Adventures in Bali- Day 3

The trip here is really 3 nights and 2 days and just isn’t enough time, especially if you want to enjoy the hotel – we leave early and come back late. We are staying at the Ramayana Resort and Spa – a 4-Star hotel that is just beautiful and comfortable. The gardens are lush, 2 swimming pools, a spa, and breakfast is supplied (a Western-type breakfast buffet). The total tour package with driver, all meals, hotel is $300 per person; a pretty cheap look at paradise!

As I look around at the hotel guests, it is difficult to know where everyone comes from. Our guide says the majority of their visitors on Bali are from Australia. As we drive up the mountain and stand in lines at various places, it seems there are a lot of Dutch people there too. We see bus after bus driving up and down the mountain and they are filled with kids from Java. Everyone is psyched up about the World’s Cup and TVs are set up in every restaurant we visit!

We want to know more about the bombing and stop at the memorial. It is about 6 blocks from our hotel in the middle of a big intersection which looks like a smaller version of Times Square, with lit billboards, nice hotels, upscale shops and what used to be a disco. It is now a huge hole in the ground. Several bombs were set at once and the disco is where hundreds of young kids died, majority from Australia, is the hole in the ground. Buildings surrounding it were destroyed and now as you go past, you see streets crowded with young people going in and out of stores. The crowd stands around the memorial and you can’t help but think about the evil people who did this. The guide said it took 3 years before tourists started coming back and they still aren’t up to the numbers they used to be.

We drive on up the mountain roads and see strawberry fields toward the top and lots and lots of terracing with the rice fields. We go to Buyan Lake and have lunch up on a hill overlooking the lake. This day has many stops at the temples. When we ask about cockfighting, we are told that they occur only for special religious purposes. We walk around the temple and I have never heard so many roosters crowing, even on our farm. I am guessing we hear what our guide believes we want to hear, although he doesn’t lie and when questioned, most answers are changed with the explanation of it is part of the worship.

In one area we see cages of rabbits for sale along the side of the road. There are cute little bunnies that Sharan worries might be for food. The guide says that people buy them for pets. Since we are in the very rural area of Bali where people are extremely poor, the guide just smiles and we know. He also explains that in the history of Indonesia, especially in Java, people were expected to accept the Muslim faith and to practice it. Those who didn’t believe fled to Bali. So Bali’s main religion is Hindu. It is a faith that is practiced daily and you can see offerings of bits of food, flowers, and other materials on palm leaves and these are found in car windows, in the front of homes, in buildings and just about everywhere, especially in the temples. They are replaced everyday.

We drive to the monkey forest and do we see monkeys! There are 3 or 4 groupings and they have their own territory and we are told if a monkey crosses into another monkey group, they have terrible fights and usually kill the intruder – kind of reminds me of our cat, Earl, who won’t let any cat walk in front of our house or cross our yard. The monkeys are smaller in size than some I have seen in the zoo but these guys are everywhere and pose for any picture you want to take. I have some really cute photos of babies and mothers picking bugs off them. I saw 2 on a ledge and started to move closer to snap a photo and one of them bared his teeth at me and started hissing; I backed up real fast. They told us when we got done with the tour that on occasion, if you carry any bag or have food on you, you can be attacked. We didn’t have to sign any paper that would hold us responsible for our own safety – wait, that would be the US! We walked around with a woman who has been giving tours there for 15 years and is sole support of 2 kids; she also sells clothing and we felt obligated to buy to help her feed her kids. She makes $2.00 per day.

While in the monkey forest, they showed us fruit bats with huge wingspans and had a python. They offered the python for photos of about $1.00. So this Dutch woman talked her husband into posing with the python and I have photos just before he was squeezed to death! Just kidding! But he allowed these young, small Bali men to drape this huge python around him. Sharan and I wondered what would happen if the python decided to squeeze. I don’t think the Bali guys were strong enough to pull it off.

We have other stops to make but the last temple visit was the Tanah Lot. I know we have all seen this one in movies. The temple is on rocks that during high tide, is completely cut off from land. We got there at low tide with thousands of people in the water and walking into caves and a fresh spring under the temple. I think it was the most beautiful sight of our trip, as the sun set. We had a wonderful trip to Bali and now are back in Malaysia ready to go back to work.

By the way, I was just having fun with the story about the ferrets and cobras. The sign was up and a pair of cobras was spotted by Sharan’s apartment and I still look before I step, but there were no ferrets here. We did see the mongoose in Bali and I have a cool photo of mongoose poop with coffee beans in them and of the workers washing the coffee beans out of it. Ick! There are no end to stories of what we saw in Bali. But Kuala Lumpur is a large city so I am guessing the wildlife is out in the jungles – where we go on Friday!