Bali (Dec 14-23)

Mark speaks about Bali

We were all looking forward to Bali.
So much so that while making our way south from Pau Bunaken, the diving island north of Sulawasi, we decided not to explore the island of Sulawasi itself, other than our brief stay in Manado, as we were all excited about Bali. Manado was a great experience, as we were the only white people in town. We walked around at dinner time, stopping in at a local satay stand, and then went to the shopping area, which was very crowded and busy. Sulawasi is a mix of Christian and Muslim people, with some women having their heads covered, and others not. It was strange to see "Merry Christmas" signs and banners all over town. We have seen these signs and greetings everywhere, including Malaysia and even here on Borneo.

Manado from the air

Sulawasi is a weirdly-shaped island: it has four narrow arms spreading out in different directions, which makes travel very tough. Boat rides are long, and there are no formal ferries or ferry routes, and the roads are bad, as these arms are quite mountainous as well as narrow. We did want to visit some of the interesting villages with unusual traditions, like huge funerals where they slaughter as many buffalo as they can get money for, including borrowing huge sums of money, as the more buffalo slaughtered, the better off the dead are. But the call of "Bali Ha'i" overcame us, and we flew right from Manado to Denpassar, Bali.

Lianna and I had been there before and loved it. What we didn`t realize was that I hadn`t been there for nearly a quarter of a century, and Lianna had been away 18 years.
Unbelievably, Bali had changed.

Getting out of the airport to our cab we were greeted by a large Starbucks. These sightings are usually met with mixed emotions: "Shit, there`s a Starbucks here", therefore it is not exotic and other-worldly, or "Yes! There`s a Starbucks here, we`ll be able to get anything we want, including great coffee!" (Not necessarily from Starbucks, as the presence of Starbucks usually signals coffee in general, except perhaps in Beijing, where Starbucks was the only coffee shop, except for a Blenz, which was not that great. The weird thing with these places in foreign countries is that they do not have the usual sweets to accompany the coffee, so you only have part of the equation. The pastry display usually has some weird stuff, or not much of anything, or a single piece of cake, which is suspect to say the least.)

We headed to Kuta beach, where Lianna had booked a landing hotel. A landing hotel for us is a place we can go to straight away and stay the first night until we find a better place, unless we are lucky enough to have our landing hotel be a great hotel, which is rare (it did happen in Beijing, and we stayed 10 days). As we drove to the hotel we were all surprised by Kuta - for Lianna and I by the explosive growth; for the kids, by the presence of Dolce and Gabanna, Versace, Billabong and other large brand-name stores. Again, these were met with mixed emotions: "Yes, we are back in civilization", and "Shit, we are back in civilization".

Our fist day at Kuta was fun. We went right for the beach, as it was HOT. The surf was good, and we body-surfed for a few hours. The next day was quite strange however, as went to the beach with the intention of Caleb taking a surfing lesson, but when we got there, the beach was now absolutely filthy!!! It was completely covered in debris of all kinds, including coconuts, palm leaves, pieces of wood, and lots of garbage. Everything from plastic bags and water bottles to sunscreen containers, juice boxes, dead fish (two puffers and and exhuasted small turtle, which was still alive), paper and plastic wrappers of every description. Caleb and I ventured in anyhow (the girls had gone bathing suit shopping), but were quickly repelled by the floating debris in the water, which made even wading knee-deep disgusting. We walked down the beach to see if there were any clear spots, which there were, on the beach, but the water was still filled with floating detritus, and eventually we had to get out.


We had arranged for a surfing teacher to meet us at 2 p.m. The guy who rented us the beach chairs said we should have gone with him, as he would only have charged us 15, instead of 20. By 2:45 Caleb's teacher had not shown, so he went with the chair rental guy, which ended up to be great despite the garbage. Caleb got up a few times, and had a good few hours of surf time. I, on the other hand, got a sun burn despite swimming and walking around with a T-shirt and lying under an umbrella, ella, ella, hey hey (sorry about that - copywrite Rianna, all rights reserved).

We found another hotel after our landing hotel, which was fantastic, with a great pool and WiFi which worked.

Lusa Hotel in Kuta

Walking around Kuta was strange however, as we were nearly the only people in town, despite it being a week before Xmas!! We would go to restaurants, shops, bars and be the only people there. Shop owners were literally begging us to buy stuff from them, as they had not sold a thing in days.

Empty road in Kuta area

It was a bit disconcerting, like shooting fish in a barrel. For the first time since September, the effects of the financial crisis seemed to be showing itself. That, and the execution of the Bali bombers, and the Australian govt's constant warnings about the dangers of travel in Bali, meant a 50% reduction in tourist traffic.
Sunset at Kuta beach. best part

Kuta's unbridled growth and the filth of its beaches got to us after a few days, and we decided to leave for Ubud - the artistic centre of Bali. Lianna and I had fond memories of Ubud and it's gorgeous guest houses and picturesque rice fields. Well guess what: it had changed.
Rice fields had been replaced with hotels; dirt roads had been paved; squatter toilets replaced with Western-style sitters and mandies with showers; informal restaurants now had white table clothes and Western-oriented over-priced menus; small stalls and stands were now very fancy air-conditioned boutiques, with ornate displays and price tags to match. It was still beautiful, with beautifully carved fountains and statues adorning every shop and street corner, but Ubud had definitely gone high-end.



We found a quaint little guest house right in the centre of town. And again, walking the streets of Ubud, we were nearly alone.

Balcony of Guest House - Sari Nari

Stores all had "Sale" signs in the windows (when I was there last they did not have windows, let alone sales!), and every price quoted in a shop was followed by: "But that is negotiable". We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant one evening. It was overlooking one of the few remaining rice fields near town, and we were alone, except for one Canadian guy in the corner. Shop owners were ready to deal big-time, which worked in our favour, as we were able to bargain down prices from 2.5 million IR to 1 million, on more than one occassion!
Sculptures everywhere in Ubud

Art everywhere in Ubud

While in Ubud we went to see the famed Kecak dance, where a chorus of dancers chant "chack chack chack chack, chackalack-chack" continuously, as well as Legong and Barong dances, all of which were fun and interesting, and had NOT changed, thankfully. There was the Monkey Temple forest as well, with the Monkey Temple still there, and still beautiful and lush and enchanting, with monkeys roaming freely and playing and preening each other all day.

Posing at the Monkey Temple




We also caught a Hindu festival, where woman walked, or were driven on motor bikes, with large offerings on their heads. That is something that had not changed in Bali: Balinese Hinduism, and the beauty of it.



Bali's vibe is largely derived from Balinese Hinduism, which is interpreted with daily - hourly! - offerings on the streets, statues with incense burning on them, beautiful temples, gates and house temples, all with lush greenery, mossy statues and an ethereal feel. The Balinese are mellow and serene, and it is - I believe - largely because of their religion, and their constant connection with the divine.

There is a very palpable difference between Bali and islands with either Christian or Muslim dominated religions (I realized this after returning from Gili Trawangan - a very chill island, but mainly Muslim, and definitely missing the Bali vibe). The Balinese are generally happy people. There are depictions in classical Balinese art of a simple island paradise, with bare-breasted women walking with loads on their heads (OK, this is appealing to me in general), men working the beautiful terraced rice fields, and children playing, and even today, you can still get this feeling on the island, and it is different from any other island.

Continuing on our travels, we rented a car (9 dollars a day!!) and drove around the east coast of the island. Before heading to Tulamban - our final destination, famed for its wreck dive of the USAT Liberty, which is a mere 25 metres off shore and begins at 5 metres below the surface, going down some 30 metres - we did a day trip around Ubud, going to the elephant cave temple, which dates from the 11th Century. The cave was dug into the mountainside, with little alcoves in the walls for meditating.



It had been forgotten for centuries, until two Dutch archeaologists found it in the early 1900s. We were met with a guide there, who explained the temple to us, and then took us through the forest and rice fields to see another ancient temple in a nearby town. On the way we passed Mr. Buddha, a wood carver with a small snack stand in the middle of the rice fields. We stopped for some black rice pudding (a Balinese specialty) and fresh orange juice - both excellent, and made magical by the surrounding rice fields.

Rice Fields near Mr.Buddhas place

From here we went on to Tampakshiring, a gorgeous temple also set into the hillside, with waterfalls and springs pouring out of it. The temple is surrounded by more terraced rice fields and running water. When we were there it was drizzling a bit, but quite warm still. We went swimming in the water, along with some local boys who stripped down and jumped in up river. On the way back we were caught in a downpour, and stopped in an artist's stand for shelter. He was quite a talented modern artist, and we ended up buying 2 paintings from him, and two carvings from a wood carver with exceptional skill, who had carved Sita in deep, rich ebony to which I could not say no.

On the way to Tulamban we passed through a village which had satay stalls all along the main street. We stopped, and it turned out to be some kind of local fish satay which was amazing. Even the kids loved it. A big lunch there cost us around 2 dollars. Tulamban, which is Balis most famous and busiest dive sites, was empty. We were nearly alone at the dive resort we stayed in, and it was THE dive resort, as it was right across from the Liberty! At the resort we met a single Jewish guy from Montreal travelling on his own (hi Ben! Thanks for reminding us it was Channukah!), and a couple from Korea. So we got a great deal on the diving and accommodation, and had two fantastic shore dives. Diving Tulamban was amazing (please see our underwater videos, taken by our dive-master/photographer). Our first dive was at 6:15 a.m. We met up with a school of giant bump-head parrot fish (see vidoe!), as well as a barracuda, and a giant school of big-eyed Trevally. Our second dive we finally made it to the wreck, which was really fun. We swam through it and around it, taking pictures (see flickr) of us holding a steering wheel, or something that looked like one. Caleb and I got bitten by a clown fish! Clowns gone bad. Barracuda, no problem; little clown fish - beware!



Shots of Mark, Caleb and Artemis diving the Wreck

The drive home was a mixture of getting lost, fighting about which way to go, and visiting Beseki, Bali's mother temple, in the pouring rain.

Returning to Ubud was like coming home. The next day Lianna I ran around Ubud doing our last minute shopping. We had already bought lots of things, and left a large box at the postal service while we were away. We filled the box - overfilled it actually, and had it shipped off on a slow boat home. The next day we left for Gili Trawangen, a tiny island off of Lombok. Trawangen has no motorized vehicles at all, with horse carts being the main mode of transport, as well as bicycle. On Bunaken we met a group of British people. Lyndsay is the owner of a dive shop on Trawangen, which is why we went there.

It was co-creation at its best: we saw pictures of the place on Bunaken, and a few weeks later, there we were, at Big Bubble on Gili Trawangen, in the pool with Lyndsay Doug and Julie! Johnny and Elfie had headed off to dive spots around the world on their honeymoon.

It was sunset on Trawangen, and I was walking along the beach in my sarong. I was serene, beautiful, and island paradise. I thought, "I could choose to be anywhere I wanted at this moment, and I have chosen here, and I am really happy I did."
Mark