One Fine Day At Bali
A different place, different people, different culture and a different cuisine. Welcome to Bali, the land of ancient temples .By 7.30 AM we got a call from the driver while we were having breakfast in a cozy Wina Holidays Restaurant. We had arranged one cab from the nearest travel agent (B.B Tours) to visit all the important and famous places that we have seen on the internet. We are supposed to visit 6 to 7 places at different locations throughout the Bali Island. Bali is lot different from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It was more or less like India with quite less disciplined traffic and not so generous people. We all were in the Restaurant for the breakfast. Unlike in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, We could not find any Indian at the restaurant , not even Chinese. Only white skinned Europeans and the red skinned Australians could be found all over the restaurant. I took egg omelette with bread along with fruits and all the English breakfast items to get myself filled , others too reluctantly were having bread and fruits. Anyways we completed the breakfast and left the hotel at sharp 8.45 AM to start the day.The driver was waiting at the hotel lobby for us. A nice young guy “MADDY” wished us and then we started our journey. The driver was a nice guy and briefed about the itinerary for today.He made us comfortable with his attitude and fluent English.We talked with him lot and especially the girls were comfortable and all along the day we never felt hm as an outsider. He knew much about India ,Indian culture,Bollywood and even some popular teleserial artist which we even dint know. He then went on saying the avatars of God .Next is Kalki Avatar and put some tough question on us too regarding Hindu God which we smartly kept mum. Any way the journey continued with Maddy and on the way we could see a huge statue of Lord Ram and lot of small small temples all along the road. Indonesia is a Muslim country but 85 percent of population in Bali island are Balinese Hindus. Balinese hinduism belief lies in line with the Hinduism that we practice. They have their caste system divided into Brahmanas, Satrias, Wesias and Sudras. They don’t consume Pork ,Beef and all other things that hinduism averes. Along with worshipping Brahma,Vishnu and Shiva, they worship a range of deities unique to their branch of religion.Yet something is different in Balinese culture that they believe in a single god .”SANG HYANG WIDHI WASA “ or the “Acintya “is the supreme god of balinese Hinduism especially in the island of Bali. Bali can be defined as the Temple Island where every House bears a shrine. One will get confused between a house and a temple. In fact the people stay in the temple or house i.e in front of house they have large cluster of Balinese temples. Almost all along the way one can find such temples everywhere in Bali. One can notice the picture below in almost everywhere be it inside restaurant,inside car ,on the beach every where. It is the “CANANG SARI”.Canang sari is one of the daily offerings made by Balinese Hindus to thank the Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa in praise and prayer. Canang sari will be seen in all the Balinese temples (pura), in small shrines in houses, and on the ground or as a part of a larger offering.
CANANG SARI has some parts; there are peporosan, ceper, raka-raka, and sampian urasari.Peporosan or the core material is made from betel leaf, lime, gambier, prestige, tobacco and betel nuts. Material of peporosan symbolizes the Trimurti, the three major Hindu Gods. Shiva is symbolized by lime, Vishnu is symbolized by betel nut, and Brahma is symbolized by gambier.Canang sari are covered by ceper (a tray made from palm leaf) as a symbol of Ardha Candra. Raka-raka is topped with sampian urasari, which are in turn overlaid by flowers placed in a specific direction. Each direction symbolizes a Hindu God
A canang sari is completed by placing on top of the canang an amount of kepeng (the coin money) or paper money, which is said to make up the essence (the "sari") of the offering.
Our first stop was to watch the “BARONG DANCE”. I do not know about others but I found a bit boring .It is worthless to waste 1 hour and spending 100000 IDR each to see the dance. Barong is a lion-like creature and character in the mythology of Bali, Indonesia. He is the king of the spirits, leader of the hosts of good, and enemy of Rangda, the demon queen and mother of all spirit guarders in the mythological traditions of Bali. The battle between Barong and Rangda is featured in Barong dance to represent the eternal battle between good and evil.Barong dance can be seen at lot of places all over Bali, we saw it in “BATUBULAN”. We spent some time there and also took some souvenir from that place and straight headed to see the Silver art in “CELUK VILLAGE”. Beautiful silver art was in great display inside a museum. We spent some time around 20 minutes and make our way to the MAS Village,UBUD to experience the wood art in Bali. It was like an Indian Wood art carpentry shop but the statues had a balinese touch.. The Scary face of Barongs and other scary animals. We spent very less time there as well and straight away went to GOA GAJAH Temple. Our next stop was GOA GAJAH temple. It was in the lap of heavy greenery.Most of the temples here at Bali are historical and situated in the lap of nature. One can see the architectural temple walls of black and deep green colour which gave us an imagination of the temples built centuries ago. These temple seems normally peaceful and uninhabited. Lot we heard of the beautiful festivals in Bali temples but we could not found any opportunity to see.
Goa Gajah as the name seems is Elephant Cave but we could not find any elephants but the serene and tranquil Temple perfect for meditation .The breathtaking 11th Century temple is a perfect place to spent whole in an ultimate peaceful environment to soothe the soul. If not an entire day we spent 1 hour inside the temple looking aback at the stunning wall craving , experiencing the much different conical minarets with the black palm leaf top, clicking photographs and sometimes felt we are inside a 9th class history book describing Mohenjodaro and Nalanda. Next We drove and escalated the High altitude to have a look at the Picturesque“KINTAMANI VOLCANO AND BATUR LAKE”.It took almost 1 hour to reach there and by that time it was around 1 and we felt hungry. The high altitude strong chilled winds making us uncomfortable as we did not know the weather will be so harsh at the top. The volcano was a dormant one and the picturesque BATUR LAKE was silent but beautiful making the tourist exulted. If someone has visited Ladakh will not find that much exciting as the mountains and the beautiful vistas are far more beautiful and far more goosebumping than this Volcano. The strong chill edwinds are straightaway bumping on our face making us bit comfortable as this is a complete opposite of the tropical climate below. In fact we were enjoying the European climate here at Bali with temperature as low as 10 degrees but with a clear sunny sky. It was 1.30 and we were now having our lunch worth 100000 . It was a buffet lunch with no Indian food and we have to rely on the breads,finger chips,rice,groundnuts and whatever edible was available. In our entire trip we found the Food at Bali prepared in Coconut oil making the food to smell and taste awful.Here too is no different, the same coconut oil flavored frustrating food .We completed by 1.30 and started to descend with Maddy. After 5 minutes we stopped at a place to click some picture as we find a clear view of both the volcano and the lake. Brought some Stolls from the hawkers selling and as we were running out of IDR we gave the hawker Indian rupee Rs 500 for 4 Stolls. We descended further towards the Central Bali to stop at our next destination TIRTA EMPUL-The Holy Spring.
Tirta Empul, meaning ‘holy water spring’ is actually the name of a water source located within the temple. The spring feeds various purification baths, pools and fish ponds surrounding the outer perimeter. The complex, built circa 960 AD, is also a silent witness to the old Balinese kingdom years, particularly at the time of the Warmadewa Dynasty. Another nearby and prominent site on top of a hill is the presidential palace, Istana Tampaksiring, built during the years of the nation’s first president, Soekarno.As with any Bali temple tour or a visit to a holy place, it is always important to dress respectfully. The simple Balinese temple visitor dress code is a traditional ‘kamen’ wrap around the lower body plus a sash around the waist.The tourist were provided with colorful Sharongs to wrap around the lower half. We were looking so different in sharongs .It was like a lungi but in Bali the dress was a religious one. In Goa Gajah Temple we too were provided with Colorful Sharong .Lot of tourist were in the holi spring taking holy dip from the 13 number of holy water outlets from the mouth of some religious God. At the exit of the temple, a large art and souvenir market selling different types of dresses and wood art. The items were damn cheap which we later repent not buying from that place as we could not find any other place in Bali selling the clothes and all that much cheap. We were running out of time and the Sun was getting effete and without wasting any time we proceed towards the famous RICE TERRACES at TEGALALANG .
As the rice harvest has been reaped off ,we could not see the rice terraces in full bloom.What we saw the remains of the rice plantation . The Step farming adopted here has been the main attraction for the tourist visiting Bali. The alluring Vista with Lot of greenery and coconut trees in the back ground made us quite disbelief at the creation of almighty.A perfect destination for photographer and an ideal location for nature lover bewildered everyone with the serene and sublime environment. Our penchant for staying longer hour to swim in the tide of eternity,tranquility,equanimity was roiled by the dwindling sunset. We spent some 1 hour there before we called it a day. Everything we went as per the plan except the UBUD Monkey forest. We gave it a miss as we did not have much time to cover all the places. Infact we did a mistake of visiting the MAS village to see the wood and silver work in the morning which ate away nearly 2 hours . We could have avoided that for visiting UBUD Monkey forest.From The Rice terrace to our Hotel it took nearly 3 hours thanks to the notorious Bali Traffic in which we stuck for nearly 1.5 hours. Bali Traffic is not as organized as traffic in Malaysia and Singapore. By 9 PM we had our dinner in the hotel restaurant. Thank god we could get some Malaysian Food there.Yesterday dinner was horrible and may be the worst dinner we had in recent times making a big hole in the pocket. We called it a day.Before that we arranged Taxi for visiting other famous Bali temples and beaches from the same travel agent we booked for today.It was a great day and finally we are here in Bali- One from my bucket list. Bali is about temples,greenery and very few beaches. There is a saying there are more temples in Bali than Homes and here we saw exactly.Unlike Andaman ,where most of the tourist activities concentrated along the beautiful beaches,here there are lot more to see. A perfect amalgamation of nature and beaches. As we have not explored the Beaches yet ,we will be visiting the famous temples tomorrow.
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