Indonesia: Bali & Ubud

August 13, 1995

Bali is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan.The town of Ubud, in the uplands of Bali, Indonesia, is known as a centre for traditional crafts and dance. The surrounding Ubud District’s rainforest and terraced rice paddies, dotted with Hindu temples and shrines, are among Bali’s most famous landscapes. Ancient holy sites include the intricately carved Goa Gajah (“Elephant Cave”) and Gunung Kawi, with its rock-cut shrines.

🙂 Lovely people. Food! Peace and wind chimes of Ubud.

🙁 Monkeys

We were up at 05h30 and said a fond farewell to Eric and Caitlyn in Melbourne and Simone drove us to airport. Empty flight, landed in Bali at 12h30. Took a taxi to Kuta Beach to the Matahari Bungalow where Paul had stayed in in 1988. We strolled around Kuta – unexpectedly commercialised which was disappointing. Headed to pool to relax in the shadow of a huge volcano…Bought a lovely blowgun on the beach where we headed for sunset and a coconut water drink.

Up early for breakfast – delicious jaffals with fruit and tea. Relaxed by pool. Shopped and bought leather bags, sun candlestick holders and bamboo wind chimes. Relaxed on beach, followed by a massage. Lovely sunset on beach with a beer followed by chicken satay.

Up at 07h00 with usual 3/4 hour of Trent asking ‘is it morning yet’ from under the bed ….before you recoil in horror – we had to do this to ensure that the mosquito net covered us all! But pretty funny reading our diary with that entry! LOL. We drove to the top of the hill and bought a lovely mask.

We then relocated to Ubud via squashed bemo and rude driver. The touts shared options on accommodation with us and after balancing precariously on a 50cc motorbike we found a wonderful peaceful location where we watched the paddy fields grow to the sound of the wind chimes – bliss. So much more peaceful than the chaos that is Kuta. We took a walk through the monkey forest and to the temple – a monkey ran off with our lens cap (a month or so later a friend of a friend was scratched my a monkey and died soon after!!). Ubud Monkey Forest, is the sanctuary and natural habitat of the Balinese long-tailed macaque. It is located at Padangtegal Ubud, Bali. About 1,260 monkeys live in this sanctuary! There are three temples inside the monkey forest, namely Dalem Agung Padangtegal Temple, Holy Spring Temple and Prajapati Temple.

Enjoyed a shadow puppet show in our Homestay – the puppet master had to strip as it was really hot plus he sat next to an open flame throughout the whole performance!

So many exciting sites – boys on stilts, chickens for sale … loved ever minute!

We were up at 08h30 and had an excellent breakfast and went down the lane to hire a bike – Paul nearly killed us at first and then got the hang of our three up style on a moped! Headed to Goa Gajah. The Goa Gajah ‘Elephant Cave’ is an archaeological site on the cool western borders of Bedulu Village, 6 km out of central Ubud. After taking the flight of stone steps down to the Goa Gajah temple complex, you often don’t need more than an hour to explore and admire the relic-filled courtyard and view the rock-wall carvings. The site contains a namesake meditational cave, bathing pools and fountains. Also stopped at Mt Batur which is an active volcano located at the center of two concentric calderas north west of Mount Agung.

After our adventure we stopped for dinner and met a lovely South African Doctor called Jonathan Burnes who had been at Kearsney College with Gary Gould and Dean Steadter! Small world. We left with a bit of a bang – we mounted the moped and Paul applied full throttle and pulled a wheelie by mistake sending us flying and smashing a light – quite hilarious in hindsight!

That evening we enjoyed the Barong dance which is a style of traditional Balinese. The dance demonstrates about the mythological depiction of animals that have supernatural powers and could protect humans.

We were up at 08h30 and the boys in town had already heard about our wheelie and wanted to check the bike in an over the top and hysterical manner demanding outrageous sums of money – we had full insurance so all was fine but you would have thought that they had lost a pet …. rumour had it that there was a large funeral taking place locally so we followed other Westerners on bikes. VERY colourful procession with bizarre and graphic beastiality and sexual images adorning the funeral pyres…very strange! Here are the pics!