July 27
8:15am Bali time
We just drove past a monkey temple which is a few minute drive from our hotel in Pembuteran. He said that it is believed that if people go there for selfish purposes (more money, beauty, etc.) the monkeys will be aggressive toward them. If they come pure of heart, the monkeys will be nice to them.
We also passed buoys in the ocean that Panji said has a net under it and that is where they grow the pearls. It takes 4 years to grow 1 pearl. Fresh water pearls are cheaper because in one shell you can have 25 pearls. They are also smaller.
Symbols wise, Panji explained this to us:
1. Flower represents beauty
2. Water represents purification
3. Incense represents fire which means you are bringing your offerings to a higher level
I think I will need to come back to Bali. We don't have much time here and Bali isn't just about the beaches. There is a lot of culture and I won't have that much time to see it. Also there are mountains and other things to explore. Other countries I want to go back to from this trip:
2. India- southern India and Mumbai. It is supposed to be very different. I don't think I would go back to the other cities again.
3. Nepal- I would love to do a trek on the Annapurna Range, the Langtang Valley, or Everest Base Camp (although I'm not too keen on flying into Lukla).
4. Thailand- strictly to volunteer at the elephant camp again and do the "Journey to Freedom" which is a week long trip through the camp in the tree top villages. It also may be cool to explore more of the islands but I don't feel like I need to do that.
5. I already feel like I need to go back to Australia because I am missing Cairns.
We just passed a check point on the road. Panji said that this is normal when there has been a motorcycle theft. The thief will try to take it to Java. They set up check point stations with the police checking to make sure the driver has a license, a registered vehicle, and is wearing a helmet. Haven't really seen that anywhere else so that surprised me.
There were also 2 groups of children marching. Panji said that they are training for the Independence Day which is August 17. There are competitions of marching between different age groups of children.
9:19am Bali time
There are 3 things in Bali that are a little unusual.
1. There was a slave trade up until the 18th century for people who did something bad and had to go to jail.
2. When the King dies, the wife will follow by jumping into the fire after them
3. If a ship is stranded on the island then all the goods and the crew of the ship belong to the King. This is what caused the first conflict between Indonesia and the Dutch.
Watching out the window in Bali reminds me of like Thailand or even sometimes Nepal (only with the temples and houses). The influence is very Hindu. There are a lot of houses that have little shrines or temples set up for offerings. I still think it looks very nice. There are also a lot of gates that are embellished with designs that remind me of Hindu temples. The scenery is similar to Thailand as well with palm trees and fields full of growing things and high rolling mountains. It's very green and beautiful.
In this part of Bali (northern) they grow tobacco, grapes (fruit and wine), and rice. This is probably because there is less rain here than on the southern part of the island.
10:50am Bali time
We just drove up this huge mountain. Very beautiful scenery. We stopped at the top at a viewpoint where 2 lakes come together. Lake Buyan is on one side and Lake Tamblingan is on the other side. There are mountains surrounding it. It's gorgeous. Also the top of the mountains have some clouds covering the top as well. So pretty. Its a little chilly up here actually.
After this we head to a temple which is very famous in Bali. Rowie said it is on all of the covers of Bali travel books. Should be good. We are all impatient though. We want to keep driving so we don't get to the beach too late today. I have to leave at 11am tomorrow morning!
11:07pm Bali time
Swastika symbol is back. If it is turned to the left it belongs to the Buddhist. It is also Hindu. It contains the meaning of life. Panji said Hitler stole it for WWII because he wanted the Aryian race. The Aryians actually originated from Island of Arian. The symbol is really old.
In Bali they divide things into 3. In a village there would be the forest, the area the people live, and the farm land or ocean for fishing. The body is also divided into 3 as well. The head which is the holiest part of the body, and then the upper and lower body.
Lakes are considered holy in Bali and usually each lake has a temple built for it and its own goddess.
11:24am Bali time
We stopped for a few minutes to see monkeys. They were very hairy. And it was strange how comfortable they were being around humans. They let people taking pictures get super up close to them. It was crazy. Even the ones with babies attached to them.
Monkeys are strange. They're so much like us but really small and look different and most of the time walk on 4 legs. It's creepy kinda. They were taking peanuts out of people's hands, no big deal. I don't know. Very strange to me.
12:05pm Bali time
We just stopped at the temple Ulun Danu Beratan. It is the third lakes temple. I think earlier Panji said something about there are 4 lakes in Bali, but I could be totally wrong on that.
It's really beautiful. We didn't have too much time inside though and it's overcast so the photos didn't come out great. There was a ceremony at the temple which was pretty cool to see. I think Panji said it was a funeral. Everyone was dressed in white. There was a part of the temple we weren't allowed into because it is only for the locals to pray. There were people walking around with rice on their head. When they pray they put rice on their foreheads and rice represents knowledge.
It would have been nice to have a little more time there but I guess it's ok. Now we are stopping at a market.
12:34pm Bali time
Ugh. Markets are annoying. "Look at my shop" "Looking is free". Oy! They just constantly harrass you it makes me not want to buy anything. Like leave me in peace and I will more likely buy something. They're so aggressive. I did get one thing as a gift for someone and I got it down from 280,000 to 50,000 rupiah. After 3 months in Asia I am really good at bargaining. But, I probably still could have gotten it cheaper. But I'm okay with it. It will be annoying to carry around now though for the last 2 weeks. Oh well.
All of us want to go straight to the hotel but Rob wants to eat. So we are stopping so Rob can get some food. He said he would get it as take away. It's funny that 15 people want to skip lunch and 1 doesn't and we are appeasing him. But whatever. An hour and a half drive to come.
Apparently there is no take away at the restaurant so now we are waiting for Rob, and everyone else to eat. Nadya, Simo, Jillienne, Katie, and I are pretty upset. But whatever I guess. Nadya and Simo railed on Panji. They told him he made a very bad decision and argued about it for a while.
1:42pm Bali time
I asked Panji about the ceremony we saw at the temple. He said it was a funeral. But, when someone passes away they (Hindus in Bali) put the ashes in the ocean. The ashes just stay there. Then, 3 years later there is another ceremony which is the cleansing funeral. This is what we were seeing. He said that Christians have the expression "from dust to dust" and for them it is more "from water to water". When someone dies they return them to the 5 elements.
1. Water- 75% of our bodies are water
2. Fire- warmth of our bodies
3. Earth- from the food we eat
4. Wind/air- for our breath
5.
... Can't remember the other element and what it symbolized. Darn!
Water is very important in Bali. That much is clear.
Panji was also telling us some other things about ceremonies and rituals in Bali:
1. Something important is celebrated every 210 days. So if someone is born, it will be celebrated 210 days later.
2. A baby does not officially get a name until after they are 3 months old.
3. A baby cannot touch the ground before they go through a full cycle (210 days). If there is a ceramic or tile floor in the house that is okay just not the ground of the earth because that is holy and needs to be blessed with ceremony.
4. For NYE in Bali they will clean the environment and make loud noises so that demons and bad spirits go away and do not roam the world anymore. Then, the next day from 6am to 6am no one is allowed to turn on lights or light a fire, have entertainment, go out of the house, essentially they are giving the world a rest as well as themselves and are thinking introspectively about what they have done and what they can do the rest of the year. This usually happens in March or April.
Later the next day (long travel days are so much fun!)
We arrived in Sanur a little after 3pm. The hotel was fine. Nothing amazing, especially after our accommodations the past few days. Everyone was complaining about the room but meh. Later though I did realize that my bed sheets were gross. There were yellow and brown stains all over them and it was too much for me ha. On this trip I have been very good about not expecting things to be as clean as I usually do but I couldn't handle this one. I took out my sarong and slept on top of that on top of the bedding. It was just the inside sheets of the bed that were gross. Bleh.
We dropped our stuff off in the room and immediately changed into our suits. We booked it to the beach to try to grab some sun and beach before we needed to head home tomorrow (today ha). We were about 400 meters from the beach according to our trip itinerary.
Sanur is not a nice city. It's not terrible, but its not what I was expecting from Bali I guess. Although, as Panji told us earlier, we didn't go to the nice parts of Bali. The minute you step out toward the street side of the hotel all you could hear was traffic, horns, people yelled at you to do this or that and go here or there in their taxi, the sidewalk was even janky! The sewar is under it and there are slabs of concrete pieced together over the sewar, but a lot of the pieces didn't fit well together or were missing. Really sketch. Also, the walk signs for cross walks told you to walk when you clearly shouldn't because traffic was steadily flowing still.
The closer we got to the beach, the more taxi drivers were asking us to go with them to this or that destination. We got to the beach and saw blue water and sand and it was a huge let down. It looked exactly like the beaches at home. Not very clean, not white, lots of people. Not impressed Sanur! Panji had told us to keep walking to the right so we continued on the beach. It didn't get amazingly better but it was at least more clean. We set up camp and enjoyed our last minutes of Bali beach time. It wasn't particularly sunny or warm. The breeze actually felt really nice though. And the large hotel behind us kept taking over our sun. Nevertheless, it was still relaxing and a semi-nice scenery. The waves were really blue actually and pretty large. The water also seemed pretty shallow until rather far out. Panji had said the beach is surrounded by coral so during low tide it is pretty shallow.
Jill and I stayed a little longer than everyone else. We talked and reflected for a while which was also nice. We walked back along the board walk. It wasn't anything too special, pretty much the same things sold everywhere. We made a pit stop in the mini mart because dinner was still 2 hours away and we hadn't yet eaten lunch. When we were in the mini mart which was actually huge, we saw a postcard with a nice beach. It was Sanur beach. Apparently we could have taken a taxi there, but oh well. I had ritz crackers with cheese. I really miss cheese... Real cheese, not fake cheese, but fake cheese was all I had. I miss turkey too. Turkey and cheese sandwiches. Yummm.
I have been really impressed by the Hindu culture of Bali. It seems way less harsh than the Hinu culture in India and Nepal. I think it's beautiful. It's more similar to Buddhism to me than Hinduism.
For dinner we met at 7pm for our last group horrah. We went to a nice restaurant... It was pretty expensive. I ended up paying a little under $20 but it didn't matter because I had to use up my rupiah anyway. I got a mango diaquri (delicious, but not like the diaquris at home... More a thick liquid), vegetable spring rolls and a filet mignon. I was stupid about the filet mignon. I should have gotten sea bass or something. The filet mignon was cheap and I figured it'd be a good way to get meat and get it cheaply. It wasn't very good. I should have known it probably wouldn't be after being in Asia for 3 months and after working at a restaurant. But, it was fine. The garlic mashed potatoes were amazing on the other hand!
A lot of people went back and a lot of people went out to a bar. I haven't really enjoyed this group of people as much as I did my other group and going out just didn't sound great to me. Plus, I knew I had to repack my bag and that normally takes at least an hour. So I was boring and went back to the hotel and packed.
When people came back, a few people went to the pool for a midnight swim. Marion included. She told me I should come but I didn't really want to. I couldn't get to sleep though. I have been thinking a lot about if I'll have a job at watermark when I get home, if I really want that or not, what I'm going to do when I get home. I know I shouldn't think about it and I should just enjoy the last few weeks. Hopefully I will be reinvigorated for Australia. I'm really ready to leave Asia.
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