volcano eruption and earthquake, and rebuilt in 2002. It’s this beautiful palace surrounded by water, full of fish and lilly pads. The grounds of the palace have these tiers of gardens and are manicured with gorgeous landscaping. There was a large field of rice, and statues and fountains were hidden through the forest walls and tiny pathways. We spent a good amount of time here before taking off to try and find the sand white beach of Seraya. The problem was that there are no signs telling us exactly where to go so we drove up and down the same road before turning around and calling it a day. Luckily, on the way back, I somehow caught glimpse of a tiny wooden plaque pointing towards the white sand beach. We turned down the beat up road and slowly bumped our way down to the hidden beach. We paid 20 cents (2000 rupiah) for road toll and spent a few minutes admiring the hidden gem. The sand was white… but only as white as a normal beach would be. What I didn’t realize was that most of the beaches were black and rocky because of the volcano. Therefore, finding the soft white sand was considered to be jackpot for tourists. Unfortunately, it was the end of the day, and we weren’t prepared to swim so we simply made our way back to Candidasa.
We had checked out of the hotel and were now staying in town at the Ari Homestay. 10 bucks (100,000 rupiah) for the both of us to stay in a dorm style room. Run by an Australian man, Gary, whom has lived in Bali with his Bali wife and children for some time.
Having no clear idea where we would be living for the next month and a half, the next day we made the hike out to Ubud. Having read about Ubud a lot, I was sure that this was where we would want to rent a villa for our remaining time in Bali. We asked Gary to store our luggage for us and, we made the hour and a half drive to the center of the island to villa shop.
I don’t know what I had imagined, but I guess I always thought Ubud to be some quite, rice terrace filled town, full of culture and wonder yet, with a touch of modernity. I cannot lie; I was beyond disappointed when we arrived. In fact, I was so upset, I wanted to cry. I felt like my dreams had been violently flushed down a toilet and then ravished by tiny plankton that laughed and giggled at me as they scarfed down huge portions of my idea of perfection.
It’s a tourist town. Western people outnumber the locals, and the streets are filled with modern western style shops, clichéd art galleries and real estate companies. The restaurants advertised for American and European style cuisine and ritzy villas and resort billboards overpowered the street. Where were all the Bali villages? What happened to the quite roads that you could peacefully ride a bike through (the traffic was bumper to bumper, honking and road rage that was equivalent to Denpasar)? But most of all… where are all these gorgeous rice terraces that Ubud has become so popular for?
We must have looked at 10 or so villas, all being about the same, though one had seemed particularly nice to us. It started to rain, so we grabbed dinner really quick before making the rest of our way back to Candidasa.
At first I blamed the overpowered tourist town on the book, Eat Pray Love. Ubud was were Elizabeth Gilbert had stayed during her time in Bali and where she met her now-husband. However, I later learned that Ubud has always been a busy mini-metropolis, and even before the book, has attracted tourists far and wide. The silver lining was that on our way out of the city, I spotted a small green sign pointing to Ketut Liyer’s home. (For those that are unfamiliar, in the book Eat Pray Love, Liz meets a man named Ketut whom tells her a series of fortunes and readings about her future and past. He paints her a picture and tells her to come back to Bali and stay with and his family. So, when she returns to Bali, she makes recurring visits to Ketut, who has since become her spiritual guru. He teaches her things that only a spiritual guru can, and helps in her recovery after her divorce). Having tried my hardest to avoid all things touristy, I could not hide that I was elated to have found Ketut! We stopped really quick, but decided to come back when we would be staying in Ubud.
We spent another night with Gary and woke up early to begin another trek out east. We went past Amlapura (of course we stopped to see the monkeys again, only this time we fed them bananas and peanuts!) We drove through Abang to see the rice terraces (simply breathtaking) and up to Amed; a quaint little seaside town, known for its beach coral and magnificent snorkeling/diving. Now, this was much more how I imagined Bali to be. Quite yet comfy, with Bali villages and warungs (little café) sprinkled here and there. If you look up into the mountains, you see the rice terraces, and out East is the crystal blue Indian Ocean. We drove to a lookout point to take some pictures and noticed the dazzling coral that lay just feet away from the coast. We decided to take an hour or two to snorkel, which was a much needed relief from the heat.
The reef was incredible. In fact, it was a million times more amazing then when we went diving in the Great Barrier Reef. The water was impeccably clear, and the coral was incredible colorful and alive. The fish ranged in so many bizarre colors and patterns, and giant blue starfish were everywhere. We even caught glimpse of some squid and a blow fish. I started to tire so went back to shore to hunt for shells and John continued to explore the vast underwater forest. I managed to find several gorgeous shells which I have seen in a lot of jewelry. Its face is perfectly flat and smooth (round) with a pretty spiral design in the center. I collected as many as I could find, carefully tucking them away for later.
We jumped back on the back and made our way to Tirtagangga. It’s known as a Bali Aga village (original Bali people, and original Bali village). We didn’t stop to see the floating temple because we wanted to make it to our final destination before sunset.
Pura Besakih (Bes-AH-key) is one of Bali’s most important temples. It is a massive collection of temples, shrines and gazebos galore. However, let me first start off by explaining a little bit about Bali temples and their religion.
Balinese people are Hindu, at least most of them. A small percentage is Muslim; however practice a much less orthodox version of Indian Muslims. In a way, they incorporate the Muslim and Hindu practices together. Each family lives in a pod together. When a daughter marries, she will go and live with the male in whom lives in a modest home that is within his parents compound (imagine a few shack like homes all scattered about on your parents property, and that’s where you lived and raised your family as an adult, and your children would eventually move into one of those little houses as well, etc). Eventually these pods of family grow so large that they create a village. Everyone, somehow, is related, even if just through marriage.
Now, there is a reason why they call Bali the ‘Island of the Gods’. Though I don’t know the fine details, I do know that a great majority of their religion revolves around the good and bad spirit, Barong (good spirit) and Kris (bad spirit). They make these tiny offering plates out of dried palm leaves and inside, put flowers, rice, a cookie or some other sort of food and burn an incense. They will say a little prayer and sprinkle holy water and put one plate on the ground to pacify the bad spirit and keep him happy and away. They will put one dish up high, as an offering to the good spirit and in thanks for protecting the family. They will do this on the outside of their door, inside the temple (though they also have other gods that they put the offerings out to), in front of their shop houses, on their motor bike, and even do a mini- version of it on their own heads (you will see them walking around with rice on their forehead or chest/throat and have flowers on their head or behind their ears). They have temples in each family compound, in each village, for each regency, and then have several large temples that resemble Bali as a whole community. You will also find temples for businesses; McDonalds and gas stations included.
When you are driving on the road you pass tons of stores, but it is essentially just a big open square box. These are known as shop houses. If you were to pass through the door in the back, you would have entered the family’s home. So as you are driving by, you are looking at the back portion of one of the many homes located within that family compound.
Anyways, I’m getting off track, back to Besakih. This massive temple is one of those all-important temples that represents all of Bali and means ‘Mother-Temple’. Behind it stands the magnificent Mount Agung, and is considered to be a sacred holy place and has very rigid rules that without exception, need to be respected (women can’t be on their period, you can’t point or exchange gifts with your left hand, you can’t enter if you had a child within 40 days…the list goes on). We came prepared, with our sarongs, but before we even reached the parking lot, we were being bombarded by hawkers, hoping to score as our tour guide. I had read that the Bali people will try to tell you, you can’t enter the temple without a Bali escort, but that is not true. However, I wanted to know exactly what we were looking at, and have some sort of explanation, so we kindly asked our pursuing merchant how much for him to guide us. He replied verbatim “ It’s up to you!” Alright then, so I am left to assume, by that response, it’s by donation. We hadn’t even taken our helmets off before we were surrounded by 5 girls, begging us to buy a postcard or pencil or wooden necklace. They have no concept of personal space, and to say no, regardless if in English of Balinese, means absolutely nothing to them (though speaking in Bali tells them you may be local, or at least far from a first time tourist and they will back off much more quickly). They will just keep on keeping on, hoping that you spare a dollar. John doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by the madness, but I can’t help but feel overwhelmed and invaded. I lose my patience with them quickly, so I run ahead as far as I can, hoping that I have reached the invisible line that they won’t cross. I guess it’s the one thing about Bali that I can’t stand.
We tour the magnificent structures of the temple and took lots of pictures. I tried to understand what the guide was telling us, but his English wasn’t very good, and most of what he was describing was translated into Bali because it was a name or something. I had a hard time differentiating English from Balinese, so I just nodded my head and acted amazed. As we finished the 10 minute tour and made our way back to the front of the temple, our guide stopped us and told us this is where we pay him. We asked him how much he is normally given, in which he said 500,000 rupiah. That is 50 us dollars. We told him we couldn’t afford that and instead offered him $10.
Really quick, let me explain their money situation. First of all, to convert rupiahs to dollars, all you do is count the numbers from right to left 4 times. That’s where you put the new decimal point to make it US currency. So, 1000 rupiah is ten cents. 22,000 IDR (rupiah) is 2 dollars and 20 cents, 500,000 is $50 and 1 million rupiah would be one hundred dollars. We met a girl, who had a college degree and worked with a reputable company. She made $150 dollars a month. A good salary would be $300 dollars…A MONTH! A pack of Marlboro cigarettes cost $1.90. A Bali meal with a drink is $1.50 and if you want a fancy dinner with all the trimmings, $15 bucks is all you need. So you need to understand, that fifty dollars is certainly asking a lot, and even in America, you can forget anyone paying a tour guide fifty dollars to show them around anything!
Back to our tour guide…we handed him 10 dollars and he just kept saying no way, you owe me 50 bucks. He said that’s what other people gave him and that’s how much he wants. We looked around as if he was going to summon the police who would further insist we pay him 50 dollars. We explained that we were backpackers and couldn’t afford that. I reminded him that he told me it was up to us and that we never would have agreed to enter the temple if we knew it would cost us 50 bucks. He got so angry with us and furrowed his brow in disgust. Perhaps he simply didn’t understand that 50 dollars is a lot of money to us too. Maybe, the Bali mindset is that ALL western people have a lot of money, so what they may think is a lot, to us is not (which in most cases is true). Or maybe perhaps, one clumsy tourist had mistaken 50,000 rupiah for 500,000 and handed him 50 bucks, not knowing what he just done. And since then, this spoiled man demands this of follow tourists. He clearly stated he would not accept anything less than a 50 and so we clearly stated he was SOL and started to walk away with our ten. Of course, he changed his mind, and took the ten. He noticed a small corner had been ripped off the note and tried to tell us that the money was no good because it was damaged. At this point John and I were so enraged (mind you, we are still inside the temple), that if we had anything smaller than a 10, we would have given him that instead and walked away. I threw up my hands and walked away. He realized we weren’t to be pushed any further and took the ten. He led us out the temple and followed us along like nothing had happened. He crept around us, hoping we would pull out or wallet again, perhaps as another way to leverage more money out of us. As we walked to our motorbike, we were again greeted by the female hawkers (one of whom was pregnant) now accusing us that we promised to buy something from them, so we couldn’t possibly break a promise. The pregnant one kept rubbing her belly, telling us ‘for the baby’, and frowning like she would fail in life as a parent without our money. Being thoroughly annoyed at this point, we shoved 2000 rupiah in her hand and quickly geared up so we could quickly drive away. She tossed the money in her hands like we had just given her trash, looking at it with disgust. We were so upset.
The worse thing about all this was that it all happened at the holiest of all temples. The place that THEY consider to be sacred and the focal point of everything they believe in. What their entire life…what every single day of their being revolves around. The man lied to us several times for pete’s sake! We didn’t have a moment to enjoy our time there, nor did we have the opportunity to appreciate this sacred place for what it was because the people, who say it is so, abused it relentlessly, so that they could make money. Where’s the honor in that?
What else you need to understand is that Bali people aren’t poor, at least not in Bali standard. There aren’t bums on the street. There aren’t homeless people. Because of the way the families are made up into villages, they have a very tight knit structure, and everyone helps each other out. When grandpa is too sick to tend to the rice fields, the neighbors come by and help. When a mother can’t feed her children, the other mothers make sure that everyone is full. It’s how things work over here, and it works! The homes they live in are modest, but they aren’t cardboard boxes. They have solid and sturdy cement walls, with a proper roof and proper windows and doors. So yes, one dollar has great value over here, but they find a way to do just fine with the resources they have. They use a lot of what is around them to provide. They grow their own gardens and are surrounded by natural vegetation and fruit. Rice is a cheap and plentiful crop, and chickens roam this land in bulk. I guess my point is that though having money is nice, they don’t need money to survive. They have the knowledge and resources to take care of their basic needs simply with the ground they live on. Of course you have your wealthier families, and those who have merged to a more modern society and into the larger cities (like Denpasar) to pursue bigger and better dreams. With that said, I hope you better understand why we don’t feel bad when we are hassled by hawkers.
It was getting dark outside and we no longer felt comfortable trying to find a place to sleep nearby (remember, everyone knows everyone and is most likely related). We stopped at a local food court (just a gravel lot with tiny kiosks of food carts) and ate a meal. Again, we were taken advantage of when, after we finished eating, the lady told us we owed her 8 bucks. That’s what you would spend in a nice restaurant out here, but for street side food, 2 or 3 bucks for two meals and a drink is standard. What were we to do though? She didn’t speak any English, we were surrounded by Balinese people, and had already finished our meals. We just paid it and grunted to ourselves in misery. What an awful experience.
Our final resting place was Padang Bai which is South-West of Candidasa. We checked into a clean hotel and spent the night conversing about our day. We promised ourselves we would forget the experience and hot hold it hostage in our memoire of Bali. We also promised to never let it happen again, and from now, not be afraid to hassle right back and demand fair prices.
We woke up refreshed and back tracked a little bit towards Besahki so that we could see the Bukid Jambul lookout and the Goa Lawah Temple.
Bukid Jambul lookout is exactly that, except I am pretty sure we could see as far as Denpasar. The road was sprinkled with rice terraces which made for supplemental scenery and of course, we were face to face with our first hawkers of the day. The man was selling cow bone that he had intricately (and quite beautifully) carved. He wanted 25 dollars for each, but we walked away with 2 for 15. Now that’s how you do business.
Our second stop was the Goa Lawah Temple. Right off the main road, and runs up and down the entire coastline of Bali. Considered to be another important temple, but what makes this one special is the fact that it was built around a bat cave. There were so many bats, the cave walls vibrated with their squeaks. It was a pretty neat sight to say the least (check out the pictures and video in the gallery). On our way in we were given wooden necklaces which we were told were good luck. Of course, when we came out, they demanded we pay for them. We offered to give them back and started to take them off, but they insisted we keep them. So we did.
We had to be back in Candidasa to meet a photographer who invited us to stay with him at his Villa in Seminyak. He had come to Candidasa to go diving with a friend, and we arranged to ride with him and his driver back to Seminyak. The photographers name is Dave, and he just so happens to be American. I contacted him when I found out we would be in Bali at the same time, and after many emails, he offered John and I his guest villa in exchange for a shoot.
Seminyak is West of Denpasar and is one of the trendiest spots for tourists. When I say city, I don’t mean skyscrapers. Most of the stores are two stories or less, and anything bigger is a resort, but those are normally tucked away and out of view anyways. The traffic is bumper to bumper and horrific, and the streets are lined, endlessly, with shop after shop. Some of the stores are Bali style, with Indonesian made clothes, and bulk items that you can find in every other single store like it. Other stores are trendy fashion boutiques some even as prestigious as Dolce and Gabbana. Street warungs (café) are far and few in-between and the restaurants are chic and fancy. Just like Ubud except more busy and hectic and much larger.
There are tons of private villas, all of which are gorgeous, I’m sure. David’s villa was no exception. You walk up to this creative, wooden door and walk into a grass terrace with circular stepping stones. Straight ahead is the luxury pool which wraps half way around both villas. On either side are the two villas… the master and the guest. Each are made up of floor to ceiling glass walls, with a door in every section. The guest bed is large and comfy decorated nicely with mosquito nets, just incase we want to sleep with the door open. The shower is only privatized by a tinted glass wall and is completely open in the bathroom section of the villa. The ground is covered in rocks and a few stepping stones. There are dual bowl sinks, and a very clean, and proper toilet…with toilet paper (most of the bathrooms here are just a toilet bowl in the ground that have footsteps on the seat. Where you would normally sit, you now squat, and there is no toilet paper (maybe that’s why you can’t use your left hand at all in a temple?). There is a large ceramic basin with a ladle for you to pour water into the toilet to flush it, but you only have about 15 seconds, or however long you can hold your breath because the smell is often nauseating). Its luxury in a nutshell and we are now officially spoiled rotten with our big screen TV and air conditioned room. This particular partition of the villas connects to what Dave calls the common area, which is shared with 3 other villas. Inside this common area is a large swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen, and a large fully enclosed gazebo with a library, workout equipment and lounge area (also with an outdoor shower and toilet) and the coolest yoga room EVER on the opposing end.
We quickly settled into our new comfort zone, which was much needed after our exhausting few days out. Those motor bikes do something nasty to your tailbone when you’ve been on them for too long, and adding the condition of most of these Bali roads doesn’t make it much fun. Tomorrow we wake up to another few days out, so time for me to get to bed!