BALI, INDONESIA

Outstanding!  Beautiful!  Hot!  Humid!  Friendly!  Colorful!

Bali is all of these things!  We had a wonderful day in an enchanting place!  Our tour guide was Indonesian, but spoke good English, so we learned more than we needed about Bali, its customs, and its religion.  Sadly, the Hindu religion as practised there provides no hope for the people; they sacrifice every day to their gods, but the gods are not able to provide answers for the hunger of the human heart.

Bali is very tropical--it has beautiful rainforests, attractive farms (particularly the terraced rice paddies) and interesting shops.  We drove to a silver artisan's shop for our first stop.  We saw them making jewelry and then the finished product.  Now we made our way to the 2nd largest Hindu Temple in Bali; it was built in the 12th Century.  It was not at all like one would expect, as it is basically an outdoor place.  Interesting, but sad!


Next the bus climbed a mountain to view an active volcano across the valley.  Today there was no smoke, but it was a pretty sight.  We followed this by going to a traditional village.  There were 76 homes and about 700 residents.  Every home has a Hindu temple on the property.  The children were just coming home from morning classes and were really cute to speak with and photograph.  They are inquisitive; asked Irene how old she was ("a granny", she said).

Finally it was lunch, and it was fabulous!  Indonesian buffet with several choices of foods.  The grounds were exotic, even with a waterfall in the bathroom and fish in the pool!

Our final stop was at a large market where one could buy almost anything.  It was huge.  We were rushed so couldn't really bargain for things.  We did buy a carving and a fan, but from street vendors who were extremely persistent.  We tendered back to the ship, tired, a little bit hungry, but very satisfied.  There was even a rainbow over Dawn Princess as we left Bali in the Catamaran.  Now it's 3 sea days before Freemantle (Perth).

g'day!