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We arrived at Bali this morning and had a great day visiting one of the rural village marketplaces and checking out the local artistic talent including wood carvers, jewelry makers and fabric weavers. We also got to see, feed and ride on elephants!
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. With a population of almost 4 million, the island is home to most of Indonesia’s small Hindu minority. Approximately 93% of Bali’s population adhered to Balinese Hinduism while most of the remainder follow Islam. The remainder of Indonesia is Islamic.
Click here for the Bali Day 1 detailed Photo Gallery.
It is the largest tourist destination in Indonesia and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. Bali, a tourist haven for decades, has seen a further surge in tourist numbers in recent years after the release of the book and movie, “Eat, Pray, Love”.
The architecture is highly detailed with most buildings built from stone. There are temples everywhere. A “temple” can be anything from simple platforms at the front of a home, to an ornate backyard area, all the way to the larger village temples as well as Royal Temples. The Balinese people place their “offerings”, which range from small baskets with tidbits of food, flowers or other small gifts, all the way up to full-blown pyramids of food, enough to feed a large family, in the temples.
They make offerings to their Gods, they have a lot of Gods and Spirits to which they pray, so that they can get safely through this life and have good luck in the next. They believe in reincarnation so it’s important to them to be diligent in their efforts so they will be rewarded. They make multiple offerings a day, including one they place in front of their home, another they might place in a temple that they pass on their way to work, to ensure safe travel, etc. Larger offerings are brought to the village temples during regularly scheduled events. One of the interesting things about the offerings is that much of them end up becoming food for the roaming chickens and dogs!
Dale and I were taken with the sheer volume of high-quality craftwork. Because there was so much of it (wood carvings, stone statues, etc.), we weren’t convinced that the work was actually done in Bali. We thought perhaps it was shipped in from China or some other mass production area. When we asked our taxi driver, he said it is all made in Bali…that this is what they do. Dale was still unconvinced, so the driver took us to a wood working production house and we got to see for ourselves the artists working on carving wood. It was incredible. They work from inspiration with no sketches or guidelines except the physical limitations of the piece of wood they are working with (some is softer, the sizes of the wood pieces varies, etc.). Pretty cool.
Another stop we made this morning was at the Sukawati outdoor market. There were the many stalls with locals selling their wares; much of it carved wood, baskets, fabrics, etc. There were some persistent “wandering” sales people who would follow you around and say “pick me, pick me” – meaning they wanted you to buy something from them and not go to someone else. Their prices would fall swiftly the longer you said “No thank you” or simply ignored them. Not my favorite way to shop, but you start to get used to it.
We were back on the ship just in time to have a quick bite and get on the coaches waiting to take us to an exclusive Grand Voyage excursion to a “Balinese Safari Under the Stars”. This was a VIP event for those of us on the full cruise.
The 1 ½ hour ride was adventurous…the roads here are twisty and narrow and there are a LOT of motorcycles and locals walking. We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam as a village temple celebration was underway and their procession needed to cross the road to get from the staging area to the temple.
The Elephant Park was large including a large lake, an activity field and lots of open areas where the elephants lived. They had 26 elephants on the property including 2 babies! We had the opportunity to feed the elephants and walk around the park. These elephants were rescued from Sumatra and are now actively bred at this facility.
After a demonstration of the elephants skills that included walking on narrow planks, kicking soccer goals and painting with their trunks, they organized twilight elephant rides around the park. After the ride we had a nice buffet dinner and then boarded the buses to drive back to the ship.
The bus ride back was interesting…the narrow windy roads seemed even windier in the dark! We made it back safely and were even serenade by our guide. He sang very well and knew every word to Danny Boy and Take Me Home, Country Road, by James Taylor.
Back on the ship Dale went down to check out the finale of a local Balinese performance the ship had organized in the main theater. He even managed to get his picture taken with the entire troupe!
Photography Comments:
Typical day lately, gray and a some sprinkles but we avoided outright rain. This is really the first time that we’ve chosen to use a taxi on our own instead of using a bus tour and I had high hopes. However, it takes a while to get from point A to point B in Bali because of the traffic. So, it really isn’t that practical to ask the driver to stop when you see something interesting…and it gets real annoying when you have another passenger (that’s Margaret in this case). So, I was back to trying to grab pictures out the window (it was pretty hot and Margaret likes the air conditioning ON). I had to grin and bear it and come to the realization (finally) that I was just going to have to stay in the villages to get real interesting and good photos. Once I came to that realization I sort of went in the photo journalist mode and just tried to get some pictures that showed where we went. Not proud of that but that’s the way it worked out. I rushed to the on-ship Balinese dance show after the elephant trip and managed to get some video of their last dance and then, after going upstairs to quickly change out of my grubby clothes, was the last person taking pictures of the dancers on stage with the S95. Not bad!
Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Bali (Padang Bay), Indonesia […]