Bali was to be one of the highlights of this trip. Kathy had visited it twenty years ago and had wanted to go back ever since that time. We often looked at the pictures she had taken and dreamed about how great the photography would be.
Well, dreams often come up against reality and in this case reality was a lot different than our dreams. Now perhaps doing temple and artisan tours aren’t the way one should see Bali. Plenty of people go just for the beaches, clear blue water, and abundant nightlife, but that’s not what we signed up to do.
Once the ship docked, the Hoover’s and us met our private guide Benya, cousin of Bali’s Number One Tour Guide Panji, and off we went toward Ubud to see the famous craft villages and ran smack into Bali’s always moving, somewhat chaotic, crowded, motorbike teaming, two-lane
roads. Along these congested arteries were more stores selling stone carvings, woodcarvings, furniture, art and other sometimes outrageously large objects that seemingly could not possibly all be sold, no matter how many tourists came to this island.
In quick session, we visited a batik factory, a silversmith, a wood carving establishment, a stone works and finally an art gallery. The drill was the each in each: demonstration of how it’s done and then into the gallery. Now don’t get me wrong, all of the places had quality goods and fantastic workmanship, but after a while, it did get repetitious and how does one get a three hundred pound stone Buddha home?
After the craft villages, came the terraced rice patties. Beautiful yes, but instead of vistas of terraced rice patties we were greeted by hundreds of tourist joints selling everything imaginable on both sides of a crowded two lane road. One had to pay a fee to get to the rice patties and was restricted to narrow views sandwiched between various restaurants and full of fellow tourists all trying to get a selfie or the perfect shot. This was not the paradise Kathy remembered. We did manage to get some good shots although Leah hit the bridge of her nose on a steel bar trying to get between shooting locations and had a cut and bruise for a few days.
We survived the rice patty ordeal, had lunch in a quite nice little hotel nestled in all of the tourist havoc of Ubud, braved the Ubud market and headed for the highlight of the day, the Tanah Lot Temple for sunset pictures at this most spectacular set of temples perched on high cliffs overlooking the sea. One is accessible all the time, the other only at low tide. Well it is spectacular, but to get to the views, one has to walk through a few blocks of more tourist shops and eateries. Once there, a cloudbank moved in and sunset shots were out.
We stayed for a while and then climbed back into the van for the 90 minutes drive back to the ship. Hot, sweaty from the humidity, tired from the day’s activities, we laughed all the way back about the days travails. Bali wasn’t the paradise we thought it might be, but little did we know what lay ahead.
Well, dreams often come up against reality and in this case reality was a lot different than our dreams. Now perhaps doing temple and artisan tours aren’t the way one should see Bali. Plenty of people go just for the beaches, clear blue water, and abundant nightlife, but that’s not what we signed up to do.
Once the ship docked, the Hoover’s and us met our private guide Benya, cousin of Bali’s Number One Tour Guide Panji, and off we went toward Ubud to see the famous craft villages and ran smack into Bali’s always moving, somewhat chaotic, crowded, motorbike teaming, two-lane
In quick session, we visited a batik factory, a silversmith, a wood carving establishment, a stone works and finally an art gallery. The drill was the each in each: demonstration of how it’s done and then into the gallery. Now don’t get me wrong, all of the places had quality goods and fantastic workmanship, but after a while, it did get repetitious and how does one get a three hundred pound stone Buddha home?
After the craft villages, came the terraced rice patties. Beautiful yes, but instead of vistas of terraced rice patties we were greeted by hundreds of tourist joints selling everything imaginable on both sides of a crowded two lane road. One had to pay a fee to get to the rice patties and was restricted to narrow views sandwiched between various restaurants and full of fellow tourists all trying to get a selfie or the perfect shot. This was not the paradise Kathy remembered. We did manage to get some good shots although Leah hit the bridge of her nose on a steel bar trying to get between shooting locations and had a cut and bruise for a few days.
We survived the rice patty ordeal, had lunch in a quite nice little hotel nestled in all of the tourist havoc of Ubud, braved the Ubud market and headed for the highlight of the day, the Tanah Lot Temple for sunset pictures at this most spectacular set of temples perched on high cliffs overlooking the sea. One is accessible all the time, the other only at low tide. Well it is spectacular, but to get to the views, one has to walk through a few blocks of more tourist shops and eateries. Once there, a cloudbank moved in and sunset shots were out.
We stayed for a while and then climbed back into the van for the 90 minutes drive back to the ship. Hot, sweaty from the humidity, tired from the day’s activities, we laughed all the way back about the days travails. Bali wasn’t the paradise we thought it might be, but little did we know what lay ahead.
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