…..and made for a nice break from Jakarta for the weekend. I checked out of the hotel at 4:30 am on Saturday, caught a taxi to the airport, and flew to Bali arriving around 10:30 am. When I arrived at the Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, the Bali prepaid hotel pickup service didn’t meet me so I caught a taxi.
The hotel is in an area south of the main city in an area called Nusa Dua—basically a huge resort designed around a golf course and facing the beach with the Indian Ocean. Since I arrived early, I checked my backpack and walked around the area for a couple of hours until my room was ready. The gardens and swimming pool were fantastic and the surrounding areas were all designed with the old Hindu “temple” motif—very effective yet very Disneyesque.
There are a lot of Australians here right now. It’s approaching the middle of their winter and Bali is only commuter-flight distance from Darwin so Bali is essential the American equivalent of Cancun.
When I did check in, I questioned the prepaid charge for the hotel shuttle and they gave me an upgrade to a deluxe suite for the inconvenience. Too bad I’m here for just one night since this is basically a two-bedroom suite with a kitchenette and not one, but two, outdoor balconies facing the pool area.
Amazingly, I couldn’t find a tour for Sunday. Later, I saw that the mountain roads are so narrow and winding that buses really aren’t used that much—most touring is by private vehicle. I approached the concierge about arranging a private tour and he did one of those “don’t tell the front desk, but I’ve got a buddy who’ll give you a really good deal for just $90.” I wasn’t comfortable with it but signed up tentatively then took a walk and ended up in a small town outside the gates of the resort. It was a typical tourist village—lots of crafts shops and night clubs catering to tourists. I happened across an Australian couple and asked them if they had any luck with private tours and they gave me a business card of a guy they had used the day before so when I got back to the hotel, I called him and got the same tour for half the price the concierge.
The Sunday tour arranged, I settled in and went to the beach area. Again, it was very much like Cancun—white sand, blue skies and absolutely beautiful blue/green water. I had brought an aerosol sun block with me to Indonesia but was just traveling to Bali with a backpack and knew they wouldn’t let me carry in on board so I left it behind and this was the kind of place to get really burned badly so I played it conservatively. I swam a little, walked the beach taking pictures, and spent some time just unlaxing . Surprisingly, I had arrived before the beach crowd and the area reserved for my hotel was almost isolated.
While there, I ordered a pizza and ate at the main cabana and this was my view from the table. 
I caught the shuttle back to the hotel and just spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy. Frankly, the hotel was really nice, but it was a family-oriented place and most of the facilities were geared for families and children—playgrounds and stuff—and even the pool was overrun by kids. I did the “supper by the beach” thing then retired for the night and slept really well.Next morning I slept in, ate breakfast, checked out and met my “personal tour” guide. He spoke fair English, had a nice clean Toyota car, and turned out to be a pretty good guide.
We headed basically north from the airport city of Denpasar and wound our way through a series of villages all specializing in crafts of some sort—silversmith, wood carving, stone carving, jewelry, etc.). If you’ve ever done “day tours,” you know they always run you by some preferred craft places and the vendors really pressure you to buy something. This really wasn’t that bad—I checked out the silversmith place in a village named Celuk and while the jewelry was beautiful and the demonstrations were interesting, and I didn’t buy anything.
I did, however, spend some time in the wood carving market and made a couple of purchases at a village named Mas. 
From here, we started climbing up the mountain and the weather started turning uglier. We stopped at one point and I took some pictures of some layered rice fields carved into the side of the mountain. This is one vestige of the so-called “green revolution” of the 1960s when scientists developed new strains of rice that were going to eliminate world hunger. Texas A&M was in the forefront of the research and development and they did succeed in developing some strains of rice that were resistant to disease and that would grow in areas previously inaccessible. The only problem was that the rice produced did not stick together and Asians love “sticky” rice. It’s the only way they can eat it with chopsticks. Anyway, the local university here is still working on the project and they have succeeded in a method of growing rice fields on the side of the mountain on terraces.
At this point on the trip, the weather was turning ugly. We started getting heavy rain and fog was beginning to reduce visibility. We drove up toward the Kintamani volcano and Lake Batu but the cloud cover and fog made seeing anything basically impossible.
We did stop for lunch at a nice restaurant with an outside terrace facing the volcano but you can see in the picture that at this point visibility was at zero.
Although Indonesia is the most-populated Muslim country in the world, the southern island of Bali has maintained its Hindu roots and this was my first exposure to a truly Hindu culture. Temples are everywhere—every home has a temple inside and small temples are located seemingly on every street corner. While there seems to be free practice of religion on Bali, it has not been without problems—several years ago, Al Qaeda committed the Bali nightclub bombings that killed over 200 Australians.
Near Kintamani volcano today, however, all was peaceful except the weather and we visited the Bangli Temple in the pouring rain. As a visitor, I had to rent a sari, headscarf and silk belt which made me feel like an idiot, but it got me in the front door.
Continuing back south, the weather cleared almost immediately but that’s the nature of mountains—I had the same thing happen to me on a volcano tour in Nicaragua once. We stopped at the village of Sangeh and visited the Pura Bukit Sari which I found really interesting. This temple is also very old, but it is located in the heart of the sacred monkey forest and this temple is literally buried under a jungle canopy and inhabited by literally hundreds of monkeys.
Despite numerous signs not to feed or touch the monkeys, somebody always has to try to be the Animal Planet expert and this time is was an Australian girl who gave one some food only to have it jump on her back. Now, having violated all the rules, she goes screaming down the sidewalk yelling for help. More fun than a barrel of monkeys.....
After that, we drove back to Denpasar and the airport and I caught a flight back to Jakarta. Bali was interesting but compared to other overnight trips I’ve made to places like Luxor, Xian and Cambodia, it was probably the least interesting and maybe the most expensive. I don’t know if I’d do it again but I’m certainly not sorry I did this trip—it’s another destination on the never-ending road that I’ve been privileged to stop at……
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