Bali - March 7 - April 5

March 7 - April 5 

We are at the airport - came quite early because it's very hot and humid outside / we better get used to it! /and to have time to look around - heard many times how great the airport is. There is free internet which I'm using right now and in a minute we are going to explore. Our flight is at 4:40. I also have to spend some time reading my guide book about Bali. During the flight I backed away from the movies - read my guide book about Bali instead. Considering landing in Denpassar in dark, i decided to go to a nearby Sanur. First, visa had to be purchased /$25 US each/ , then money changing and becoming millionaires at last / $1 US = 9000 Rhupias, two years ago it was about 14000/ and calling a few accommodation places / a tourist information desk assists in that/. A pre-paid taxi to Sanur costs 55000 Rp. Our room is at Simon's Homestay , a losemen - as guesthouses are called here. We have two beds, a bathroom, some furniture and makeshift shelves. There is a fan and air-conditioning for which we pay extra - the total is 150 000 Rp including breakfast. We are quite distressed finding out that we left our flip-flops in the plane - so needed here.

March 8

With curtains all around the room and the windows overlooking a little courtyard, it is very dark so we sleep well until 10. Katot, a Balinese young woman brings us breakfast - fried eggs on toast as well as some local spicy food to sample. After first venture to town we come back completely wet - it's hot and humid - the end of monsoon season. The next walk to supermarket to buy water and flip-flops we endure better - you just have to be slow and take your errands easy. Finally we go to see the ocean - Indian it is. We walk along a boardwalk being constantly hassled by beachfront 'art market' stall vendors. We are so unprepared to defend ourselves that we end up buying a few sarongs. All the way along the beach there are luxurious hotels with pools and restaurants. 

March 9

We have been told that many places will be closed for a few days as it is Nyepi. a Hindu New Year - the major purification ritual of the year. Today Balinese families dress up and take food offerings to temples. Simon offers to take us to the temple to see this ceremony. We have to don a sarong and a sash - a scarf tied at the waist which we borrow from Katot - first he takes me on his motorbike, Kamila waits for her turn at home. Both we join a crowd, women carrying elaborate fruit baskets on their heads and enter a temple where the food is put down at the altar. Then we sit on heels and listen to prayers, holding scents and flowers which somebody gave us at the entrance. It reminds me of Polish tradition of bringing food baskets to church before Easter. We are sprinkled with water by a white clad priests and three times given some water on our hands to swallow and a few grains of rice to eat and to stick a few on our forehead. We get back home by a 'bemo' a local mini bus which you flag on the road. Tomorrow is another preparation and purification day and on Friday, after all evil spirits are frightened away, the day of Nyepi, everybody /including tourists/ is supposed to sit quietly at home - nobody is to be seen on the streets - to persuade any remaining evil spirits that Bali is completely deserted.

March 10

We got a little sunburn on the beach while playing in warm water. In the evening together with crowds of Locals and tourists we gather at a roundabound where we watch huge humanoid scary- looking figures - ogoh-ogoh they are called - fixed to horizontal frames made of bamboo poles, and carried through the streets by boys and men in a procession which is meant to frighten away all evil spirits. We sit on a curb next to two females - turned out to be a mother - my age and a daughter - Kamila's age, from Cairns, Australia. Lenore is an artist and a part time teacher. Cathleen goes here to international school. Together we follow the parade to a place with a stage where speeches and performances begin. We get home before midnight.

March 11

This is the Nyepi Day I mentioned before. A day of complete inactivity, so the evil spirits decide that Bali is uninhabited and leave the island for another year. Even airport is closed on that day. So we gladly spend the whole day inside our room reading, snoozing, doing nothing without any guilt feeling. In the evening Simon tells us to shut off all lamps - lets us to use a little one which cannot be seen from the outside - there are heavy curtains on the windows anyway. Katot brings us nasi goreng - fried rice with a fried egg on top - an Indonesian simple dish.

March 12

After breakfast we meet Lenore and Cathleen, do shopping and pack our bags as we are moving to a house which Lenore rents for two months. A lovely modern Indonesian house with large spaces all around, lots of interesting details in each room. We get a bedroom next to a bathroom which we share with L and C. The house is still being built - two local builders downstairs are working on it.

March 13

We share a cost of a car with a driver trip to the middle of Bali: numerous markets on the way, picturesque lush rice paddies, little and small temples, more offerings, a wedding ceremony, Lake Tambingan, Munduk Waterfall, and a big thunderstorm in the late afternoon. Back home through an extremely busy Denpassar - cars and motorcycles pass one another by millimeters.

March 14

I think we'll stay where we are for a couple of days enjoying the house and then go to Ubud, Lovina and other places.

March 15 - 16

The days go by on lounging around the house exchanging sofas into pillows of different size and texture and admiring another newly discovered detail in this exquisite building. A fan has to be carried and plugged in all the way - the only impediment - as it feels too hot even when you hardly move. To cool off we escape to the air-conned bedroom from time to time. And listening to the sounds around - roosters, dogs, grasshoppers, geckos, and unfortunately motorcycles from the road about 200 m away is an engaging activity.  Downstairs Lenore paints - in her new abstract genre - her predominant is surrealistic /can be seen at www.lenorehoward.com.au /. I like the titles of her paintings - my favourite is "Marooned in Personal Outback". Sometimes we go to town by a taxi - about 9000 Rp to get groceries.

So is this a chilling out time or what?

March 17

We can't find information about a shuttle bus stop called Perama which is described in Rough Guides and which is supposed to take us to Ubud. After avoiding all the taxi and other 'special' offers we board a local bimo which takes us to Batubulan. There we change for another one which takes us to Ubud. The whole trip takes about 2 hours - heavy crazy traffic all the way. We have a few homestays circled on our book map but we cannot communicate with the driver at all. Luckily a kind local man gets in before Ubud and helps us find one of the addresses. We land in Sania's Homestay in a double bed room with a fan, overlooking a lush garden and a small swimming pool, the use of which we take immediately. After the usual bargaining - Kamila is getting really good at it - one day costs us 80000 Rp including breakfast.

March 18

I don't sleep well at all - have some stomach pains spreading all over my body and landing heavily in the head. In spite of it, around noon I force myself to get up and go out to see the Cremation Ceremony which was announced yesterday. After waiting for over an hour for the procession to start - the bull shaped sarcophagus decorated with tinsel ready on the street - I have to evacuate my body from the scene and get it back on the bed. I'm so many days behind in the journal.  Days have been packed with trips, activities and people. Today /March 30/ I managed to change our departure day with Thai Airlines from the 3 to the 5th - cannot extend our stay longer as the Indonesians are very strict about 30 day visa.  Two days though better than nothing.

March 19

My body is ready to cooperate again this morning. Thanks God. Today is another Hindu holiday - the time when spirits of the ancestors return and revisit their offsprings. Everything is brushed clean the previous day, decorations are made - on our door we find a little art piece made of banana leaves. And again the offerings - the ones laid out every day by women of each house, and placed at the household shrine, at the entrance gate, and different nooks and crannies around. These are tiny banana leaf trays pinned together with bamboo splinters and filled with rice, fruit, flowers and incense. Offerings for gods are left on elevated places: altars, shelves, while the ones for the demons are scattered on the ground. The woman sprinkles them with holy water and leaves incense beside. After a while, when the essence of the offering has been extracted by gods or demons, it loses its holiness and is left to rot or to be devoured by ants and dogs. On a special day like today women also prepare towers of fruit, flowers and rice cakes - built up around a trunk of a young banana tree. Then dressed in ceremonial gear they parade to the temple with the 'bantens' balanced on their heads. The streets are still decorated since Nyepi with bamboo poles erected along the streets, each one bowed down with woven garlands of gried flowers and palm trees, which arch gracefully over the roadway.

In the afternoon, with bananas purchased at the entrance we go to the Monkey.  Forest at the south part of Ubud. Well next time I-ll write about this experience.

March 19 ctn.

There are over a hundred of long-tailed macaques in the forests that also contain a temple and a little cemetery. Monkeys seem to be everywhere waiting for an opportunity to snatch bananas from tourists, chasing each other, skillfully peeling and opening coconuts or grooming one another. One jumps on Kamila when she tries - in spite of warnings - to hide a banana, another tries to open my bag when I sit down forgetting that I have one banana left inside. In the evening we go to see Legong dance. It is performed by three young girls bound tightly in sarongs and green chest cloths with gilded crowns filled with frangipani flowers on their heads. Their movement is limited by the dress to intricate weavings of arms, fingers and heads, and the eyes! There are a few other dances - bumblebee dance and .... I forgot the names.

March 20

Walks along rice paddies

March 21

a bus to Lovina - north of the island

March 22

Excellent snorkeling in the ocean - taken to corral reefs by a jukung boat

to Amed in the east. Feasting on fresh fish

March 23

Snorkeling around a shipwreck - super views - got there by ojek - motorcycle taxi

March 24

Family festivities in our homestay - occasion: * year-old daughter finally got her second set of teeth Suckling pig, palm wine, arrack.

March 25

To Cadidasa and Ubud to stay for a night at a villa owned by an Aussie woman / Kamila got acquainted with her on the beach in Amed Dinner in Mayan Warung surrounded by rice paddies.

March 26

To Pandaibay and on a boat to Lombok Island - stay in Sangiggi.

March 27  Easter!!!

Incredible show of 4400 drummers on a stadium in Mataram.

March 28

A boat to Gili Trawangan - the whole day of snorkeling  - a little sunburned!

March 29

Change our departure to April 5 a trip to Kuta - a present for Lenore and swimsuit for K.

March 31

Lenore's 50's birthday. a boat to Nusa Lembongan - snorkeling, banana boat, kayaking birthday dinner at Indian restaurant

April 1

visit to a doctor  - my chronic problem with ears and muscle injury in my left shoulder-  hit myself on the boat from Lombok  - pain started with a 2 day delay - got a sling, pain killers, inflammatory medicine. /I can still use my fingers!!/

April 2

I just had a facial /first since about twenty years! /, cream hair bath and head massage. This over two hour treatment cost me less than 10 dollars!!! Incredible.

Other than that I take things easy today - waiting for all the medicaments I got yesterday to work and yes - the arm feels better already. Last night I could sleep quite well and the throbbing pain ceased.

April 3

So the Pope is dead. At least this has been expected for a while. Sad but not shocking. Tomorrow or the next life - which comes first - we never know. At least he was well prepared for the second option. We have a ride /a car with a driver/ to north-west of the island. First a butterfly park, then another monkey forest. The main destination is however Pura Tanah Lot - a temple on a west shore, the most photographed place in Bali. Dramatically located on a craggy wave-lashed rock, fringed by frothing white waves, it is one of the most holy places here. Only some devotees are allowed to climb the temple stairway. A couple of years ago it was fortified by anti-erosion construction work to prevent any further damage of the rock whose unique profile was created by erosion in the first place. Great sight! Of course, a busy tourist village surrounds the area, but surprisingly the vendors are not as pushy as in other places, Kuta for example.

April 4

I spend shopping with Lenore in a hassle free Hardy's - a department store where you can't really bargain but can get some 'discount'. Kamila with two friends are having fun at Waterbom Park in Kuta with Catlin and Desrey. In the evening all ladies have a farewell dinner at the beach restaurant with a huge bonsai garden. However a sudden storm forced us to eat a bit further from the ocean view.

April 5

A finger deep touch massage with ginger oil treatment by a Javanese man - a bit hurting and a bit burning but very refreshing. Bye to wonderful Lenore, Catlin, to our splendid house and off to the airport for ther next flight by Thai Airlines at 5 pm. Among the things that enchanted me are --- Balinese people - if you can meet them on other than mercenary level friendly, sincere, serene and very good looking! Women in their lacy, close fitting, long-sleeved kabayas and tightly wound sarongs with sashes around their waists, with flamboyant hair-pieces and jewelry look marvelous. Men in their sarongs, hip-cloths, head cloths with a triangular crest on top /called udeng/ complete the picture which can be seen very often as there is not a single day without 'odalan' - celebrations in some temple. Rituals, dances, gamelan music / gongs, metallophones, drums, cymbals, flutes/, arts and crafts /all Balinese people seem to be involved in some kind of art/ , temples, flowers everywhere, terraced rice-paddies, gardens, including bathroom gardens like the one we had in Amed /part of the bathroom didn't have a roof/ villages decorated with arching bamboo poles, food - the most common nasi goreng, the fruit - mangosteen, pomelo, custard apple, rambutan, snakefruit, jackfruit, durian /not my favourite/, papaya, pineapple,  - we drink fresh juices every day. What bothers or saddens  heat, humidity which limits activities  /I thought I would rent us bikes to explore the vicinity/ and makes you think about an air con room as the best option for spending the days; persistent touts and hawkers in some places , makes looking at things in markets impossible as you are immediately surrounded by - 'special price for you'. Low price for good luck' , etc. polluted streams and some shores; stray dogs that look hungry or sick;

In Bangkok about 9 pm.

When we arrive at the Atlanta Hotel /recommended by Jarek - Danka&Julek's friend/ my passport is mysteriously missing! Distressed we get a taxi back to the airport and yes - the luck is still with us - find it at the exchange money counter securely kept by the lady in the office.