Category: Travel

Here’s some words from the second most opinionated person in our four-person group:

hi everybody, I’m Sandy, Tom’s mom.  We depart Bali today and here are my impressions after a week in Bali.

People: The Balinese seem to be very gentle folks.  The pace here is slow due to the heat.  Even in the busy and crowded towns, we never saw anybody arguing or fussing.  The Balinese adore children.  They are everywhere and their bahavior natural and unaffected.  Never heard a child whine.   Parents and other adults dote on them and spoil them in the best sense of the word.  The other day, a hotel guest’s baby started fussing in the lobby and was instantly surrounded by 6 of the staff (both men and women), cooing and comforting her.  Children even in the poorest rural areas seem to be well cared for and well fed.

Work:  There is more person power available here than work available, so the hotels and other establishments are amazingly overstaffed.  Staff is friendly and helpful. Given the amount of signage on the roads and in the towns, it seems that most of the population is literate in Bahasa Indonesia and all hotel workers learn Japanese and English.

Rural areas:  With the juxtaposition of cell phones ringing in the rice paddy, the clash of 21st century and life as it has been for hundreds of years is sometimes a jolt.  Yesterday we were on a raft trip down a river, and stopped for a break by a waterfall, where women were selling Cokes.  Our guide told us that the women climb down the gorge 3 kilometers with coolers full of cold drinks for the tourists. At another spot, the guide showed us the path that folks walk down the same distance to get clean drinking water and carry it up the hill. One day on the side of the rioad I saw two women carrying cement slabs on their heads.  (Like carring a couple of cinder blocks) Another day I say two women carrying loads of bamboo on their heads up a steep mountain road, and one of them was about 7 months pregnant!

Flora and fauna:  The tropical jungle is lush and beautiful.  We have seen a lot of birds, monitor lizards and a billion geckos.  As a matter of fact we have a gecko resident in our room here, living in the palm thatch ceiling and he pooped on me yesterday!

Spiritual life:  Balinese are very spiritual (the island in mostly Hindu, in contrast to the rest of Indonesia which is Muslim).  There are temples everywhere, and in addition shrines at every curve in the road.  It seems that the shrines are put up to protect travellers from dangers (a sharp curve, a busy intersection). One of the most common and interesting customs is that of leaving offerings.  Every business establishment, shrine, coffee stand will have little woven palm frond plates 3 inches square on the ground in front of it. On the plate will be some flowers, a few grains of cooked rice, a small piece of fruit, sometimes a coin or wrapped candy.  These are placed daily.  One of our drivers told us they are to thank the gods for having work and to assure safety in the work day to come.  This driver had his offering on  the dash board and said it would help assure no road rage, good traffic patterns, no accidents.  A very touching custom, really.  And offerings are EVERYWHERE. 

Well it’s our last day in Bali and it’s almost time to get back to real life.  It’s going to be hard getting back to the traffic, noise, smelliness, and hordes of people in Jakarta after the lush, beautiful scenery here.  This morning, the four of us went on a white water rafting outing on the River Ayung.  It was great fun and a first for all of us.  The hardest part was walking down the six hundred or so steps to get to the river.  The fact that we were already wearing life jackets and helmets and carrying oars made it even warmer.  But then we got to float 11km down the river for an hour and a half looking at some truly stunning scenery.  The guide in the back of the boat did most of the work, telling us to paddle occasionally so that we felt like we were contributing (and so that we could at least pretend to earn our lunch which was waiting for us at the end).

Yesterday we were all set to go see another museum in town when one of the hotel staff assured us he could take us to a better spot.  So he drove us over to an artist’s colony situated on the edge of rice paddies where we had fun browsing.  There were tons of paintings there, many of them really beautiful.  And although there was no entrance fee, we didn’t really come out ahead because we all found some things to buy!  TP is getting good at bargaining, although we can’t imagine having to haggle over prices all the time.  Thank goodness for price tags.

One final note.  They have some games in the library here for guests to use to entertain themselves with.  One of them is "Baliopoly" which is funny for two reasons.  The first is that they have bungalows instead of houses.  But really, the best part is that instead of Jail in one corner they have Immigration.  "Go directly to Immigration, do not pass go!"  Pretty funny considering our past experiences.