6 Week Gap Year

30th October
Trip and tour today to me know not where. Rush breakfast and off we go. Met by Wayan, (hotel assistant manager and Director of Bali Travel and Tours Company) to introduce me to the driver from the hotel with hotel Toyota Kijang 4x4 and tour guide operative to explain and educate. One to one tour no other passengers and can take as long or short a time as I want at all destinations. Today’s itinerary is, Kuta to watch a traditional Balinese dance depicting the dragon-like Barong and his battle for good, (order, harmony and peace), with Rangda for evil, (chaos, illness and harm). Then onto Celuk to witness silver and gold jewellery making, Ubud’s painting studio, Tampak Siring the Holy water spring Temple, Kintamani for buffet lunch and views of the volcano crater and lake of Gunung (mount) Batur. Finally make our way across to Besakih, the Balinese Mother Temple. Off we go through rush traffic to Kuta and an open air theatre to watch battle of good against evil. Very good story and great visual treat, the costumes, the dancing and music all traditional from thousands of years back. The moral of the play always being apparently, that good does not defeat bad but with it being inevitable that good and bad things will happen in life, that they learn to live in harmony.
On toward Celuk and we decamp into a compound surrounded on 3 sides by low wooden and concrete buildings with one on the left having 6 women at tables sitting outside. A petite Balinese girl of about 4ft 10in then whisks me to the first woman on the left and introduces the process she is completing with the silver. No exaggeration she was applying the tiniest balls of specks of silver as decoration to an already small orb which was to form part of an earring. Each of these women were performing similar intricacies in the making of these fine pieces of hand crafted jewellery. Then wandered around the shop viewing all the completed jewellery and listened in to some bargaining. This is obligatory in most of Bali from buying an egg to negotiating on property. Seem that you start off at approx a third to one half of the original starting price but the rules are a bit vague and depends on the product. With jewellery seems about 70% is the best discount you can hope for.
Up the road again to Ubud and the painters bungalows. Seems like a co-operative of painters have formed an area where they can paint, learn and teach and then sell their results to an unsuspecting public. Sorry, that might seem cruel but how many people know the quality of a painting or it’s worth? The paintings range from original Balinese style, through impressionism to a fusion of old and new, with a few monochrome thrown in. If you know what you like and you like what you see then maybe, but you’re always going to start price haggling from their perspective and still finish at what they want. With the jewellery you have an educated guess based on UK prices to guide you and if you end up on the low side of the approx UK price you can be happy. Yes I know, it’s part of the experience and bah humbug to you too! Only stayed at paintings for about 15 minutes and off we go to Tampak Siring.
This is the sacred spring temple collecting water from near the source of a river and apparently has never dried up. It is an important place to Balinese as id dispenses different types of holy water dependant on the offerings made. It consists of a number of different bathing pools many of which now have carp in. Better not take take your fishing rod though!
On towards lunch at Kintamani and expected spectacular vies of Gunang Butar and Lake Butar. Not the clearest of days for good views when we arrive. Lunch was Eat as Much as You Like at franchise option in Bali for EAMAYL of Oxford and Aylesbury. Just joking (I think) as it was very similar. The tea, deep fried banana fritters and the views were better though! The views were partially obscured by low cloud and a haze, but what I did see was quite good. We are on the rim (caldera) of the original crater of an active volcano which spectacularly blew it’s top way back in history. Inside this caldera is a new volcano mount created by an eruption in 1917 and a natural lake, which provides the water for irrigation of rice and crop fields of East and Central Bali.
Pura (Temple) Besakih next. This is the oldest and most important temple in Bali. Originally built around 8th Century it has been almost completely destroyed and rebuilt over the intervening years, due to volcanic activity. Pura Besakih is built over approximately a square mile and is the largest Temple in Bali. It is used for the main worshipping ceremonies which occur every year, every 10 years a more important ceremony and every 100 years the most important Balinese Hindu ceremony. This Temple is huge and took us over an hour to walk only part of it missing out large chunks. Its other main feature is its elevation looking down over the valley and a large part of eastern Bali. Had to walk uphill for a km to reach the temple and nearly another 4 walking around and I lost count of the number of steps we climbed. Also it has the tallest and with most tiers meru (pagoda) but I managed to miss that and didn’t take any photos. But there is one of a 7 tiered meru by way of consolation. It was downhill all the way after that and a well earned bottle of bee….. water. Back to the hotel and met an expat and his Aussie wife living in Melbourne and having their 3rd holiday at Royal Bali Beach Club, this year! More about them separately I think. Suffice to say I spent the evening with them listening to fascinating stories of Indonesian travel, RAF, Aussie Radio Indonesia, and retirement. And so ended another fascinating, fact filled, hot and sticky day.

Labels: Bali, Besakih, Celuk Silver, Gunung Batur, Kuta, Lake Batur, Royal Bali Beachclub, Tampak Siring, Ubud