February 23, 2005
Bali Country Club
Time for another travel adventure story.. It has been 2 weeks since we came from Bali and it feels like eternity, really.. Nothing to remind of the good time we had in there except these pics.. I've been quite busy at work - the end of the semester approaches and we have to start preparing the launch of the new course. So we're going through TGP training (Target Graduate Profile), next week is JAE (Joint Admission Exercise) that is different from JPAE (Joint Polytechnic Admission Exercise) and after that we have DeAE (Design Admission Exercise). So when the students receive their "O" levels results, we have to make sure that they have not failed EL (English Language!!! They have accronym for that too!!!), etc.. I'm slowly getting used to some of the acronyms used in TP (he he), but sometimes I'm completely overwhelmed (or as people here say "blur about everything").
Anyway, coming back to our Bali trip, first of all we went to the Dreamlands beach, the famous surfer paradise. We've been there last year and that time I barely could enter the ocean. The waves were too big, literally wrapping and sucking me in. This time, my "surfing" lessons in Desaru helped me big time (hmm.. maybe the waves were slightly smaller too..). So we spent hours surfing on a bugi-boards and its a whole new experience.. If you have a chance, don't slack on the beach, try surfing! Its great fun!! The nature and the ocean are still allmighty, can't really count how many times I was smashed to the shore, how much sand I collected in my hair and ears, how many times the ocean was twirling me around - left arm here, foot there, bugi-board overthere, bikini elsewhere... I'm a total surfer convert. Don't know if I'll ever be standing on the board, but I was already riding quite huge waves (Kaj said that one time he said "good bye" to me mentaly when he saw me riding one, but I happily emerged and was carried some 20m in this incredible speed..)
Dreamlands is probably one of the most beautiful places on Earth that I have ever been to. The Earth plate just breaks there, there're hundreds, thousands of kilometers of Indian Ocean ahead and you can really feel how the Ocean breathes.. You're completely overwhelmed by the power, the beauty.. ah.. everything...
We stayed at Wayang's place last year too, he has a house on the very edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. (Btw, Balinese people call their first babies Wayang, second Made, etc. Of course, it means the First, the Second, etc. So you usually meet countless Wayangs and Mades on your way in Bali). Time schedule in Dreamlands: wake up in the morning, have breakfast in the balcony, swim the whole day, have dinner under the stary sky and fall sleep soothed by the sound of the ocean.. Last year the sound of the ocean waves was so strong, that we found it difficult to fall asleep. At nights the Dreamlands is quite deserted. There's really not much to do, but surf during the day..
It was nice to come to Bali for the 3rd time (4th for Kaj!). This time it really felt like going to the mökki (trobele). We knew the places and our way around, people remembered us, Wayang, for example, got a baby since the last time we saw him.. It didn't seem weird or exotic, but just plain nice (he he, almost wrote plain rice :). We didn't get a jetlag, didn't fall sick, everything was so wonderfully normal and simple.
It felt the same in Ubud. We stayed in Sania's house again and although it was fully booked, we got a room, because we were "loyal customers". Ubud is supposed to be the "cultural center" of Bali. Although you're constantly reminded that it is just a huge theater staged to lure tourists and their money, there's a lot of magic and feeling of the lost paradise Miyasaki style. So green, humid, lots of carved stone sculptures that immediately grow moss to look as if they're centuries old.
We walked in the rice padis and you can see how green and beautiful it is, no need to explain, right?
However as we wanted to see something new, we hired a car (and a driver, think about it, how colonialist!) and went over the mountains, not the road where all the tourists are usually herded, but the less explored one. Naturally, there was less to explore there.. :)
We still managed to see some interesting and "touristy" stuff, like this temple. Each roof is supposed to symbolize different levels of Heaven. Supposed to be 12, but I can count only 11 for some reason. There are temples with 7 roofs and each time they symbolize something else. However this time we didn't have a talkative "tour-guide" to enlighten us.. The whole island keeps to Hindu religion, but is surrounded by predominantly Islamic islands. Did you know that Indonesia is the largest Muslim country?
We also went to hot springs at the other end of the island.
It was quite a funny experience to swim in some 40C degrees warm water stinking of sulphur (rotten eggs) while it was about 35C degrees outside. It felt good however. Warmth doesn't break the bones (Lithuanians say). Kaj almost drowned as you can see, but we managed to get out of the place alive.. As we were driving in the places less frequented by tourists, we saw completely different face of Bali. Not the "country club" type with 5 star hotels,back-packers, half dressed (half undressed?) bimbos, "tour guides", "drivers", geriatric tourists, but a place where people live, earn their money through honest and hard work and don't really care about the tourists that much..
On the way back we got into a huge cloud covering the mountains and once again it was quite cold. Some 22C degrees, maybe. I'm sure we'll go to Bali again and again. It is such a beautiful and small island. We could send you there too, if you come for a visit to Leijonakaupunki.. :)
Posted by gkligyte at February 23, 2005 06:54 PM