The Best of Bali
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2005
1
13
24
Trip End
Aug 02, 2005
Bali,
Indonesia
Thursday, May 5, 2005
*Best airport - Singapore (stop-over)
*Best sunset - from a three-person traditional Balinese sailboat. One of Amy's favorite experiences yet.
*Best dinner - candlelight on the beach in Jimbaren. More seafood than two can eat for less than $20.
*Best dive so far - USS Liberty - Tulamben. This from Alex, the fish/coral geek.
*Best Paul Revere imitation - Amy at silversmithing class
April 29
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We had a stop-over in Singapore, which has one of the nicest airports we've seen
Inside a Balinese temple
. Thumbs up to free, fast Internet services in the terminals. Thumbs down to the individually packaged sushi. Our meal was 10 pieces of sushi and 10 cubic gallons of wasted plastic.We arrived in Bali a day earlier than we had planned, in order to have a little more time on the beach and a little less time in the Bangkok craziness. For $40 a night, on the beach in Sanur, the Parigata Resort and Spa (www.parigata.com), was a steal, thanks to the expert knowledge of Arthur Frommer. It was the nicest room we've stayed in so far. Our balcony overlooked lush gardens and a waterfall that ended in a pool. The Parigata is right next to the VERY expensive Bali Hyatt on the beach.
April 30
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We spent the day exploring Sanur. It is billed as a little more upscale and quiet than the raging Kuta area, which was affected by the bombing. Sanur was exactly what we needed. A little time away (well, almost) from touts and people selling us souvenirs, taxis taking us to the wrong places, and feeling like walking dollar-signs. Sanur was quiet, peaceful and the beach was lovely.
We got a couple lounge chairs and sipped some fresh-squeezed lime juice for a good portion of the day. We also walked the promenade that spans the entire
Sanur beach.
Dinner that night was amazing. We headed to Jimbaren beach at sunset to try some seafood
Mythical Puppy Performance
. This was a meal to remember. As we sat at our table on the beach a few yards from where the waves were lapping on to the beach, we saw the twinkling of the Four Seasons villas to our left ($600+/night), saw planes land on the runway jetty that was built out into the water on our far right, and looked at the constellations above. Our candlelit dinner consisted of grilled snapper, shrimp, lobster and squid, all with hints of Balinese spices in the marinades and grilling rubs. Drinks and rice were included for less than $20. Full of incredibly fresh seafood, salt air, and stargazing, we headed back to the Parigata. This is living!
May 1
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This day started the 24+ dives we will be completing during the second half of our pre-MBA trip. We booked a dive trip to Tulamben that had been recommended by guidebooks and our friend Kareem. The two and one-half hour ride afforded us the opportunity to see rural Bali, with all of its rice paddies, tropical plantations, and volcanos.
Since we had not been diving in almost a year, we took it easy and began with a wall dive where coral and fish congregated around a vertical slope on the ocean floor
Our Batik Masterpieces
. The diversity of fish was pretty good, but there was not too much in the way of coral. During this dive, we got used to controlling our buoyancy underwater and let our nerves settle a little.The second dive, on the USS Liberty, was outstanding. Thankfully, we had gotten our nerves settled on the first dive so that we could completely enjoy the massive diversity of fish and coral that completely encrusted the shipwreck at the bottom of Tulamben Bay. The Liberty was a military cargo ship that was struck by a Japanese submarine in WWII. Two destroyers towed it to Tulamben for repairs, but it took on too much water. There were plans to salvage the ship, but as the war continued, these plans were not executed. In the 1960s a massive volcano eruption pushed the Liberty off the beach and into the bay, where it has become a terrific artificial reef. The best fish diversity Alex has seen...even after diving in Bonaire. Nice soft corals, colorful sponges, and acropora too.
After the second dive, we were whipped. We realize that we need to get into better shape before we do four dives per day for three days in a row on the Great Barrier Reef live-aboard ship in a few weeks.
Overall, we found the Crystal Divers Dive Shop in Sanur to be highly professional and would recommend them to anyone. Our guide Wayan was terrific. One thing we found amazing was that the enterprising village women came up with a great business that played to their strengths and opportunities. With all the divers coming to Tulamben for shore dives, the women began being porters of diving equipment for the tourists. Being a rocky beach with larger waves, divers (and dive companies) were appreciative to have their equipment carried to each dive site for them
Outside a Balinese Temple
. The most incredible part was that the women carried the dive tanks, fully loaded, on their heads! Obviously they have very good posture and strong necks. The porters' fee is included in the dive companies' package so with this deal the women are guaranteed income. May 2
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We returned to Jimbaren in the morning to check out the fish market. We watched local men fixing their nets and maneuver brightly-colored fishing sailboats around the bay.
Remembering our days on Hampstead Heath in London, where kite flying is an art form, we bought a kite and flew it on Sanur Beach. The Balinese are expert kite flyers and have a festival in June where they close the roads as they carry their enormous kites to the beach and fields. With a little kite rigging expertise from the locals, we got our kite flying in no time and had a fun, relaxed afternoon.
On a whim, we decided to try to get one of the men who owned a traditional Balinese sailing boat to take us for a ride just before sunset. We found one who agreed and we had a delightful sailboat ride (see pics above) around the Sanur coastal area. The sunset was especially striking that evening and the water reflected a lava-like orange hue juxtaposed with its deep blue. At the peak of the sunset a manta ray with a 3-foot wingspan gave us a show and jumped out completely out of the water close to our boat. This was one of Amy's favorite experiences yet.
May 3
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Ubud is the cultural center of Bali, with temples everywhere and religious ceremonies of their Animist / Hinduism religion
Paul Revere
. Our hotel, the Ina Inn, was a series of bamboo huts situated on a rice paddy a street over from the main street. It was nice enough, but the return to mosquito netting was an adjustment coming from the Parigata in Sanur. We spent the afternoon checking out the town and making plans for the next two days in Ubud.That night, we sat in at the Jazz Cafe and listened to a band that mixed elements of modern jazz and the traditional Balinese gamelan music. We saw more gamelan music being performed directly outside the Jazz Cafe during a major dance performance at the temple. Apparently, we had arrived for one of the most important ceremonies during the year for the king (most villages still have a local royal family harking back to earlier days). The street was blocked off and a large bandstand was set up for the dozens of xylophone and drum players. The dancer was, well, a big furry poodle / lion looking, full-sized puppet operated by two people -- remember Barkeley from Sesame Street? We watched this dog bop around stage for about 30 minutes of the 3-4 hour ceremony and had our fill. Amy talked to some Balinese who were watching. One guy was envious that we were leaving the dog show...for him, it was terrible luck to leave the ceremony in the middle. It ended at 1 am and just appeared to be this dog sniffing around the stage to xylophones. Hmmm.
May 4
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After breakfast, we signed up for a full day's class at Nirvana Pension and Gallery in Batik, a textile dying method that involves painting, dipping in dyes, and covering areas of fabric with wax to achieve different effects
Paulette Revere
. First, we drew designs on cotton stretched over wood, like a traditional canvas. Then we traced the lines we had drawn with pure beeswax, using a special wax pen that we filled from a boiling pot of beeswax. We then selected which sections we were going to "crackle" in traditional batik method -- to create sort of a tie-dyed affect. We let the paint dry while we had nasi goreng, Balinese fried rice, that burned our mouths sufficiently.We took the areas that were bound for "crackling" and kneaded the wax with our fingers. This would allow just a bit of dye to flow through the wax, creating, yep you guessed it, a crackling effect. We painted watercolor over all of the non-crackled areas with a hot mixture of one-half beeswax and one-half paraffin to the areas to be "crackled".
We then dipped the entire cloth into dye. Our underpaintings were protected by the wax coating and the "crackled" section let in just enough dye to allow for the desired affect. Unwaxed sections took on the color of the dye and the areas we initially traced from our drawings in beeswax come out white.
You can check out our batik masterpieces in the picture above
Serene, Secluded Sanur Beach
!Since we had heard so much about Balinese dancing, we decided to sign up for a performance at the royal temple. It was still a little angry-poodle heavy, but there were some other interesting dances too.
May 5
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We took the morning to visit some of the elaborate Balinese temples that are on nearly every corner in Ubud. The temples were as highly decorated with carvings as those we saw in the ancient temples in Angkor, but on a much smaller scale. They seem to be very much part of the daily lives of the people. We saw women carrying baskets of fruit on their head, and men with their sarongs and tied cotton on their heads, all on the way to temple each day.
To complete our visit to the handicraft center of Bali, we signed up for a silversmithing course for the afternoon. We learned all the steps that are required - from raw silver and a beautiful piece of jewelry. Amy made a frangipani flower pendant and Alex made a different pendant. After a full day of pounding, cutting, filing, sanding, stamping, hammering, and polishing, we had finished products that actually look pretty good!
We had a leisurely dinner and drinks and found our driver at midnight, who was to take us to our flight to Darwin, Australia that departed at 3:20AM. Our favorite part of sitting in the deserted Balinese airport in the middle of the night was when the power goes completely out for minutes at a time and you just sit there in the terminal in the pitch black.
Next update will be from the Land Down Under. Let's see how Alex makes out camping...
