Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Bali trip - Day 2(02/06/2011)

Today we decided to hire a car for whole day trip . The hotels will usually arrange for transport , if not there are many options available outside . Since the main income comes from tourism, every street here will have a small shop which will offer you diff tour packages .

Just keep in mind to compare prices in atleast two shops before deciding the final pick .We wanted to visited Kintamani mountains but it was all the way up in the north so we settled for south bali trip instead.

The first thing we saw was Barong dance. There is an entrance fee of 70000 rp(SGD 12) .And this dance I guess is arranged specially for tourist everday. The stage is small and we were given a pamphlet which describes the theme of the act .


Basically the act is divided into parts and the story is ... Ahh .., even I couldn't get it . But the theme is good versus evil I guess . Even if you follow the storyline, somewhere in between you are sure to loose the track . I wouldn't rate the show very high , it's just designed to give you a glimpse of Balinese culture .

The next stop is Batik center, it's basically a shop which sells batik souvenirs and outside the shop there will be some people who display us actually how the work is done .

It's comparable to kalamkari that can be found in India .I have to say the craftsmanship of Balinese people is admirable .

You can find many shops selling stone carved statues everywhere in Bali .


Our next stop was Bali bird park . The entrance fee is around SGD 30 . Now you cannot compare it with Singapore bird park which is way too huge and has many variety of birds for the same price . But the bird park in here is pretty decent and clean.





We roamed around for one hour and decided to have out lunch here .



The Nasi padang ( Indonesian fried rice ) was the best that I have tasted in Bali.

After lunch we stopped at Taman Ayun Temple.This is the Royal Temple of Mengwi Empire which literally translates as "beautiful garden.The temple is closed for tourist and we heard that the ceremony takes place here only twice a year which can last for few days.


I could not find any god statue in any of the temples that I have seen in Bali.Basically tourists are not allowed inside temples. The only statue that can be found everywhere in bali is something like below

Almost 90% of people here are Hindus. But the Hinduism is bit different here. Being a hindu myself I could not relate to their rituals. The temple constitutes rows of thatched roofs like below . Again this kind of structure is very common in Bali temples .

We then stopped by Monkey forest . The forest is not big but definitely has lots of monkeys , 150 to be precise .

As soon as we entered the gate there were rows of shops ,a lady accompanied us to show the monkeys . When you enter the main garden you will find monkeys everywhere so it's better to be with a local guide , even if you don't have, one of the shopkeepers will guide you .



But these monkeys were surprisingly well behaved ,they seemed more calm than those outrageous monkeys in uluwatu !!!!

We bought some peanuts and the lady helped us give them to the monkeys . Some of them even climb on naveen's shoulders . Even I gave them peanuts and they were very gentle .

Monkey forest is solely created for tourist , it's not their natural habitat . How do I know this ??? Well the lady told us they take care of monkeys and they feed them too ,daily thrice .There is no food available anywhere so it makes sense that monkeys stay here because they get fed and they get fed because tourist visit them . We even got to see the king ,the king is the biggest and you can easily recognize him .Our guide told us that there are two groups if monkeys and they often keep fighting .

After we finished our monkey tour the lady insisted that we visit her shop . She accompanied us to the so called forest so obviously she will expect something from us .

But she was very sweet and we were more then willing to visit her shop . Almost all the shops here sell crafts and wooden carved statues . We took the below statue of ram and Sita . I love the intricate details.

The last stop was very anticipated Tanah Lot temple
Before the temple there are rows and rows of shops . It almost looked like a mini market and the place is crowded , it seems to be favorite among localities and tourist alike .


This is beautiful and heavenly location . The temple formed completely of stones stands proudly on the rocks beside the sea shore . Like all the other temples we visited, this one was also closed .

But the surroundings view is amazing . And ofcourse the best time to come here is during sunset . I dint realize it but almost all the pic I took here turned out to be amazing .











The way back hotel again took quite a long tine because of traffic .

This time around we had dinner at a different place and were surprised to see that the hotel wad playing a movie ... So we watched the movie and finished the dinner by 11 .


1 comment:

Happy.Bark.Days said...

Taman Ayun Temple and Tanah Lot Temple look amazing! More sites to add to my itinerary if ever I am lucky enough to visit Bali again :)

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