Singapore Airlines to Singapore

Another lovely morning at the Nusa Dua beach. Very quiet, high tide, some sun, some cloud, around 30c I guess. 

Religion in Bali:  Bali is part of Indonesia which is predominantly a Muslim country. However, for historical reasons (see Google!) Bali is 92% Hindu, 6% Muslim and 2% “other”. Out of town, where there is more room, every house has its own Hindu temple in the garden. In town, where space is limited every house has its own little shrine (see picture) and almost daily, offerings and prayers are made. A very interesting phenomenon occurs in the street where we are living: there is one section for religions — a Hindu temple is next to a mosque, next to a Buddhist pagoda, next to a Roman Catholic church next to a Presbyterian church ! And, they all share a car park. It’s a one stop shop for religion, a bit like Hatton Garden (jewelry) , Saville Row (tailors) , Harley Street (doctors). It is a model of tolerance between the different faiths. 

Out to dinner tonight at the Four Seasons at Jimbaran Beach, where we had dinner on our arrival 11 days ago. They have some spectacular gardens so we are going early and we should also see a nice sunset over the bay – if it’s not raining !

Tomorrow we are flying to Singapore so there probably will not be a posting.

Morning at the beach, high tide. Very quiet. As it is the rainy season the hotels and beaches are very empty. It is the gap between the very popular Christmas holidays and Easter when the the rains will be finishing.  Afternoon at the villa by the pool. A noisy gecko has found his way into our bedroom, he’s good for catching the insects but he makes a funny, very noisy call at irregular intervals.  Not sure if we’ll get any sleep; if it’s very bad we will have to decant into one of the other bedrooms ! 

Today we were taken by our driver Putu to Klungkung which you can see on screen shot map below.  The gray button is the GPS position where we are now — that is, the villa where we are staying. We saw various interesting sights going up the east coast including a temple, a bat cave, a craft village and a palace.  Lots of history all fascinating, Putu is very knowledgeable. 

It rains (warm rain) a lot here at this time of year but usually only for an hour or so and it dries up really quickly. It’s always good to have an umbrella handy, without one you can get totally soaked very quickly.

The currency takes a bit of getting used to. The unit is the Rupiah and there are around 19,000 to the Pound. This means that the 50,000 Rupiah note (see below) is only worth about £2.60.  So, if you go out for a meal you might be frightened to bits when your bill comes to more than a million Rupiah !

Today, our driver Putu, took us about 50 Kms north, to one of the volcanoes in the north of the island. It last had a major eruption in 1964. The weather was quite cloudy/ misty so the visibility was quite poor.  However, the journey up and back was at least as interesting if not more so, than the destination itself. We saw loads of rice paddies, temples, coffee and spice farms and “jungle” type vegetation. The margin for error that the local drivers have is absolutely minimal and, to us, it seems amazing that we have not seen an accident yet.  The drivers (mostly on motor bikes) just seem to create an harmonious flow which somehow works.  No-one is aggressive and they just give a gentle toot if they are overtaking.  We haven’t heard a horn used in anger and and we haven’t seen any violent braking or swerving. 

Today we went to Ubud in the centre of the island. A very trendy, boutiqey kind of town which is also home to the old Royal Palace and a monkey sanctuary. We also visited some of the iconic (World Heritage UN site) terraced rice paddies. As a second posting of today I will try, for the first time, to upload  video of monkeys.

Went to the beach this morning. A local family adopted us for some photos…..

Arrived in Bali by air from Singapore yesterday. As it was a very early start we didn’t do much after our arrival. Our driver (Putu) took us to the villa where we met the housekeeper (Ketut) who is his wife. Also met the compound (10 houses) manager, Buda. All very charming and welcoming. In the evening Putu collected us (we have been strongly recommended not to drive) and delivered us to a restaurant by the sea for dinner.  Although we were very tired, we had a brilliant “sharing” Indonesian meal – spicy but not too spicy, lots of wonderful flavours, ginger, coriander etc. 

We were wakened  this morning at 05.30 by singing and chanting from the temples accompanied by drums and gongs/bells as it is a special Hindu festival. At 08.00 Putu arrived with Ketut and their two children to pray and make offerings at the little shrine in the garden by the pool. They were charming in their national dress. Today we are going to Carrefour  to stock up as we will not be eating out all the time. 

Just pictures today………