Beautiful Bali

Totally different sights sailing into Bali, a much more crowded island than Lombok, and yet it still felt relatively peaceful.  That was probably due to the kindness of everyone we met. 

We sailed into port in Benoa, the largest port on the island, where there was a modern and efficient terminal.

There were Balinese dancers and drummers there to welcome us as we walked off the ship.  For a dollar or two you could take a picture with these lovelies.

And what better time to take a selfie as well!

Scooters were everywhere on the island, packs of them stopped at every traffic light.  We saw many with helmets but others without, three or four people on one scooter, one lady riding along with about ten one gallon propane tanks attached everywhere, and 

my personal favorite, this enterprising guy who carried his food stall along with him wherever he went.  We went by too quickly to determine exactly what he had there.

Our first stop was a batik shop where they showed us how the cloth went from having a pencil drawing sketched on it to the finished piece of cloth.  It's a much longer process than I realized.  Here's the short version of the eight step process:

            1) Make the design on white material by copying an original design

            2) Cover the design with wax (klowong) on both sides, including ornamentation and small dots, cover special parts of the design to get the second and third colors

            3) Dye the first color

            4) Scrape off some of the wax to get the second color

            5) Cover some parts of the designs where there are dots

            6) Dye the second color

            7) Remove all the wax by putting the material in boiling water

            8) Wash off the material and let it dry in the shade

Traditional Batik colors in Bali are blue, brown and light yellow, symbols of life.

Near the sketcher was this lady weaving on this hand loom using the variegated thread to create her pattern.  It takes all day to do one meter of cloth.

Of course after watching the demonstrations you were welcomed into the shop where there was everything from shirts and dresses, to magnets and headbands in batik patterns.  No close up photos were allowed as they didn't want anyone stealing their patterns.  Who knew batik was a cutthroat buisness?

It wasn't surprising to see elephant statues and those of Ganesh throughout this predominantly Hindu island.  

We saw several of these pretty rock walls in our travels, as well as

dragons here and there.

Bali is a deeply religious island with these offering spaces at almost every home and business.  Decorating them with the black and white fabric is a traditional thing to do, although our guide couldn't explain exactly why.

We also saw these long poles with offerings hung from them all over the island in front of homes and businesses.  Some were very simple like the one on the left and other more elaborately woven like the one on the right.  These are a decoration for the Balinese New Year which begins in March.  We were lucky to get to see these decorations as they were only going to be up for a few more days.

Our next craft we learned about was wood carving.  They make the pieces out of various types of wood including mahogany and the more expensive ebony.  I have no idea why I didn't take any pictures inside the shop, too busy looking around to think about it I guess.  This fellow had different types of chisels there that he would use, then they sand and stain the piece, then seal it with a petroleum based product to keep the bugs away.  We ended up buying a mahogany disc carving of the tree of life to add to our collection, although Karl did ask about the $6,000 lions inside as well.

Just a couple more photos of the small offering spots, inside were usually flowers or fruits.

This was probably the weirdest stop on our tour, Satria, where they make Luwak Coffee.

Now you may be wondering what these coffee berries and this Asian Palm Civet, that looks like a sleeping cat, have to do with one another.  Well, you're about to find out.

These civets like eating the coffee berries but they can't digest them very well so the small pods come out later from you know where in clumps like these.  Yep, you can see the direction I'm heading, Luwak coffee is made from civet poop.  Apparently the digestive juices of the cat flavor the beans somehow as they traverse the system and once the "waste" is collected it's washed, the softened husks are removed and then you have the coffee beans there on the right.

Once those are dried and ready then they are roasted here at Satria by a cute lady like this one until they are this dark brown color.

After roasting they are ground in a pestle like this one by a long pole until you have what becomes an instant coffee, sort of, as you will see later.  As you can see this entire process is completely organic!

Here you have it, a steaming hot cup of luwak coffee, don't stir it though, I guess if you want to add sugar or milk you just have to hope it dissolves quickly or mixes in as you pour.

And here you see why not to stir, the brown sludge at the bottom of the cup, it looked pretty gooey.

We, of course, did not partake of this Balinese beverage but several of our friends did.  Cecilia only took a sip and didn't like it, Ian and Lori thought it was pretty good, Steve, on the upper right said he'd stick to his Folgers instant.  None of them liked it enough to purchase any to take home.  They did like the coconut coffee  however.

Now lest you think we totally missed out at this stop let me assure you that Karl enjoyed some hot chocolate.  It was pretty good but I much preferred the herbal teas and surprisingly enough so did the man who doesn't like herbal tea.

They brought samples of all of these coffee and tea flavors to share among three or four of us.  We shared with Cecilia and Ian and we all thought the Mangosteen and Rosella flavors were really good, along with the Lemongrass.  I also liked the Ginger, which had quite a kick to it.  

We ended up spending another million or so rupiahs here for some teas, orange chocolate for our "Chocolate Around the World" taste testing, and a few spices.  I haven't dared open the tea boxes once I realized they are powders rather than leaves.

Enough of the shopping, it was time to get to one of the stars of the day, the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud, a spot which is also famous for yoga, and the book Eat, Pray, Love, and shopping, lots of stores for shopping (which we skipped!).  The monkey forest was an oasis in a commercial epicenter of the island.    The monkeys are believed to be sacred in Balinese Hinduism, they are also guardians of the temples and symbols of harmony between man and nature.

Although not. a monkey, here's one of the happy guardians of the entrance to the forest.

There was interesting stonework through the forest, including this giant stone Komodo Dragon behind Karl.  It's a symbol of beasts that welcome a soul as it enters its first journey of the afterlife.

Amy and Dave posed for me here (you may remember them as Andrea & Diego from the Costa Rica post) at the entrance to the forest itself.  This wall symbolizes the flora and fauna of a vast mountain.

And finally we began to see the monkeys.  This guy took one look and thought, "Oh no, not more tourists!", then comforted himself by sucking on his thumb.

I took soooo many monkey pictures!  I won't put them all up here, just a few of my favorites.  Oh, and an explanation of these statues in the collage is in order.  A sign at the entrance to the forest explained that they are "giving blessings of fertility to the world....By abundant milk of life and beautiful smile it will guarantee the result of the harvest."  A lovely sentiment.

This one looked like he might be up to something.

A chillaxin' monkey selfie.

The scary stone statues were throughout the  forest.  I'm not quite sure what they were supposed to represent but they were pretty cool.

I will be the first to admit the baby monkeys were my favorites, especially this tiny one clinging to its mother.

This was probably the most interesting tree I came across in the forest, I'd never seen anything like it before.  Apparently it's a Clustertree and the fruit is edible, something like a fig.

I just loved this tree because it looked so ancient and exotic.

Can you pick out the bats clustered on the roof of this underground walkway?

Thought I'd throw in a few photos of some of the shops and street scenes in Ubud.

So many of the roofs on buildings looked like the one on the left., again, the ubiquitous scooters on the right.

There were some really lovely dream catchers for sale at this shop.  I had to wonder how they would ever be able to untangle these power lines on the right if there was an outage!

We saw many of these huge Hindu statues throughout our driving around the island.

If you didn't understand how BIG luwak coffee is in Bali, take note of this statue of one of the Palm Civets.

These gorgeous terraced rice paddies are one of the most photographed places in Bali and it's easy to understand why.  They are such a unique place, along with being peaceful and beautiful.

And they're not just a photo op, they are still being worked today.

I couldn't seem to get enough of these views.

We were lucky enough to stop at an Indonesian restaurant called Green Terrace Warung for our lunch.  Our friends Debbie and Steve Arkley, (Steve is one of Karl's dive buddies) had front row seats, but they also had an ant invasion once their food arrived!

More greens and greenery!

Friends Lori & Dean Heithoff got the front row as well.  Karl and Dean found they had lots of business experience in common and had a great time chatting in the back seat of the van on this excursion.

This one gives me hope for my selfie skills!

As we waited for our lunch we watched these bicyclists making their way across the valley on a wire.  I was really wishing we'd had time for me to take this ride, and I wasn't the only one.  Cue the Wizard of Oz music!

Karl and I both had the same thing for lunch, a mixed satay, skewers of grilled chicken, beef and shrimp with a peanut sauce, rice and vegetables.  We shared this scrumptious order of fried bananas and strawberry ice cream for dessert.  All of it, along with our two cans of Coke, came to a little over $21.

These were the folks who made our lunch.  I went over to thank them for the delicious food and asked if I could take their photo.  They said yes but you can see that most of them were a little shy about it.

This picture was especially appropriate as we both really did love Bali.  It's a place I would be happy to come back to.  

A carved dragon picture just for Lydia who loves dragons.

Many residences had entrances like these that had a walkway inside.  Whether it was for one family or many we couldn't tell.  If it is a family complex it is always inherited by the oldest son, which our guide Putu said made it important that you had a son.

Behind many, many walls we could see the roofs of these small temples, showing once again the faith of the Balinese.

This business was a unique one, birds for sale in the cages below and also in the various birdcages above.

Here we had an alternative to KFC, too bad we didn't have time to try it out!

All three of these men are policemen.  The two on the left are in what's considered the traditional uniform.

More giant statues.

And one last one at the entrance to the port.

Thanks for a great tour Putu!

We were back in plenty of time for our set sail time from Benoa.

And it was farewell to Bali and Indonesia with this glorious sunset.