The Resort Bali

Fisherman at sunrise over Sanur Beach in Bali
Only one of us saw this

This is the Bali you imagine

Sunrise

Pool waterfall

The Hyatt Resort on Sanur Beach in Bali looks just like what you always pictured Bali to be.  The grounds were manicured lushness.  Two pools overlooked the sandy beach.  Deck chairs and umbrellas were lined up along the shore for us.  Local fishing boats bobbed on their tethers just offshore.  Best of all, everyday, that sun shone.  Sanur beach is much quieter and less touristy than Kuta and it was an easy walk along the beachfront, or into the shopping zone.  No one approached us to sell us anything.

Hotel gardens

Where is my beverage boy?

Sun, sand, surf, Kindle (missing the beverage boy)

Beverage boy out snorkeling

Our favourite pool

We opted for the club room-this is such a great deal because breakfast and happy hour (beverages and snacks) are included.  During happy hour on our first night we met two couples, one from California and the other from Ottawa but working for our Federal Government in India.  We had a great time together and closed out the club room two nights in a row.

One glass too many?

Breakfast

Monitor lizard-he was in the water beside our breakfast table

Live entertainment

Bali is an expensive island.  There is an entry visa charge of $40 cdn per person to enter the island and another $17 per person to get off it.  Plus the 21% tax on everything.  It was time to move on and we thought Phuket, back in Thailand would be a good destination.  We didn't have a way to get there or a hotel once we arrived but Air Asia had a good website.  We jumped online and booked a flight ($115) and found a good hotel.  Air Asia offers mystery hotels-these are 5 star properties at 3 star rates but they don't tell you the exact location until you book and pay.  We signed up for one at Kata Beach in Phuket.  We reasoned that we don't know enough about the area to make a solid choice about a hotel so why not take a chance?  Al said he can book a bad hotel on his own, and at least this way if the hotel is bad he can blame Air Asia. 

Our 3 1/2 hour flight to Phuket was uneventful-which is how we like it.  However, the downside of every airport seems to be the airport taxi procedure.  There is none.  Scams abound, right in front of security and police officials. 
Taxis are often not metered, and you must haggle with the driver for an amount and a distance you're not sure of, at a time when your wits are slow.  You've just landed after a flight, you're tired, hungry, hot, and your math conversion skills on the local currency are not sharp.  For example, a taxi in Bali cost 300 000 rupiahs.  That sounds astronomical.  In Thailand, it costs 500 baht for a taxi.  Still sounds high.  The rupiahs exchange at 100 000 equals $1.14 and 100 baht equals $3.40.  Lots to comprehend as you exit an airport, lugging your baggage and being verbally propositioned by a throng of taxi drivers. 
In Phuket's airport there was a mini bus kiosk with prices listed for various destinations.  Luckily, we saw that on our way to find a metered taxi.  The cost for us to take a mini bus would be 180 baht per person.  Immediately upon us leaving the relative security of the airport, a taxi driver held up a laminated chart of his prices. He charged 1 800 baht per person.  Ten times the amount.  He was counting on us travellers not realizing that he had added a zero.
Despite the fact that there was a sign saying, "metered taxi", they didn't exist.  Taxi drivers wanted 500 baht to take us to the hotel.  We opted for the mini bus.  These vans wait until they are full and then they leave.  You get to see all the other hotels where the other people are staying.  Our hotel was the last drop off.  Our hotel was also the best of the bus.
 

Local Balinese man fishing off the beach

Local fishing boats along the beach

The Real Bali Tour

Our tour started out with a visit to a traditional Balinese dance theatre.  Balinese theatre and dance are intimately linked. Indeed Balinese use the same word - sesolahan - for both. Until the conquest of Bali in the early twentieth century and the arrival of Europeans, almost all performance was dramatical, often involving a combination of dance, singing and acting that went on all night, and drawing upon a vast literary canon which included Indian and Indonesian epics and stories from elsewhere.

The house band

Thai people are mostly Buddhist, Malaysian people are Muslim and Balinese are predominantly Hindu.  Hindu temples are everywhere, and we aren't being facetious.  Temples are on street corners, and along the side of the road; people build huge temples in front of their homes, and there are community temples for big gatherings.  Hindus believe that there are Gods everywhere, and the Hindus provide offerings to the multitudes of Gods.  We first saw these little offering packets in the airport, as we were buying our entry visa ($40) to get in to the country.  They are little palm leaf trays which contain small bits of coffee, rice, a cookie or cracker, flowers and sometimes incense.  They look festive, until a car runs over them.  Then, they just look like garbage. 



Offering, in view of our breakfast table



Community Hindu temple-dates from 942.  Everybody had to wear a sarong.

We had only seen the tourist area of Kuta and we wanted to get some understanding of the real Bali.  We asked our waiter if he knew someone who would drive us around and he set us up with his buddy, Norman.  Norman took us off the tourist trail and we saw the real deal here. 

Bali is not industrialized at all.  The factories are located in Jakarta, on the Indonesian island of Java.  Yet, Bali produces a wide range of handicrafts, which are all made by hand in home industries by families.  Often, a community will be dedicated to one type of product.  There are specific areas for stone carvers, and for batik (cloth dying), wood carvers, and for silver and goldsmiths.  The raw material is brought to Bali for the workers because Bali doesn't produce all the necessary natural resources.



Cottage woodworking industry



Wood carvers-learning from the master

Wood carving shop



Stone worker carving by hand





Stone carvers yard



The tax rate is exceptionally high here (and that's coming from Ontarians!) at 21%.  That's broken down into 11% government and 10% service charge.  Yet the education system is only funded to the end of the elementary level.  High school and beyond must be paid by the user, so only the people who can afford it get to go.  Rural people seldom go to high school, and their only option is to continue to work in the family craft business, at low wages. 

Rice is the staple here and it produces 3 crops per year.  It is very labour intensive since it is planted one rice plant at a time, and harvested by hand.  Then, the rice grains are laid out on a plastic sheet to dry.  Finally, the grains are bagged and walked to the processing area, usually on someones head.

Rice stalk, grains are harvested by hand.  Rice field in the background.

Terraced rice paddies





Women taking harvested rice to the processing area

Rice drying in the sun

Roadside fruit stand

Bali has a volcano, which is still considered an active volcano.  It last erupted in 1963.  It's most recent tragedy was in March, 2011, when a tourist hiked to the summit, tried to look into the crater, lost his footing and fell into it.  He died.  We only saw it from a distance.  It wasn't erupting.  The adjacent lake is the primary water source for farmers on the island.  The rice paddies, coffee and cocoa farmers use it for irrigation.

Lunch beside the volcano.  No glass on that window.

We had the most fun when we toured the Sacred Monkey Forest of Padangtegal in Ubud.  The Balinese Macques monkeys roam freely in this park.   It houses approximately 340 monkeys.  There are four groups of monkeys each occupying different territories in the park. Overall, they aren't large monkeys.  The fully grown ones are about the size of a standard house cat.  We did see a few larger males, and we saw many, very tiny, young monkeys.

Sometimes the monkeys are scary

Grooming loved ones.  Has a side benefit that they eat what they find. 

Mother and baby

On our way back to the hotel we drove past Sanur beach.  It was pretty and we've decided to relocate there.  We're booked onto the Hyatt for two nights.  Then, we fly to Phuket, Thailand on May 29th.

Kim and her new friend

Kuta Beach, Bali

Kuta Beach, Bali

We are staying at the Ramayana Resort in Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali.  This resort is an oasis of calm and tranquility in the middle of tourist chaos. 
The hotel has excellent food, and the staff is very courteous.  We've enjoyed the two pools, and one is only steps away from our room.  Plus, the landscaping is gorgeous.  There are orchids, bird of paradise plants, lots of greenery that we don't know the names of and one owl on a perch in the garden.  Yes, it is a real owl. 

Flowering greenery

Then, to step out on to the street is to enter tourist crazy land. 
The Australians come here in droves because flights are under $100 return.  It's only three hours away, the food is tasty and reasonably priced and the climate is perfect (sunny, warm and breezy, without humidity).

We were the only ones in the restaurant for dinner at 6.  Then, we heard a great cheer.
All the Aussies were watching a rugby game on the TV at the poolside bar.  Funny,
there were only 5 people watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs today at 11:30.  Al was one of them.  





Our hotel oasis in the hub of the city

The locals realized that Aussies had money to spend and they want a piece of the spending pie.
We look like Aussies so we are also targets.  From the moment we step on the sidewalk, all the way along, we are accosted by someone.  People want us to look in their shops, they want us to buy a massage, take a tour, rent a scooter, get a haircut.
They start off with a friendly greeting, "Good morning" and when you respond they ask, "Where are you from?" in order to start more of a conversation.  Sometimes, they say, "G'day mate" to us because they lump us in with the Aussies.  Then, they go into their selling mode.  Al, the perpetually friendly guy, is now refusing to return the greeting. He has had enough.  Taxis cruise the streets, beeping their horns at us to get our attention in case we need a cab.  Constant beeping.  We understand that the locals are trying to earn a living, yet it has surpassed annoying.

One of the many cabs prowling the streets, beeping at us.

 

In October, 2002, an Islamic group bombed an nightclub here in Kuta.  It was nasty.  The bombs killed 202 people and injured 240 more.  Osama bin Laden was linked to this terrorism.  Now, because of bin Laden's death, Kuta has increased security.  Guards are everywhere.  Our hotel has two at the door and one patrolling the gardens near our room.

Security guard is on the right; guy on the left, in the mask, is the drink waiter.  Both scary.

 We watched a security guard check the undercarriage of a delivery truck coming into our hotel using a convex mirror attached to a long handle.

Hot and steamy KL

Kuala Lumpur is hot and humid.  Always.  To go outside of air conditioning is to sweat.  Profusely.  Yet the people who live here wear long sleeved shirts and suit jackets.  And they don't look uncomfortable at all. 

KL is a mix of three different cultures: Chinese, Indian and Malay and it is predominately a Muslim country. 

At one of the malls-note the other shoppers

We've seen Muslim women in varying degrees of coverage-bright head scarves, bland head scarves, fully covered in long dresses and the full-out black burka with only a slit for the eyes. 

Burka-with clothes on underneath
despite the heat outside

 These women are not only covered from head to toe but they wear their regular clothes underneath it all-and they walk around this steam bath of a city.  We have no idea how they do it without turning into a big sweat drop, because that's what happened to us in our minimalist shorts and t-shirts. 



Asian squat toilet
a challenge to use



Another puzzle is how these strict Muslim women use the Asian squat toilet.  There is no seat to perch on, yet they have about 10 metres of fabric to hold up off the floor (which is wet, oh yuck) plus their regular clothes on underneath that they have to keep out of the way and off the floor. No idea how they work that one. 

KL is a new city, younger than Stratford, and growing very fast.  Built on the jungle, and situated where tin mines used to be worked, it is now one of the wealthiest cities in South East Asia, second only to Singapore.  The downtown core has a plethora of highrises and malls and tons of people yet it is very clean here. 
Our flight out of KL was delayed because they only had one runway for inbound and outbound planes.   We flew Malaysia Air and they were much better than Air Asia.  At least Malaysia Air fed us (and we didn't have to sneak eat like we did on Air Asia, which didn't allow outside food on it's plane.)
The flight to the Indonesian island of Bali was 3 hours, over beautiful blue water.  We approached the airport over the beach surf-very scenic. 
We heard about a scam that operates at the Bali airport.  Men will approach travellers and take their bags.  Then, these men demand to be paid for carrying the bag.  They charge exorbitant fees and the distance isn't far.  We were prepared.  We weren't going to be taken.

Al turned his ball cap backwards, put on his sunglasses, unbuttoned his shirt and strode through the airport, snarling like an angry Aussie while Kim meekly followed behind.  This worked.  We pulled our own suitcases along and no one approached us.  We hailed a cab and shortly we were pulling up to paradise. 

Dinner overlooking one of the pools

Al enjoying the day



Our room



The water is warm, and the sun is hot

The Ramayana Hotel and Resort is beautiful.  It is very Polynesian in appearance, with lush grounds.  It is located right in the middle of all the action, and we've just started to explore the area.