Pre-Cruise Stay in Bali

Greetings!

Picking up from the travel post, having arrived at the Ayung Resort Ubud Hotel we learn our reservation was lost, but they are able to give us an open suite. We lost our Princess Suite overlooking the valley, to the Jungle Suite with a similar view (we think!). Our suite is amazing! The living room and dining room is a 12 ft x 25 ft room, leading to a bedroom that is about 18 ft x 20 ft, leading to a bathroom that is about 12 ft x 20 ft!

We wake up early Thursday morning, March 7th, 2024, mostly due to time-change exhaustion rather than having a good night’s sleep. We are dealing with a 13-hour time change, having flown halfway around the world!

Since we arrived at the Ayung Resort Ubud in the middle of the night, we are ready to get a glimpse of the Resort’s setting! Pulling back the curtains, the hotel windows are covered in condensation, and everything is wet from early-morning rains.  Stepping outside to get a view of our surroundings, there is a light mist of the passing rain, and a moderate fog obscures far side of the valley. We get dressed for the day and call the Front Desk for a ride to the restaurant for breakfast. A few minutes later a car is waiting at the top of the walkway to our suite, and in a few steep hill minutes we arrive at the hotel’s restaurant! In front of the hotel’s lobby we pass a golden image of Rodin’s “The Thinker”! It appears to be a knock-off – the face is not quite right – but it’s fun to see! This place is covered with collected artworks that are fabulous!

We have a table on the veranda overlooking the valley – beautiful! The fog rolls away in layers. We see an orange zodiac sliding down a wire to the river below! The building in the next picture is just above the restaurant – our Princess Suite was in this buidling, and our Jungle Suite is several buildings below.  We end up coming here for breakfast every morning!

I told you about Raka in the previous post.   He is our tour guide for the next few days, and he picks us up after breakfast. We head out to see the monkeys in the Sangeh Monkey Forest!

We did not know we would be arriving during the week preceding the Hindu New Year celebration known as Galungan Day, leading to the Hindu New Year, called Nyepi. Visitors are pouring in from the other nearby islands with ferry service, and processions occasionally block the roads every day! What a wonderful treat! Special decorations are everywhere! We see these mostly as tall bamboo poles decorated and hanging over the street, as small offering shrines wrapped in bright yellow fabrics, and “security” statuary and trees wrapped in black and white checkerboard fabric. All three of these are present in some form in front of every business and every home!

We drive north to visit the Sangeh Monkey Forest. There are beautiful statues depicting the story of evil Rahwana kidnapping the Princess Sita, and Hanuman, the king of the monkeys, sending his army to help Prince Rama get her back. Raka accompanied us as we walked thru the park, and a park guide assisted with our encounters with the macaque monkeys. There are over 700 monkeys living in this forest! Wonderful! We first see the temple in the forest.

 

We begin by simply feeding the monkeys with peanuts. We hold our hand flat with a peanut on it and let the monkey take the peaunit out of our hand. We are instructed to “not touch the monkeys!” But it is OK for the monkeys to touch us! If they climb on us we are instructed to bend down so they can jump off. The park guide watches to ensure the bigger monkeys don’t get aggressive and hog the peanuts, shooing them away regularly!

Joy quickly takes a liking to the smallest of the monkeys, and “oohs” and “aahs” over the mothers carrying babies on their bellies. The babies are much darker than the older monkeys!

A yawning monkey reveals how big their fangs are! Oh my!

We first see the statue of Rahwana (a bad guy) being attacked by the monkey army. There is a statue of Rahwana offering a proposal of marriage to the Princess Sita. When she refuses his proposal he kidnaps her. There is a statue of Prince Rama and his brother, trying to decide the next course of action. We then see Hanuman is his raging glory! Rama and Hanuman are friends, so Hanuman agrees to help and sends his army. That takes us back to the first statue of Rahwana being attacked by monkeys! As we exit the park we see the statue of Rama and Sita reunited! This is a great story and a lovely park!

 

Rahwana Proposing to Princess Sita

 

 

 

Raka then takes us to the Jatiluwih Rice Terraces. This is the largest rice producing area on the island, and is a spectacular area to visit! The entire valley is covered with terraced fields and rice in varying stages of growth. Rice is planted and harvested three times each year. Bali grows enough rice to support the people, no export. But they may need to import rice in the future! There are trekking routes through the rice fields. We pass the paddies and descend into the valley – remember, these are terraced fields! – passing many huts that have cows stabled. The cows are beautiful with long ears, moderate horns, and big eyes! They are used to plow the paddies after each harvest. What goes down, must come up! The road to return to the start point is much more gradual than the descent trekking path, so it was not as painful as we feared.

 

 

 

Our next stop is a little coffee shop to taste the local coffee. We learn about the Asian palm civet that eats and passes the coffee beans used to make luwak coffee. No, it’s not anything we want to try!

 

We see the rain coming and decide to stop for lunch to let it pass. Good decision!

After lunch, we visit the Tamah Ayun Temple – the temple of the Royal family. This temple consists of three areas – the outside park, the inside park, and the inside temple area. We get to enter the outside park but can only view the inside areas from a walkway around the temple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Day 2 we go on an early-morning driving tour of Ubud’s main city area while streets are quiet. We drive past the Tamah Ayun Temple and then the nearby Royal Palace. This is an orientation tour, so we don’t stop. Then it is time for us to head to Jambe Budaya to see the Barong & Kris Dance. This is a classical Balinese story and dance performance depicting the struggle of good over evil. It is performed in five acts with a live orchestra! (Honestly, I couldn’t tell one song from another – they all sounded the same.)

 

Afterward, we make our way to a batik factory to see the techniques and products. We saw the expected process of applying wax to protect the fabric from dye, but we also saw a process in which they bundle the thread and wrap the bundles in plastic sleeves to create a pattern.  The plastic sleeves are moved as needed for each color pass. Then the thread is loaded onto a shuttle, and fabric is woven with the pattern already present on the thread!  This is amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop is a silver store where we see their processes for making some of their jewelry. This store specializes in small objects for bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. We watch a lady glueing rings to a stone that will allow them to be soldered into a pendant, but we didn’t see an example of the final product.

We declare it lunch time once again – the rain storms are coming!

After lunch, we visit the Tirta Empul Temple. This is the purification temple with a fascinating process. Raka walks us through every step! We first don sarongs that are provided with the ticket. If we want to participate in the purification rites we need to buy an offering basket, start at the offering station, and say our prayers, then we would be given a green sarong to change to, along with a swimsuit (which we didn’t bring today). Then there is a proper entrance for the candidate to enter. The pool is probably just under 4 ft (just over 1 m) deep. There are multiple sources of water pouring into the pool. The candidate lines up in front of one of the fountains, say their prayers, and let the water rush over their heads to wash away the bad spirits. They can move to another pool that has special fountains for those who have nightmares to release those spirits. Finally, they move to the Tirta Empul fountain to receive the blessings. With only one (two?) final fountain, the line at Tirta Empul is long but a necessary step to complete the purification ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continue to wander through the temple to see the rest of the grounds. We are fascinated watching a woman perform her prayers with jugs of purified water she collected from the purification pools! The priest sits just beyond her ringing his bell at the appropriate times, and she keeps looking to him before she begins the next step of her prayers. It was a very interesting procedure, but she was less than amused at all of the people watching her.

Finally, Day 3 is our checkout day and embarkation of the Oceania Insignia in Benoa port!  We have the morning, and ask Raka to take us to Tanah Lot, a temple on an island on the west coast of Bali. Once again, I am absolutely amazed at his ability to navigate the island without a navigation map!  We even hit a roadblock at a major bridge – another procession! – and had to drive along the river to the next town to find the next bridge. He made it back to the road we needed to be on without a hitch!

Enroute we spend a little time grabbing some photos of the Ogo Ogo – a creature that is built each year for the New Year celebration. On New Year’s Eve, Ogo Ogo is paraded around town and attracts and absorbs all of the bad energy. Then at dusk it is burned to destroy the bad energy. This sets up the clean start of the new year on the Day of Silence!  Here are some of the Ogo Ogos we found! They are designed to scare the children to behave!

 

 

 

 

 

We reach Tanah Lot, and it looks like a starter kit for the next Disneyland! The kiosk for tickets is multiple lanes wide, then we wind through the lot, through a gate, and down to another lot before we can seriously look for a parking spot. Raka drops us off and goes to park. When he rejoins us we follow the signs to Tanah Lot!

 

The water is at high tide, so no one can cross to the temple island. But we have several viewpoints along the waterfront to admire the spectacular setting! A lesser temple greets us on the right, over an arched land bridge. The Tanah Lot temple island is on our left. The Temple itself is mostly obscured by the trees facing the shore, so this is a little disappointing. But we are here, and I have wanted to see this for over two years!

 

 

 

Then it is time to make our way to the port to board our cruise ship. But we decide to have one last lunch with our friend, and he finds a charming restaurant overlooking rice paddies!

A few hours later we catch our first glimpse of our home for the next 65 days!

We get our last and best hazy glimpse of the Garuda Wisnu statue! This status is visible from the airport and the cruise port, and most anywhere on the south side of the mountains! This depicts Lord Vishnu (woth his golden headdress and shoulder trappings) riding the mythical bird Garuda.

 

Throughout our three days, Raka was a fount of knowledge, explaining the week’s Galungan activities leading to the Nyepi New Year’s Day of Silence, the decorations, the offerings, the family temples, the Royal Family, and just about anything else we thought to ask about the island! What a rich cultural experience this was!

We may have been friends before this week, but now we feel like family! We love Raka, and encourage you to check him out if you ever want to visit Bali!  Maybe you’ll feel like family, too!