Our Trip
We visited Bali during Chinese New Year in February of 2010. We’d heard a lot about this beautiful island and were expecting a nice beach trip but were surprised at the culture, adventure and great food Bali had to offer
We flew straight from Shanghai into Denpasar the capital of Bali. From the airport it is about an hour drive to Ubud, but the drive is filled with culture and if you have a good driver he/she will fill you in along the way. Our driver gave us a crash course on Hinduism. The drive was filled with huge stone statues of Hindu Gods and temples everywhere.
On our way to the hotel we stopped off at the Indus for dinner. This is a beautiful restaurant overlooking Mt. Agung , the tallest and holiest site in Bali. It’s an active volcano that last erupted in 1963. Anyway it’s gorgeous. This was our first experience with Balinese culture not only tasting the fantastic food but experiencing the Balinese belief of coexistence with humans and nature. All the places we ate were all outdoors even though it was really hot! They used a lot of ceiling fans and since they don’t believe in killing bugs we got to know the mosquitoes very well. While eating in this very nice restaurant we saw a huge rat scamper across the glass ceiling. Once I explained how the Balinese considered all animals their friends, the rat became just another part of the meal. Sophie often asked “how’s the rat doing?” as it was not big deal.
After dinner we arrived at the Alum Indah (means beautiful nature) our hotel for the next three nights. We stayed in this amazing villa (Rambutan Suite) where the outdoors really did blend with the indoors. We had no air-conditioning, no screens on the windows, literally an outdoor shower, and plenty of places for our “friends” the geckos, spiders, mosquitoes and other animals to roam freely in our living space. Sophie was so freaked out the first night she slept on a pillow on the floor because she found a little bug in her bed. We still can’t figure that one out; you’d think it’s safer in bed! The décor was beautiful with Balinese furnishings and two huge decks to spend relaxing time outside. I took a bottle of wine and had a great time on the decks enjoying all the nature.
Speaking of nature, our villa happened to be located right outside Sacred Monkey Forest which is a Hindu Temple forest filled with over 340 long-tailed macaques. The monkeys are believed to protect the temple from evil spirits and are therefore sacred. They are also free to roam the town and rice fields as they wish. We saw monkeys everywhere!!
Downtown Ubud is within walking distance of Monkey Forest and very close to our villa. The Balinese art, silver (great jewelry), wood carving, textiles and stone available in quaint shops within Ubud make for a shopper’s paradise. I loved the shopping and would have loved to spend more time just walking around town experiencing the amazing food and culture. But Scott and the kids had other things in mind.
In every trip there must be adventure, at least for my family. We started out on a two hour white water rafting trip on the beautiful Ayung River navigating through 27 class II and III rapids through towering gorges, rice terraces and untouched rainforests. This is something you really need to do while in Bali. Our guide was an expert taking us under waterfalls (to Sophie’s chagrin), through the rapids and finally letting us swim the last part of the ride. Sean loved it and Sophie (our girly girl); well let’s just say I haven’t given up on her yet…
Included with our trip to Ubud was visiting a few temples and rice terraces as well as Mt. Batur another active volcano in Bali. We were a little disappointed with this though because you can’t actually go up the volcano because it is too hot! We were told we could only get close to it at 2:00am when it is at its coolest. And, we found this out after a touristy not-so-good lunch overlooking the volcano at a cloudy time of the day.
Fun Facts &Tips
Bali (an island in Indonesia) has a population of 3.5 million people and the capital is Denpasar which is where the airport is located. Make sure to bring USD for Visa upon arriving in Bali. It’s $10 for a seven day visa and $25 for over seven days (up to a month). Also, be prepared for the long lines to pay the fee at the airport. Also, on the same note, remember to set aside Rp. 150,000 (local currency) per person for departing tax when you leave Bali.
English is widely spoken which was a nice change. We loved talking to the locals about their customs and their families. The Balinese people are extremely friendly; they love to talk about their country and culture.
90% of Balinese are Hindu which explained all the temples scattered throughout the country. Each city has a family temple, and temples in the North, Middle and South of town. They also have temples in lakes, rivers, rice patties wherever they need good fortune. The Balinese pray up to 3 times a day and give offerings to the Gods consisting of fruit and baskets made out of banana leaves with flowers in them. They dress the gods (stone statues) up in colored skirts (I’m sure there is a better term for this) to show balance and purity depending on the colors they adorn.
Every year they celebrate Western New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year’s and the Muslim New Year’s. But the biggest is the Hindu New Year’s Day with is considered the “Day of Silence” and falls sometime in March. It is on this day that Bali closes its doors and all the people stay indoors refraining from food, talking and sex. BTW, sex is a huge deal in Bali, it was depicted everywhere in the form of penis key chains and statues as well as large breasts on female statues located everywhere. Sophie was appalled and kept covering my eyes for me.
The airports, hotels, beaches restaurants and all public facilities are closed on this day. Tourist should respect the people and stay inside their hotel as there is really nothing else they can do. My advice is to make sure you’re not in Bali on this day. I can’t imagine having to spend the entire day and night inside while on vacation.
New Year’s Eve is the only time cock fighting is legal in Bali. They spend at least 2 months before hand training the cocks to fight then on New Year’s Eve they take them out to the street corners and their blood is said to scare away the evil spirits for the year. Very interesting…
Don’t miss the Balinese dance performances. There are four major performances; our kids loved the Kecak performance which we combined with a dinner buffet.
The Balinese people basically have only four names depending on their birth order. They are Wayan or Putu (first child), Made or Kadek (second child), Nyoman or Komang (third child) and Ketut (fourth child). After that it starts over. I like this custom, it’s much easier to remember names.
Welcome to Bali, Indonesia
Our villa in Ubud.
Bali has an Elephant Safari Park built for rescue Elephants from Sumatra that are in danger from deforestation. These elephants come to Bali with their mahouts (driver) that have been training with them for years. Our mahout, Andy with his elephant, Mary were like father and daughter. He truly cares about her and is training his son to take his place with Mary when he retires. We’ve been on three other elephant treks and we’ve never experienced the bond between mahout and elephant as we did in Bali. After our experience, I have a whole new level of respect for these wonderful, intelligent creatures.
On our third night we were off to Nusa Dua for beach time in Bali. We checked into the Grand Hyatt after going through major security, and were pleasantly surprised to find out we’d been upgraded to an ocean view family suite. Ok, first of all, this never happens to us and secondly just our bathroom was as big as our kitchen in Shanghai. It made for a nice retreat from the really, really hot sun on the beach. Although the hotel is first class gorgeous, we definitely paid for it. Our lunches consisting of two hot dogs, salad and sandwich with tea/water usually ran around $100 USD. Very expensive!! There are also places to eat outside the restaurant which we took advantage of for dinner.
Grand Hyatt pool and beach.
Nusa Dua was all about relaxing by the one of five pools and enjoying the kids slide and the beach. And, of course our room! But, it was so hot and the pools felt like hot tubs, I think 3 days was plenty of time to spend there. At a place like Nusa Dua and the Grand Hyatt you are not going to get a lot of culture, but this is why I was glad we’d gone to Ubud for the first half of our trip.
Check out the photo album.