Temple gate
Today we had to wake up early. My friend had to take a plane
to Bali, and I would go there by boat. I took a bemo to the harbour Lembar. I
arrived just in time for the 8 o'clock boat. Around noon the boat arrived in
Padangbai. From there I went to Ubud by bemo. I had to change bemo's a couple of
times, because most of them only ride short trips. Each time I had to watch out
not to pay too much.
In Ubud I soon found a nice and cheap hotel. It was in fact
a small bungalow with two rooms, which was part of a local family's house.
Traditional balinese houses often consist of several smaller buildings in a
garden.
Temple gate
In the afternoon I went out to see the town. Ubud is the cultural center of Bali. Although many tourists come here, it has maintained its own atmosphere. Quite different from a place like Kuta, for example. I went to see the monkey forrest. It was funny to watch them. They were quiete impudent.
Today I wanted to visit a couple of other places on Bali.
like Klungkung, Besakih (the main temple on Bali) and Goa Gajah (an ancient cave
temple). I was not sure if I could visit Besakih because I knew that it was not
always possible to get a bemo back from there.
Around noon I arrived in Klungkung. There I visited the old
royal palace. Klungkung was the last town on Bali that was conquered by the
dutch at the beginning of this century. At that time the whole royal family
commited ritual suicide. Also large parts of the royal palace were destroyed
then.
After lunch I went to Goa Gajah. I skipped Besakih. On a
certain point on my way to Goa Gajah I had to switch bemo's. At that point I
witnessed a balinese funeral. This is usualy very special to watch. Not only the
deceased body is cremated, but also huge colorful wooden statues and other
things. These funerals often attract many tourists too.
In front of Goa Gajah were lots of tourist shops, which I
walked by fast. At the entrance of the caves I had to cover my bare legs with a
sarong. The caves didn't look too impressive, although they might be special
from a historical point of view.
Tonight I wanted to go watch a balinese dance. I had bought
a ticket from the people of my hotel. But unfortunatly I failed to find the
location of the dance show. I had misunderstood what the family had told me,
partly because they couldn't speak english very well. When I returned to the
hotel, I told them what had happened. They felt sorry and promissed me another
ticket for tomorrow's show. They showed me the location of the show, which was
in fact very close. Later that night I joined them in their home for a cup of
tea.
Women at temple
Today I made a bicycle ride through the area. I decided to go norht, because then I would first go uphill and back downhill. The environment with its many ricefields looked very beautiful. It was often quite tough going uphill on my bicycle.
Ricefields
I went all the way uphill to a town called Tampaksiring. This
place had 2 ancient temples. The first one was located in a narrow rivervalley.
But this one didn't look very impressive to me. The other one was more
beautiful. It was build around a hot water spring, which is beleived to have
healing powers. The ride back to Ubud was very easy. I almost didn't have to
peddle my bicycle at all.
At night I went to see a dance show. It had 3 different
dances. The first one was a kecak dance, which depicts the old hindu Ramayana
story. The special thing about this dance is the large choir of men sitting in
circles and making strange sounds. The next 2 dances were so called trance-
dances. In the last dance a man walked through a bonfire.
This would be my last day in Ubud. In the morning I visited a
musuem in Ubud. The rest of the day I spent relaxing on the porch of my
bungalow.
At night I visited another dance show. The first dance was a
so called Barong dance. A barong is a kind of mythical animal which looks like a
lion. After another short dance they performed the Mahabharata dance (another
ancient hindu story). The last dance was a kris dance. In this dance men go into
trance and have to fight against their own daggers.
Today I wanted to go to Lovina, a town on the northern coast
of Bali. At first I wanted to spend a half day in Penelokan, a town on top of
the Batur mountain. But I skipped that because it was very cloudy today, so
there wouldn't be any great views from the mountain. On the northern side of the
mountain the weather was much better. The road downward was very steep. In this
area cloves were grown, which was very noticable by the strong smell.
After a journey with 6 different bemos (which had cost me a
total of 6000 rp) I arrived in Lovina. Lovina is in fact a kind of cluster of
small villages along the coast. I found a nice and cheap hotel on the east side
of the village. The weather was still nice. In the afternoon I went to the
tourist office to see if there were any tourist tours in the neighbourhood. I
thought that these kind of tours would be more handy than to do everything on my
own with public transport. But there were no suitable tours for me here.
Small street warung
In the afternoon I went to the beach. The sand was black, because it was vulcanic sand (I had already seen this before in Greece on the island Santorini, by the way). At night I went to the Superman restaurant for dinner. I had heard that this was a good one and also very popular among travelers. It turned out to be quite a long walk to the restaurant. The food was excelent, but there weren't many other travellers this time.
This day I wanted to visit several thing in the area. At first I went to the Gitgit waterfalls. These were one the road to Bedegul, the same steep road I had travelled yesterday. After visiting the falls I continued my way to Bedegul. This is located on the top of the mountain. It has a big lake and next to it an ancient temple. It's a quite beautiful temple, partiatly located on a small island.
Ulu Danau temple
After lunch I went back in the other direction. It was not easy to find a bemo this time. Back in Singaraja I noticed that it was much hotter here than on top of the mountain, where it had been rather cool. From Singaraja I took another bemo to Sangsit. In Sangsit I visited a very beautiful temple. I noticed that most temples here on northern Bali had usualy much more sculptures than those on the rest of Bali. Aftet this I went back to Lovina. This day I had travelled with 11 different bemos, which had cost me a total of 8300 rp. At the end of the afternoon I went to the beach again.
Temple at Sangsit
I woke up early today, because I would go visit the dolphins
this morning. The dolphins usualy appear at sunrise. Each morning many tourists
go see them in small boats. I went there together with 2 other people from my
hotel. The dolphins didn't surface the water very often, but a few times we
could see them from very close. After visiting the dolphins we went snorkelling.
We had to take the boat again to find a good spot. The underwater-world looked
quite beautiful, although in Gili Trawangan it had looked even better.
After breakfast I went out to see some more things in the
area. I took a bemo to Banjar. There are hot springs and an old buddhist temple.
The bemos didn't go all the way to the hot springs. But there were people with
small motorcycles to take you further. The hot springs were quite different than
I had expected. It was just a kind of swimming pool. You couldn't see where the
water was comming from. But the water was nicely warm. After this I visited the
old buddhist temple. Like in most temples I had to wear a sarong to cover my
bare legs. Some danish girls told me I looked cute wearing a sarong. :-) The
temple didn't look too special. It looked quite similar to most balinese hindu
temples.
At the end of the afternoon I went to the beach again. At
night there wasn't much to do. That surprised me, because today was the 17th of
august; national holiday and the 50th aniversary of Indonesia's independence.
Later I heard that most festivities took place in Singaraja, rather than
here.
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