Bali in a week. Part 4: Templing, beaching, bintanging

(Part 3 is here. Parts 1 and 2 are linked from there. This is a blog, not a maze, I'm sure you can find them on your own)

Pura Besakih, the biggest and most important temple in Bali.

On Thursday we visited Pura Besakih. It's the biggest temple in Bali and built way up on a mountain. Like way way up. It's astonishing that people were able to build stuff like this a bazillion years ago without the help of trucks or backhoes or safety regulations. That's how you can tell they were really into their Gods. Or that the internet just wasn't invented yet so they didn't have much else to do.

The temple itself is actually still in use. And since we happened to be there roughly the same time as a full moon, there were a bunch of people worshiping. In order to walk around, we had to rent sarongs. It was some religious thing. Since we were white tourists the rental fee was something crazy like $3 for one or $10 for two. I don't remember specially how much, but I do remember that it was more expensive, per sarong, to rent two instead of one. Either something was lost in translation or the rental lady was bad at math. Or like I said, we were white tourists and she knew we'd pay whatever she asked. Probably that last one. I mean, what were we going to do, drive two hours to the temple and then scoff at the $10 sarong rental, turnaround and head home?

Jenny and I in our stylish sarongs. I think they match my bright green Sounders sunglasses pretty well. Oh geez, I'm also wearing a Sounders shirt and an ECS hat. And Sounders colored shoes. This is getting a little ridiculous, someone stage an intervention or something.

Dressed to the nines in our over-priced rental sarongs, we headed to the temple. We hired a guide, which wasn't necessarily required but you sort of seemed like a jerk if you didn't. Our guide didn't really speak English and was pretty bad at taking pictures, but in an endearing sort of way. He had a super ineffective original technique where he grabbed the front of the camera with one hand and wrapped his fingers around it to reach the shutter button, using his other hand to shield the sun from his eyes. It resulted in mediocre pictures but was highly entertaining. I wish we'd thought to get a picture of him taking a picture.

The temple itself was amazing. Being high up on a mountain, it had some of the best views that we saw in Bali. Like I'd mentioned earlier, there were also locals who were actively worshiping while we were there. It was cool to see some of their culture. But while we were doing that, there were also vendors trying to sell us stuff. Fruit, snacks, souvenirs, post cards, beer. You name it, they had it. It sort of felt like we were watching people go to church while those guys from baseball games walked up and down the aisles hawking hot dogs and cotton candy. It was a weird juxtaposition of a (at least what appeared to be) traditional authentic ceremony next to a glaringly obvious consequence of the tourism industry. I probably can't complain about the vendors since we were exactly the thing that resulted in them being there. But it was definitely weird to have six-year-olds trying to sell us postcards in a place where we were told we had to wear sarongs out of respect for the religiousness stuff that was going on. But hey, it gave me an excuse to use "juxtaposition" in my Bali blog, so there's that!

Some of the full moon ceremony stuff.

When our tour of the temple was over, we drove to get lunch.

We ended up at a restaurant on a cliff with a spectacular panoramic view of mountains, and lakes, and countryside. We laughed at how in the US, any restaurant with this multi-million dollar view would be $60 a plate easy. Instead, this place as an all-you-can-eat buffet where you don't really want to eat all that much.

Pictures can never quite due views like this justice.

On the way home we stopped at the White Sand Beach. That was the name of it. White Sand Beach. Every beach with white sand was named White Sand Beach, which seems like would become confusing.

Getting to the beach was actually a bit of an adventure. It was pretty secluded with no real way to drive your car all that close. So we attempted to find a back way in, following a windy narrow road around to what we expected to be a nice short path to the beach. Instead, we ended up at a dead end where it would be impossible to turn the car around and had to nearly bushwhack our way down a cliff to the beach. We made it though. And despite being so secluded, the beach had Bintang. Awesome.

Beach. Bintang. To be continued...

Bali in a week. Part 3: Searching for turtles, finding sharks, and getting bit by invisible piranhas

(Part 1 & Part 2 in case you need a refresher after the month of anticipation for part 3)

Apologies to my three or four readers for the extended delay between parts two and three. The excuse I'll use is that I've started writing a post-apocalyptic dystopian young adult novel. That's actually true, I have started doing that. My New Year Resolution is to finish it this year and I'm like 33% for resolutions the past few years so there's a better than zero chance it'll happen. It's part parody, part self-indulgence, and hopefully part entertaining as well.

As for the Bali vacation, where did we leave off? Snorkeling? We actually snorkeled two different days while in Bali because snorkeling is the best. Here's the first trip.

On Wednesday we got picked up from our villa and taken to Padang Bai, a super small town on the water. Well really more like a handful of buildings along a road next to the water. Candidasa is a small town, Pandang Bai was more like an extravagant fort. Mike was going scuba diving and the rest of the us were snorkeling.

Padang Bai. Almost all of it.

The dive shop was owned by a German couple who realized that living in paradise where the cost of living is almost free seemed like a better life decision than living in Germany, where it's probably a lot more expensive and there are very few houses where you can scuba from your front yard. Probably almost no houses like that.

We all went out on the same boat, the divers dove and the snorkelers snorkeled.

Riding the boat out to snorkel. My eyes don't work in the sun.

Snorkeling is super cool. Just generally speaking, it's a cool thing. But it was also really cool in Bali. We were told there was a chance we'd see turtles, small sharks (not big enough to eat us), and asshole fish (big fish that will sometimes ram you if they think you're threatening their nest).

Turtles are my favorite. So after admiring the hundreds of colorful fishies for a few minutes, I went into full "find a turtle mode". The tough thing about finding a turtle in an ocean is that oceans are really really big and turtles are only big relative to little fish. But compared to an ocean, turtles are super tiny. I had my work cut out for me.

I started thinking, "if I were a turtle, where would I be?" I figured they wouldn't be swimming around the coral as much as the little fish so I focused more on areas where the ground was sandy. This separated me from the group by a bit but I realized I was also probably the slowest swimmer so if a shark did attack us, I was a going to be lunch even if I was in the group.

Then I saw a shark.

At least I'm 60-70% sure I saw a shark. It was five or six feet long, which sounds pretty big and looks really big. But beforehand, we were told that it's not actually that big for a shark. Like not big enough to eat people. I got a surge of adrenaline either way and called for the rest of the crew to come see. By the time anyone else got to me though the shark was gone. Either that or I hallucinated the entire thing. It's a mystery that plagues me to this day.

Relieved that I wasn't eaten, but also disheartened that I hadn't found a turtle, I decided to stay closer to the group and admire the pretty fish. It'd been maybe 35 minutes of snorkeling and we were about ready to head to the boat when we all started getting what felt like little bites. At first none of us were sure whether we actually felt anything but after asking around whether anyone else was feeling sharp little pinches all over their body, we knew we couldn't all be imagining it.

It escalated from there. As we swam back to our boat, it felt like we were being attacked by hundreds of invisible piranhas. It was totally something out of the start of a bad horror movie. Some unsuspecting tourist starts feeling tiny bites all over their body and the camera pans away for a moment. When it pans back, all that's left is a bloody pool and maybe a finger floating in the middle. Luckily, we were in Bali and not Piranha 4: Attack of the tiny ghost fish. We swam through the pain -- or mild discomfort -- and climbed back into the boat.

We learned later that what we were likely feeling was minced jellyfish. What happens is a jellyfish will be floating along minding its own business and a boat will cruise right over the top of it, chopping it into tiny jellyfish bits with the motor. Then snorkelers like us end up unknowingly swimming through the jellyfish bits and getting stung by the remains. Unpleasant, but at least explainable. And way better than invisible baby piranhas.

After giving the divers a little time at regular pressure, we went out for another round of snorkeling and diving. No turtles. No sharks. But some really warm hot springs in the bay where we were swimming. The springs were much more pleasant to swim through than jellyfish puree.

For lunch ate at a pizza place. Good food and tall towers of beer. What more could you ask for?

Tower of Bintang. It was probably like $3.

To be continued. Hopefully in less than a month.

Bali in a week. Part 2: Ubud and dancing

(Here's part one if you "missed" it)

I may have scared some of the locals with my guns. Or maybe just blinded them.

On Tuesday, we headed to Ubud. on our way there, or maybe after we got there (geographically, I was never completely sure where we were), we stopped to watch some sort of play/dance/tourist attraction. They provided us with a translation of what was supposedly going on, but it did little to help clarify things. Here's my understanding of what went down:

There once was a tiger. Let's call him DeMarcus, because who wouldn't want a tiger named DeMarcus? DeMarcus liked to dance, but he was also terribly afflicted by fleas. Lucky for him, he met a goofy monkey probably named Mr. Wellington, who liked to eat fleas. Mr. Wellington ate all of DeMarcus's fleas in exchange for DeMarcus not eating him. Quid pro quo. Then DeMarcus exited stage right to pursue a career as a dancer. Meanwhile an unnamed bad guy attacked Mr. Wellington. Mr. Wellington fought off the unnamed bad guy and cut off his nose. Seriously, that part totally happened, the monkey cut off some dude's nose. 

That was a seemingly long and unnecessary preamble to what then turned into a play about some lady (we'll call her Wonder Woman) who was un-killable and could make other people un-killable too. A bunch of bad guys, who were almost definitely Stormtroopers lead by Darth Vader tried to kill Wonder Woman and a bunch of her friends, but they couldn't. They stabbed Wonder Woman, slit her throat, and stabbed her some more but she wouldn't die.

Eventually Wonder Woman prevailed and slayed the bad guys. At some point DeMarcus and Mr. Wellington appeared again and everyone probably lived happily ever after.

The tiger, who I've named DeMarcus. Pretty elaborate costumes.

That might sound like a totally absurd analysis of the play, but if you watched it, it's absolutely a believable explanation for what happened. I mean, there weren't literally Stormtroopers, Wonder Woman, and Darth Vader but metaphorically speaking, that's literally what happened. It was endearingly silly, complete with bumbling comic relief and yet some hints of authenticity. They had music playing throughout the entire thing and incredibly elaborate costumes. Thoroughly entertaining.

Then we went shopping through some of the markets of Ubud. They had everything from penis shaped bottle openers to beautiful original artwork. They even had a Starbucks. Mandy and Josh got a few really awesome wood carvings made out of what we think was maybe mahogany. We had a running joke while we were there that anytime you asked someone what type of wood something was, they'd say "mahogany" and anytime you asked what type of fish something was, they'd say "mahi mahi". Unsure whether they were always telling the truth. Also, all the beer was Bin Tang. Bin Tang is everywhere in Bali and for $2-$4 a liter bottle, it was a screaming deal (unless you're on a secluded beach, then they'll gouge you for $10 a bottle). As someone who has won 576 free beer this year and attended WSU, I consider myself a connoisseur of both good beer and cheap beer. Bin Tang obviously falls into the latter category, but it's honestly some of the best cheap beer I've had. We drank a lot of it in Bali and I actually miss it a little.

One of the markets in Ubud.

When we were done shopping we drove to a restaurant that overlooked some rice terraces for lunch. It was beautiful. I have a really unfair view of what constitutes beautiful rice terraces thanks to our trip to Vietnam, but it was a great view. And the open air provided a much needed cross breeze.

After a full day, we headed back for a well-deserved happy hour by the pool. The only downside of having the super since private pool and patio overlooking the beach is that it probably tempted us away from getting an extra massage or two while we were there. 60 minute full body massages are about $20 in Bali. Jenny and I could both get an hour long massage and she could tack on a pedicure for less than just a single hour long massage would typically run you in the states. We didn't take advantage of that enough and I blame way-too-convenient private pool and beautiful beach front villa.

That night we had dinner at Le Zat, which was right next door to our villa. It was delicious and home to the best spring rolls in all of Bali. Lynn made a point of personally comparing the spring roles of every restaurant we went to and after careful deliberation, was able to confirm that Le Zat's are the best. I'm sure they'll be receiving their award in the mail any day. On Tuesdays, the restaurant has dancers perform traditional Balinese dances. These include some crazy hand movements that seem like you'd have to dislocate your fingers to be able to pull off. We had a preview of some similar moves during the performance we saw in Ubud, but for this one we were just feet from the stage and could appreciate it more up close.

One of the dancers as Le Zat.

After dinner we headed to bed. Snorkeling was planned for the morning and we needed a good night's sleep!

To be continued...

Bali in a week. Part 1: Flying, driving, paradise, eating, sleeping, adventuring.

Jenny and me at a water temple.

I've already chronicled in detail what flying to Southeast Asia is like in part one of my Vietnam Anthology. Bali is a little bit farther away than Vietnam but it's not Austalia-far. So no big difference. Our route was essentially the same too: Seattle to Taipei, Taipei to Bali, sketchy car ride from the airport to where we were staying. Bali is slightly more organized when it comes to traffic than Vietnam, but not much.

Our ride from the airport to our villa included several stop lights, an invention I'm not sure has yet made it to the Vietnam. And instead of there being about infinity motor-bikes, there were just lots and lots. What the drive to our villa did make me realize (and then later drives around the island further emphasized) was that the interstate freeway system that we have in the United States is the greatest, most underrated invention ever. From now on, instead of saying something is "the greatest thing since sliced bread" I'm going to say it's "the greatest thing since the interstate freeway system". Which makes way more sense. Sliced bread is ridiculously overrated. If you have un-sliced bread and want to make sliced bread, all you need is a knife and 45-50 seconds of free time. If you have the cluster-eff of Southeast Asian roads from city to city and want to make an interstate freeway system, you need divine intervention. If you replaced I-5 with whatever three dozen set of roads you need to get a similar distance in Bali or Vietnam, it would take you a day and a half. And that's if you miraculously avoid a head-on collision because the roads are only a lane and a half wide. Seriously.

It does prove that Americans are terrible drivers though. We're spoiled by lanes wide enough for our cars and unique guiding principles known as "traffic laws". Bali doesn't have these things. It's like the Wild West. At one point we passed a car with a twelve year-old driving. When I was twelve, I could barely be trusted to tie my own shoes let alone drive an automobile.

Despite the lack of a sophisticated highway infrastructure, we did eventual arrive safe and sound at our villa to meet up with Mike, Lynn, Mandy, and Josh. The place was amazing. A spacious kitchen and living room, opening up to a private pool and patio that overlooked the beach. Truly the stuff of paradise. Oh, and showers. Those are pretty critical after a billion hour plane ride.

View from our villa. Not fake.

We showered off, enjoyed a nice happy hour in our paradise villa and then had dinner in town. Candidasa, where we were staying, is a small, relatively quite town and there were plenty of restaurants within walking distance of our villa. We'd learn later that they could be a bit hit or miss, but the first night was a hit. Either that, or we were so sick of airplane food that anything else would've tasted delicious.

After dinner we crashed. I may have even fallen asleep during the walk home. Flying economy class on international flights makes you appreciate beds. Not that I have any experience with the rich-and-the-famous-classes, but economy sucks for trying to sleep. So after dinner we were ready to lie flat and truly sleep for the first time in a whole bunch of hours that I don't really want to add up because it will hurt my soul.

We had a relaxing start to the day the next morning. Breakfast was made fresh for us whenever we got up and we enjoyed in on the super awesome patio overlooking the water as waves crashed on the beach. Paradise, right?

Fueled up and ready to go, we called our driver and headed out to tour some water temples and try some poop-coffee.

I'll explain poop-coffee first. Luaks are a cute-ish mix between a minx, a rat, and a kuala. They eat coffee beans, which I think might actually be called berries at the time that they eat them, and then poop them out. Their digestive juices do something that allegedly improves the coffee beans. Low man on the poop-coffee-operation totem pole then digs through the Luak poop to find the magic beans. They clean them off and then roast them like any non-previously digested coffee beans. We decided to see what all the fuss was about and go to a coffee-tasting.

The poop-coffee staff strategically pairs the poop-coffee with what they call "bali coffee". Bali coffee is super crappy instant coffee that doesn't ever dissolve all the way and kind of tastes like brown water with mud in the bottom. It's terrible. By comparison, the Luak coffee was spectacular. I think it really was good on it's own too. The tasting also included an assortment of sweetened coffee and teas that were pretty meh. I'm maybe a bad judge for that though because I generally don't like anything sweet. Or fun. Or Christmas.

Coffee tasting

After the coffee tasting we headed to a couple water temples. The water temples are exactly what they sound like. Temples surrounded by water, sort of like in Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Pretty pretty, Vishnu would be pleased. I'll save most of my temple talk until a later entry when we visited the biggest one in Bali, but here's a picture Jenny took at one of the water temples. It's even more impressive if you know how typically blurry and unfocused her camera usually is.

A water temple

To be continued...