BALI 2

BALI

On this page of Bali, you can see photos of the following places:

Lovina Beach, Gitgit, Lake Bratan, (Northern Bali),Tengenan (Eastern Bali), Ubud & Tanah Lot (Central-South Bali).

	Rice paddies
Home Sulawesi Java Sumatra		I arrived in Bali from Java by ferry. The ferry only took half an hour and from the harbour I went on by minibus to Lovina Beach. I decided to take a good hotel for a change, after all the bugdet hostels; especially the one in the town near Bromo was awful. A nice hot shower and some beach did good to me. With 2 South Africans whom I met in the bus to Lovina, I made a daytrip. During the day we passed all these beautifull rice paddies

	Gitgit waterfalls with little hindu-temple
		We hired a driver and a car, and got a guide included in the price too. They drove us around whole day. We made a stop in Gitgit, famous for this waterfall. It was quite a few steps down to the falls, but it was beautiful. We were told that in dry season it is a lot less spectacular. Along the way down, which takes about 20 minutes, there are a million of stalls with woord carvings and sarongs. This spoils the beauty of the waterfalls a little bit, but it is still worth it. Going down from the main road, is fast and easy. Going up is a lot of stairs.........
	Pura Ulu Temple in Lake Bratan
		Next stop; Danau Bratan. This beautiful lake with a few Hindu temples around and in it is really wonderful. But again a lot of people, and it wasn´t even high season... It is definitely not a place to relax on your own. At the entrance there is a horrible tourist attraction, i.e. some very special but chained animals to take photos from, with yourself on it of course for a ridiculous price.
	Brahmavihara Arama: a buddhist monastry
		One of the last stops was a Buddhist monastery. It is beautiful, peaceful and quiet. This is definitely one of the places to really come to yourself. You can take a look inside where there are different amazingly beautiful images of Buddhas with all different expressions, with a lot of sacred decorations around it. Worth a look definitely.
	Lovina Beach with black volcanic sand
		Back in Lovina, or called, Kalibukbuk, the beach is a fine place to enjoy the sun. The sand is black, due to former volcanic eruptions. The main hassle here is people continuously offering their boats and services for dolphins and snorkeling trips. Peacefully reading a book is difficult here. But I did go on both the trips, and we saw many many dolphins and the most beautiful and colourful fish!
	A temple ceremonie in Tenganan
		From Ubud, in the centre of the island, I was invited by a German family to go with them to the village of Tenganan. In this village the Bali Aga people live. These people were the original inhabitants of Bali, before the Hindu Javanese came. A 3-day ceremony is held to celebrate the beginning of a new Balinese year. We had to wear a sarong and a serendang to take part in the ceremony.
	All sacred traditions....
		The ceremony was started by people putting many many offers in the temple. Among the offers are flowers, rice, bananas etc., all beautifully hand made into amazing decorations. After all the offering, the priest of Tenganan continued with the ceremony. Then all the villagers and we as the only visitors, were given the offers and more sacred traditions were performed.
	Many offers are brought.......
		All people brought offers on turn. One could see that a lot of time was spent in making these offers. It seemed that the village of Tenganan is a place where people spend all their time practicing their religion. Others, from outside this village, work on the fields and take care of the cattle.

	Tanah Lot Temple
		From Ubud, I made a day trip to the temple of Tanah Lot. Beautiful. Impressive. With a nice terrace on the rocks with an amazing view over sea and the temple; nice, cold and expensive beer. But also a lot of sarong stalls and tourists. This day trip also included a visit to a monkey forest, called Alas Kedaton. This is a horrible place with very agressive monkeys: they spoiled my dress with their teeth!
	A Hindu Cremation
		Bali is known for its Hindu religion and therefore for its cremations. Visiting such a cremation ceremony as a tourist is more than normal. Decent dressing though is requested. The big difference with a funeral or cremation in the western world, is that this Hindu cremation is not at all a sad happening. People are happy; the person who died is going to his next life. It is also very unorganized in our western eyes. Food is sold everywhere, people are laughing. Over all, a great experience. An important thing to know however, is that the deceased cremated, has possibly passed away a long time ago. It varies from days, months to years.
	A Hinducremation ceremonie near Ubud
		First the body is taken from the house and placed in a decorated tower (see previous photo). From there the family carries the tower and run around with it trough town. After, the body is placed in a cow (in this case; a sign of the highest class) and offers are brought and put in by family, like possessions of the deceased. We saw that later, some things were taken back out of the cow!
	The body is being cremated...
		Finally the body and the whole decoration around it is cremated. A very bizar sight, having seen the body being put in flames. But the family and villagers (the whole village is watching the ceremony) didn´t seem to find it strange. To them it IS not strange of course. After the cremation, which took several hours, there was another ceremony which I didn´t witness.
	A young spectator at the cremation ceremonie watches the fire...
		As told before, the atmosphere on the cremation was far from sad. Like this very cute little boy everybody was eating and watching the flames. People laughed. Beautiful how this boy on the photo is so fascinated by the fire. We ordered ´sop´ ourselves. That is a mixture of hot water, vegetables, meatballs, spices. bread etc. But still it is nothing like soup. Very tasty though. We didn´t see many tourists at this ceremony. But the few we saw all wore shorts and shirts with no sleeves. That is really inappropriate. Sober colours, long sleeves and a sarong is really not too much asked.
	A beautiful face of a Balinese man
		One of the last days on Bali, I met another Dutch girl, and together we hired mountain bikes and made a trip around Ubud. Somewhere off the main road we saw this very beautiful Balinese man, and he was more than willing to be caught on a photo. I experienced that the people from Bali were very friendly in general, especially when we were away from the tourist centres. Would he know his face is on the internet by now??
	Monkey Forest, Ubud	In Ubud there is also a Monkey Forest. Although Lonely Planet warns for the agressive animals here, the brochure we received at the entrance reassured me enough to take the chance. And fortunately, no bad experiences here. But I guess I should not have moved closer to this one, to make him do things I would not have enjoyed really. He looks too burned out anyway!