With our exploration of Komodo National Park complete, it was time to move to what drew us to Indonesia in the first place. Indonesia is on Sandy’s top 10 countries to visit list because of Bali and when she was deciding where she wanted to spend her birthday this year, Bali was the choice. Friday morning we enjoyed the buffet again at Zasgo Hotel and then headed to the airport for the short one-hour flight to Bali.
Our first stop in Bali was the central city of Ubud and the driver from the hotel picked us up at the airport, made the 90-minute drive to Ubud, and we were at the hotel at 1:20pm. We stayed at Tegal Sari Accommodation, and it was outstanding. The property is beautiful, the restaurant serves excellent food, and the staff are top-level.
Upon arrival we had a welcome lime tea in the restaurant and then had lunch – Greek salads for Sandy and me and Sarah had an Indonesian rice dish. We had four nights scheduled in Ubud and we all were hoping for massage time almost every day. Sandy and I ended up with three massages and Sarah ended up with two massages. The cost of the 90-minute massages, inclusive of the tip, was $17 each. That is hard to beat. We scheduled our first massages for 7:30 on Friday night. Prior to going back for our massages across the street from our hotel, we walked to the Ubud Palace. The palace was constructed in the early 1800s for the royal family and still houses some of the descendants today. We then explored the Ubud Art Market (and street market) filled with lots of vendors. The street market has a better atmosphere walking through it. Sarah did an excellent job fine tuning her negotiating skills when making a couple of purchases at the market.
On the way back to our massages we ate chicken souvlakis at a Greek café and they were made the authentic Greek way – with the French fries inside the wrap. We enjoyed our massages after dinner and then called it a night.
Sandy and Sarah mapped out our plans for the next few days in Ubud on Saturday morning and then we all met in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. They have great breakfast options and it ended up being our breakfast spot for all of our mornings in Ubud. After breakfast we scheduled day tours for different areas we want to see in Bali. We can coordinate them with the hotel, which is very convenient. Once we had those arranged, we walked down the block to visit the Monkey Forest. This was way more impressive than any of us thought it would be. Of course there are tons of monkeys throughout the grounds, but the trails and forest are beautiful to explore. We enjoyed watching the monkeys – they were macaques and there were several large groups throughout the forest. We witnessed one couple experiencing some challenges. A monkey stole the woman’s purse and started going through it. When the man tried to get it back, the monkey lunged at his leg. Another man came and tried to grab the purse, at which time the monkey ran into the forest with the purse. A worker was able to recover her passport, and her phone. We saw the monkey take her wallet deep into the forest and I don’t know if she’ll ever have a chance to see the wallet again because it is small enough that it seems almost impossible to find in the forest.
We had lunch at Tropical Café, right next to the Monkey Forest and then went for Saturday’s massages. I went back to the same place as the prior day while Sandy and Sarah tried a new place and included a foot reflexology session with their massages. The place I like is called CaHaYa. A 27-minute song by Krishna Das called Hanuman Bhajan was played during the first massage and again during the second. One of the therapists was kind enough to help me find it for my music library and later she sent me another song via WhatsApp that I really like. That one is called Om Namo Narayani by Edo and Jo. After my massage, I did some weights at the small fitness center in the hotel – it’s outdoors and super-hot with the humidity here. Later, I met up with Sandy and Sarah at a place called Donna because they had local Kuru beers that we wanted to try. We sat upstairs and chatted a lot with our server, Didi. He is from the island of Sumatra (where he told us it is common to eat snakes, bats, and rats) and came to Bali to practice his English and he has plans to move to Turkey shortly and work in a restaurant there where he can earn more money. Donna is a nice place but their prices are very high for Bali.
As a comparison, we had three drinks and a bowl of nuts for $27 and then we went up the street to L.O.L. for live music and we had three drinks and two burgers for $18. The band at L.O.L. was great – reggae music and pop songs – lots of fun. That was it for the day and we made our way back to the hotel.
Sunday was our first of three straight days of seeing sights around Bali. After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we went to the back reception area and met our driver for the day, Sureka. Sureka turned out to be more than a driver – he really was our tour guide and he was awesome. He has been working with the hotel for more than 20 years. He is from a village very close to Ubud and has spent his whole life on the island. He did visit one of the small islands off the coast of Bali, but otherwise he has always been on Bali, and he has no desire to visit anywhere else – he knows it is paradise here. Today’s plan was called the Northern Tour. It was estimated to be five hours long and we laughed midway through it and asked if anybody had ever done it in five hours and Sureka confirmed that they had not. It took us 8.5 hours. It cost a total of $52 (includes the car, gas, English speaking driver/tour guide, and tip). I don’t think you could do it in five hours just driving by the sites and taking a picture of the signs. Our first three stops were temples. Goa Gajah is also known as the elephant temple because of the elaborate carvings at the entrance to the temple inside a cave. The area is nestled in a beautiful jungle landscape below the surface level of the surrounding area.
Gunung Kawi is a small complex with temples carved into niches in the rocks on both sides of the small river that passes through the complex.
There were vendors along the way down to the temples and on the way back up we stopped and bought a couple of mangosteens. Aunt Terry introduced those to us during our family trip to Cambodia in 2008 and it was fun to find them here.
Next up was the Tirta Empul Temple. Sunday was a semi-annual festival in Bali where Hindus conduct a purification ritual, and this is one of the most popular places they come. It was filled with people going through the ritual in the waters that are fed by a spring inside the temple complex. They complete this ritual every six months as a reminder of the pillars of their faith.
We then drove further north to Penelokan in Kintamani and enjoyed the view over Mount Batur and Lake Batur. Mount Batur is an active volcano that last erupted in 2000, and the lava field is clearly visible to this day. We had a lunch buffet overlooking the view and the food was just ok. It all looked good, but it was cold when it should have been warm. I guess the view made up for it.
Our next stop after lunch was a coffee plantation as we started to make our way south again. The name of the plantation is Bali Pulina. This was such a great experience. We had a short tour that showed us the process for making the coffee at this plantation, including luwak coffee, which is made from the poo of the luwak animal. They eat the coffee beans and they aren’t digested so they come out the other end still intact but with a smoother flavor, I suppose. Following the tour, we ordered flights of coffee and tea and tried 15 different coffees and teas. The setting was beautiful and it was a fun experience. They make chocolate there as well and so we left with a chocolate bar to share later.
Next up was the Tegalalang Rice Terrace. This is the famous one in Bali and was made even more famous in the movie Eat Pray Love. It was as pretty as you would expect. The rice has recently been harvested so the fields are much greener than they probably look right before harvesting (when it looks yellow) or especially during the dry season. They can harvest three times each year. Walking through the terraces was great and there were only a few other people walking around along with a few people working on the terraces.
The rain was on our side today. There was a little rain during the day, but it was while we were in the car driving from one place to another. The downpour didn’t start until we drove back to Ubud and so we managed to stay dry. The three of us met for dinner at 8 in the restaurant and recalled the great experiences of the day.
Monday’s tour was to East Bali. Sureka picked us up at 9am again. Yes, he was so good, we told the hotel we wanted to have him take us all three days. He gave us great information, and he was a safe driver on these tiny roads of Bali. Our first stop was in the village of Gianyar, which is known for its hand-woven textiles. The shop we visited is called Setia Cap Cili and while they weren’t busy with production on Monday, we still had a tour of the process they use for the dying of the fabric and making the products. It was very impressive.
Our next stop was Klungkung where we visited what remains of the royal “floating” palace – a beautiful, moated garden with two remaining structures. We had a local guide for this one who shared tons of information about the paintings on the ceilings and walls of the remaining structures. The paintings depicted life and rituals during the time of the kingdom mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was the last kingdom in Bali to resist Dutch rule. Sureka had told us how much to tip the guide and when we ended up tipping him twice what Sureka recommended, he still wasn’t happy. That is one of the harder things about travel – trying to determine what is appropriate for a place without imposing US standards.
Our next stop was Goa Lawah Temple, which is also known as the bat cave. That wasn’t difficult to understand – there were lots of statues of bats and the cave was filled with thousands of live fruit bats. It is an active temple with people revering the bats because they are viewed as sacred guardians of one of Bali’s holiest temples.
Next up was a short stop at a small mom-and-pop salt production facility on the coast. We were able to see the whole process of taking the water from the sea and turning it into delicious table salt. They were a very cute couple and when we couldn’t understand why there were certain steps in the process, we encouraged them to take some steps out of the process. They laughed and said they tried it, but the result was not good. We laughed at us trying to help perfect a process that has been done for hundreds if not thousands of years here.
We continued east to Tirta Gangga. This is a royal water garden that was constructed by the last king in the 1940s. It was built as a tribute to the Ganges River in India and follows along with the Hindi belief in the purifying nature of water. We enjoyed the walk around the gardens, the small museum, ice cream cones, and then lunch at Tirta Ayu Restaurant overlooking the gardens.
It started to rain on our way back toward Ubud, so we decided to skip the traditional Balinese village that we would have visited on the way. With time saved, Sandy and I opted for another massage across the street and Sarah did some exploring on her own and called it an early night. After our massages, we walked up the street looking for Italian. We passed Monkey Legend and they had an acoustic duo playing. They sounded good, so we changed our mind and ate there. It was a great experience. They played good music and we had excellent meals – Sandy had tuna pasta and I had chicken with Indonesian spices. Our very good friend, Diane, passed away this past weekend and the band was kind enough to play a song as a tribute to her – Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder. It was really nice.
And now we arrive at Tuesday and it’s kind of a sad day because Sarah leaves us at the end of the day. We packed and had our last breakfast at the hotel. As we were leaving breakfast, Sarah slipped on the slippery ramp – that was a scary moment, but she popped back up with a few scrapes, and she was good to go. Sureka was there to pick us up at 10am and we headed south. The first stop was in the village of Mas, where we met Wayan Muka, an incredible wooden mask maker. He showed us the mask-making process and shared some of the significant projects he has completed. He is currently crafting products for a new temple near Gdansk, Poland. The masks are typically used for performances around Bali and internationally, along with collectors commissioning his work. It is impressive to see this young man carrying on the tradition from his father and grandfather.
Then we continued further south and stopped at Saraswati Silver in the village of Batubulan. This village is known for its silversmithing and goldsmithing. We walked through the workshop and saw work being done and then spent time in the shop where Sarah and Sandy found things they both wanted. It makes such a difference when you can see the work going into the products that are displayed. I have a lot of respect for the talent of all of the crafts we have seen the last few days around Bali. Our final stop before getting to our new home was at a batik shop that uses the painting method along with dying the fabric for their products. There we learned all about that process and I ended up finding a new handkerchief to accompany me on my travels. We arrived in the Seminyak area of Bali at 1:45. We have an apartment here for our stay and we dropped our luggage off and said goodbye to Sureka. We will miss him and his calm demeanor.
We left at 2:30, taking a Grab car to Jimbaran Beach. The goal was to find seafood on the beach and then go to Uluwatu Temple in time to tour the temple and attend the fire dance show at 6. The beach was very quiet. We ended up eating at Jimbaran Beach Café and had fish, calamari, clams, shrimp, rice, and vegetables. It was kind of messy, but I thought the grilled barbecue flavor on the seafood was good. The downside is that we were too short on time and we were forced to rush. We finished up and ordered a Grab car to take us down the coast to Uluwatu Temple. It was very busy as we expected – the kecak fire dance is one of the more popular activities for tourists in Bali. We made our way into the grounds and to the amphitheater, which has a beautiful setting overlooking the Indian Ocean. We found three seats together and we had about 30 minutes to spare before the start of the show. We didn’t have time to explore the temple grounds because the theater continued to fill up and we would have either ended up separated for our seats or had to sit down on the theater floor. The kecak dance is a traditional dance with around 50 male singers (no instruments other than their voices) and various actors/dancers playing characters from the Ramayana, one of India’s great epics. We had a bonus at the end because a couple was led down onto the stage and the man proposed to the woman – and she said yes. It was a fun ending.
Our Grab driver agreed to wait for us because we knew it would be crazy trying to get out with all of the people. It took about 90 minutes to get home to Seminyak. Sandy and I had bowls delivered from Nui Healthy Food and Sarah made eggs and toast (the Airbnb had stocked our apartment refrigerator with a few items). Sarah talked us into letting her go to the airport on her own (our same driver took a break and waited for her) and so we said goodbye to her at 10pm and then we settled into our new home in Seminyak. It is sad to see Sarah go – we had such an incredible two-and-a-half weeks with her. We are so grateful she traveled half-way around the world to spend time with us. We will always cherish the memories we created with her. And we look forward to our next adventure with her!
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