There's nothing like a few good cocktails, a wonderful dinner, and a Balinese Folkloric show to prepare one for the next day's adventures. The show was quite colorful, and while gamelan music can be hard on Westerner's ears, it was actually quite enjoyable, for awhile.
Well rested and eager to see what the day would bring, we left the ship and headed out to meet our driver and he had a surprise for us. Instead of the tiny little micro van we were shoeboxed into the day before, we had a spacious, full sized Toyota van for the day. It was going to be a good day.
While Indonesia has the largest population of Muslin's in the world, Bali practices the Hindu religion and there are temples of all shapes and sizes seemingly everywhere. Bali is often called "The Land of a Thousand Temples" and driving around one certainly can believe it. Here's a link for a much better explanation of the types of temples in Bali than I could do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_temple
Our first stop was a large village temple outside of the town of Ubud. It was early and the tourist buses had yet to arrive. Before we could go into the temple, we had to put on sarongs.
Suitably attired we were able to enter. Unlike the colorful temples we experienced in much of India, this one featured more stone carvings and buildings and was not adorned with figures of the many Hindu gods.
Not soon after we arrived, a swarm of large busses appeared and the Temple was overtaken by happy Japanese tourists endlessly posing for pictures, taking selfies, and generally occupying every nook and cranny, making shooting any more pictures pretty difficult unless one wanted happy Japanese tourists in them. Mass tourism is everywhere these days.
Leaving the temple behind, we headed out to visit a traditional Balinese house. It was more like a large compund with many small buildings and it's own private temple area. It was occupied by a multi-generational family, several chickens, cats and dogs. Given the very temperate climate, it epitimized open floor plan living.
The Balinese love to keep birds and this house had several as well as some fighting roosters. While outlawed in the country, rooster fighting is allowed in the tempels. Go figure.
One thing we did learn during out time in Bali was how friendly the people are. There were smiles from everyone and a gentleness and grace we have only experienced in a few other places.
After we visted the house, it was off to the Uluwantu Temple, which just happened to be in the oposite direction from Ubud about an hour away. We stopped for lunch at a satay place along the way and encountered this sign. One wonders why it was in English first.
The Uluwantu Temple is perched 70 Meters high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The site is spectactular, but the temple is actually pretty spartan.
There are monkeys all over the place and they love to steal sunglasses from the visitors. The monkey police then chase them down and offer them candy in exchange for the sunglasses. It's a system that works well for the monkeys as one can tell from the size of this guy.
We left the temple and the monkies behind hoping to visit one of Bali's storied beaches, but it was not to be. A tremendous rainstorm hit and we decieded it was better to head back to the ship, since it was leaving soon and forgo the beach. Little did we know what lay ahead.
Well rested and eager to see what the day would bring, we left the ship and headed out to meet our driver and he had a surprise for us. Instead of the tiny little micro van we were shoeboxed into the day before, we had a spacious, full sized Toyota van for the day. It was going to be a good day.
While Indonesia has the largest population of Muslin's in the world, Bali practices the Hindu religion and there are temples of all shapes and sizes seemingly everywhere. Bali is often called "The Land of a Thousand Temples" and driving around one certainly can believe it. Here's a link for a much better explanation of the types of temples in Bali than I could do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_temple
Our first stop was a large village temple outside of the town of Ubud. It was early and the tourist buses had yet to arrive. Before we could go into the temple, we had to put on sarongs.
Suitably attired we were able to enter. Unlike the colorful temples we experienced in much of India, this one featured more stone carvings and buildings and was not adorned with figures of the many Hindu gods.
Not soon after we arrived, a swarm of large busses appeared and the Temple was overtaken by happy Japanese tourists endlessly posing for pictures, taking selfies, and generally occupying every nook and cranny, making shooting any more pictures pretty difficult unless one wanted happy Japanese tourists in them. Mass tourism is everywhere these days.
Leaving the temple behind, we headed out to visit a traditional Balinese house. It was more like a large compund with many small buildings and it's own private temple area. It was occupied by a multi-generational family, several chickens, cats and dogs. Given the very temperate climate, it epitimized open floor plan living.
One thing we did learn during out time in Bali was how friendly the people are. There were smiles from everyone and a gentleness and grace we have only experienced in a few other places.
After we visted the house, it was off to the Uluwantu Temple, which just happened to be in the oposite direction from Ubud about an hour away. We stopped for lunch at a satay place along the way and encountered this sign. One wonders why it was in English first.
The Uluwantu Temple is perched 70 Meters high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The site is spectactular, but the temple is actually pretty spartan.
There are monkeys all over the place and they love to steal sunglasses from the visitors. The monkey police then chase them down and offer them candy in exchange for the sunglasses. It's a system that works well for the monkeys as one can tell from the size of this guy.
We left the temple and the monkies behind hoping to visit one of Bali's storied beaches, but it was not to be. A tremendous rainstorm hit and we decieded it was better to head back to the ship, since it was leaving soon and forgo the beach. Little did we know what lay ahead.
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