Bali

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, Indonesia

Bali – also known as the Island of Gods – is smaller than Belgium but is actually quite similar to our country if you think about it.

There are mountains like our Ardennes, but the ones one Bali spit fire. The last one, Rinjani, did so as recently as 40 years ago killing thousands and destroying complete villages. Youcan still see the blackburned soil now.

There is sea. We have the North Sea with Knokke, Bredene and Blankenberge. They have sea all around, with Kuta, Lovina and Candi Dasa. Contrary to what you might think, the beaches are not so very different here. There are big waves (for surfing), a lot of dirt in the more populated parts (i.e. Kuta) and the sand is more brown than white. Sometimes it’s even black (from the volcanic ashes) or completely gone, because the entrepreneurs took away the coral to make it into cement (i.e. Candi Dasa “beach”). I guess we were spoiled by the white sand beaches of Selong Glanak (Lombok) and Similan Islands (Thailand).

Most of the inhabitants are Hindu, a religion in which each house has its own little temples and there are larger temples for bigger ceremonies. Thus you enjoy a very beautiful scenary as you drive around the island and stumble upon fantastic small and big temples. Apart from Hinduism, there are also Muslim people, which are not very popular there (i said it was like Belgium he .

So what did we do? Still on our motorbike, we cruised across the island, from Tourist Object to Tourist Object (as they call their popular sights).  

We started of at the non-beach of Candi Dasa at the homestay of a retired austalian Ari who gave us a very hearthly welcome and whose new Indonesian wife prepared a great chicken stroganoff for us. The night was short after a couple of Bintangs and we made for Tulamben on the North coast.

Tulamben is a popular diving spot at the remains of the USA Liberty, a cargo ship that was torpetoed during the Japanese war. Its highest point is only located at some 4m deep, so it’s possible to see some of it even by snorkelling (which we did since neither of us has a scuba diving certificate).

Our next stop would be Besakih, a Hindu temple complex, which in my eyes is way more impressive than Borobodur (and probably Prambanan) and at only a fraction of the cost (Borobodur = $10; Besakih = $0). We took a guide and learned a lot of interesting facts about Hinduism. According to their teaching, you have to do good things to increase your Karma and improve your chances to be born into a better class. He didn’t understand my remark that giving free tours to westerners would also increase his Karma, so we did end up paying him

From there it was a short drive to Lac Batur, a beautiful lake squeezed in between two volcanic mountains which did remind us a bit of Lac de Geneve in Switzerland. Accomodation around here was terrible however, so we drove into Ubud again to sleep. It felt a bit like coming home after 2 weeks of roadtripping and this must have motivated us to head for Kuta, THE tourist destination of Bali: 7km of beaches, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut but also touts trying to sell massages, sunglasses, surfing boards (appearantly called long boats here) and much more every 30 seconds or so. We splurged and booked a hotel with swimming pool and took 3 days of well deserved holidays

We also visited Tirta Gangga, a water temple, which basically means that they built religious monuments in the middle of a lot of pools (used for bathing) and pools (with fish). A special case is also Tanah Lot, a temple built in the sea, or at least that is how it looks like during high tide and the sunset…

PS/ As we know that there a lot of jalous people back home, we wanted to share some of the holiday displeasures with you too, so you would feel less sad about being in the cold in Belgium.

“Yes! OK!”. Is called at us every 10 meters as a very efficient ways of getting our attention. We learned to become deaf for it

“Transport mister? Go to the Kraton?” and you wonder why they ask since you’re walking in the opposite direction of the Kraton and you are holding a motorbike helmet…

“Sunglasses. Yes Mister, real Oakley. No fake… 120.00 rupiah” (10 EUR)… final price after 45 minutes of haggling was 7000 rupiah.. (i didnt forget a zero)

“Where are you from sir?”
“Belg..”
“You need transport?”

And one of the best … when they are tired of speaking, they write it on a paper… move your mouse over the picture