Bali - Tari Kecak Uluwatu

Excited on the way to the theatre - see the mass of people already there behind my back...

Kecak originated in the 1930s in Bali but has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance which is considered sacred and shall never be performed to tourists or for entertainment purposes. The most common piece is the Ramayana Monkey Chant, a piece performed by a circle of at least 150 performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and moving their hands and arms. Actors in the scene depict a battle from the Ramayana, where the monkey-like Vanara led by Hanuman helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the same story we see in the walls of Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok.

But if Thai are primarily Buddhists while Balinese are Hinduists, how could this be possible? The answer is that "The Ramayana" is one of the largest ancient epics in world literature. Since it is very old but useful, as it depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king, the Ramayana was an important influence that spread around different countries in Asia. This is how the characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana became fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. As there are many versions of the Ramayana in Indian languages, besides Buddhist and Jain adaptations; and also Cambodian, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Lao, Burmese and Malaysian versions of the tale.

To participate in the Kecak dance, you should buy the tickets as soon as you arrive to the temple (at least 1h before the show) use the time to explore the area and then rush to the scene, so you can grab a good seat to experience the local art in one of its purest forms. While the public is mostly foreign, it feels like a very pure and untouched event within the local culture. A rare experience these days...

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Bali - Pura Luhur Uluwatu

Pura Luhur Uluwatu es un poco el finisterre de Bali. Localizado en la punta suroeste de la isla, en lo alto de un acantilado, forma parte de la cadena de 7 templos en el agua que empieza en Tanah Lot. Aunque sólo los hindúes tienen permitida la entrada, dar un paseo por los alrededores al atardecer y presenciar el espectáculo Kecak en el teatro al aire libre de al lado, es una de los recuerdos más vívidos que te traerás de Bali. Ten cuidado con los monos que habitan por la zona, están muy acostumbrados a los humanos y les encanta robar cosas.

Aunque Uluwatu se construyó en el siglo XI, fue Nirarta - el fundador de Tanah Lot - quien añadió el complejo que vemos hoy en día.

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Bali - Nusa Dua

Visitamos Nusa Dua como primera parada del día, antes de continuar hacia Uluwatu y sus danzas tradicionales. Aparte del Pasifika Museum que contiene obras relacionadas con Polinesia, tanto pinturas como trabajos tallados en madera, creados a lo largo de muchos siglos en localizaciones dispersas por el Pacífico, la zona no merece demasiado la pena. 

Se trata de una trampa turística de lujo, donde resorts inertes se suceden uno tras otro. Lujosas tumbonas vacías frente a una playa en la que no puedes entrar sin patucos a consecuencia de los erizos autóctonos. Si estás planeando un viaje a Bali, te recomiendo evitar esta zona en la que la especulación inmobiliaria ha destrozado el entorno autóctono. 

La cúspide de todo esto es el Benoa Marine Recreation Center, una trampa turística donde masas de chinos hacen cola para probar el parasailing durante 10 excitantes minutos de su vida. Nosotros picamos en visitar turtle island, recordando con nostalgia nuestro tiempo en Hawaii. La realidad fue bastante decepcionante. En lugar de encontrar tortugas relajadas en la arena, nos vimos en medio de una especie de criadero pseudocientífico donde las tortugas estaban metidas en piscinas de chapoteos. 

Ahorra tu dinero e inviértelo en visitar el Norte de la isla - una zona que se nos quedó en el tintero, pero que exploraremos en detalle la próxima vez.

Para fans de la cultura Polinesia, el museo está bastante bien.

Dimos un paseo por la zona de Nusa Dua pero no fue realmente placentero ya que te sentías cual invasor de las playas privadas de los hoteles, que se suceden una tras otra.

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Bali - Surfin' and Shoppin' Kuta style

Enrique demostrando cómo se hace... Jugaba con ventaja tras el cursillo en Cape Town...

El verdor de Bali delata la cantidad de lluvias que riegan la isla con bastante frecuencia. Por eso, aunque visites la isla durante la temporada seca (oficialmente, la temporada de lluvias dura de Octubre a Abril), es bastante probable que te salga algún día lluvioso. Nosotros lo pasamos en la playa de Kuta - una de los surf breaks más largos del mundo, tratando de aprender a hacer surf con una tabla que alquilamos todo el día por unos 5EUR (sin demasiado éxito). Al arreciar la tormenta, nos refugiamos en el centro comercial adyacente llamado Beachwalk donde arrasamos (unas converse de piel, camisetas de quicksilver, un bañador de la marca local 69SLAM y algún polo de Ralph Lauren para Enrique, cositas de TOPSHOP para mí).

La verdad es que 69SLAM nos sorprendió, por lo cool de sus estampados y lo económico de sus precios. Sin duda, una buena opción para un souvenir especial.

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Bali - Echo Beach, Canggu

Our second day in Bali ended with sunset Coconut Mojitos at Echo Beach. Located in Canggu area, Echo beach is a really cool spot where I wished we would have spent some nights. Echo Beach is a surfing mecca, a long strip of sand washed by surf breaks, packed with young people, cheaper hostels and yummy cafés. It felt like Tarifa on the other side of the world really, a place you can't miss. Regardless of whether you are surfing, trying to learn or just a beach bum, Echo beach has less of tourist buzz and more of the real chill.

Sunset drinks at The Lawn, Canggu - it's a simple foodtruck that serves drinks but it does the job rather well...

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Bali - Luwak Coffee

Kopi luwak refers to the coffee that includes part-digested coffee cherries eaten and defecated by the cute Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus).

Producers of the coffee beans argue that the luwaks improve coffee through two mechanisms:

• Selection: If the civet chooses to eat the cherries, it's because they are excellent.
• Digestion: Fermentation occurs in the digestive tract of the luwak where his protease enzymes seep into the beans making shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Beans are collected from there fecal matter.

The origin of kopi luwak is closely connected with the history of coffee production in Indonesia. In the early 18th century the Dutch established the cash-crop coffee plantations in their colony in the Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of Cultuurstelsel (1830–70), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and plantation workers from picking coffee fruits for their own use. But still, the native farmers wanted to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. They observed that certain species of luwak (Asian palm civet) consumed the coffee fruits, but left the coffee seeds undigested in their poo. So the natives collected these luwaks' coffee seed droppings, cleaned, roasted and ground them, to make their own coffee!!

The fame of aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners, becoming their favourite. Because of its rarity and unusual process, civet coffee was expensive even during the colonial era. 

While the coffee industry regards this as a gimmick, it is quite a cool thing to give a shot while visiting Tanah Lot. Experts may say the aroma and body is diminshed by the luwak effect but as a  nescafé drinker, I couldn't really tell any difference, maybe a bit lighter than the powder...

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Bali - Pura Tanah Lot

Tanah Lot means "land in the sea" which is quite accurate for a temple built directly on the rock located, but away from the shoreline. The temple is the work of 16th century architect Dang Hyang Nirartha, who saw the rock during his travels along the south coast of Bali and decided to rest in there. Fishermen saw him and brought some gifts. Nirartha spent the night in the island and told the fishermen to build a shrine in there, as he felt it was the perfect place to worship the Balinese sea gods. The main deity of the temple is Dewa Baruna (sea god) but Nirartha himself is also worshipped there. The temple is one of seven sea temples around the Balinese coast. Each was established within eyesight of the next, to form a chain along the south-western coast, isnt't it cool?

In 1980, the temple's rock face was starting to crumble and the area around and inside the temple started to become dangerous. But the Japanese Government provided a loan of US130$ million to their Indonesian counterparts, to be able to conserve these temple and another locations around Bali. Nowadays, more than 1/3 of Tanah Lot's rock is actually cleverly disguised artificial rock created during the Japanese-funded and supervised renovation and stabilization program. すごいですね。

We came at high tide, so it was not possible to walk over. Still we had the opportunity to taste the famous Luwak coffee, but about that we'll talk tomorrow...

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Bali - Taman Ayun water temple

The huge royal water temple of Pura Taman Ayun, surrounded by a wide, elegant moat, was the main temple of the Mengwi kingdom, which survived until 1891, when it was conquered by the neighbouring kingdoms of Tabanan and Badung. The large temple was built in 1634 and extensively renovated in 1937. It's a spacious place to wander around and you'll be able to get away from speed-obsessed group-tour mobs.

Pura Taman Ayun was built in 1634 by the Raja of Mengwi, I Gusti Agung Putu. It is a so-called Pura Kawiten or family temple, a special temple where the deified ancestors of the Raja Dynasty of Mengwi and important gods of other temples are honored.

The Taman Ayun temple is boardered by broad canals and it can only be entered via a bridge leading to a richly ornamented split gate called candid bentar which you will see in all our temple pictures. It gives access to the outer courtyard called jaba of the temple. From the gate, a footpath leads through the beautiful garden (Taman Ayun means beautiful garden) to a square pond with a fountain in the middle, that has 9 jets: 4 at the cardinal points, 4 at the sub-cardinal points and 1 in the center, in honor of the Dewa Nawa Sanga or nine main gods of Balinese Hinduism. There is a second courtyard and third one surrounded by water, where the most important shrines are located. In Bali, you can count the amount of roofs that the tiered meru has, in order to understand the importance of the temple. These are always odd number, the closer to 9, the more important.

Pura Taman Ayun is located about 8 km southwest of Ubud. It is a typical, touristy, yet mandatory.

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Bali - Jatiluwih Rice Fields

Jatiluwih means truly marvellous and offers vistas of centuries-old rice terraces on million shades of green. We stopped by when the rain was pouring down on the fields and I don't know how, but Enrique managed to pull these contrasting shades against the grey sky - quite a different take from our day in Ubud. I wouldn't recommend to come just here, but if you make it to Pura Luhur Batukaru, check it out on the way back. It's an 18km road along the terraces where the only thing your eyes see is this vivid green.

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Bali - Pura Luhur Batukaru

During our second day in the island - actually the day when I got reunited with my beloved suitcase - we did a route with a personal driver. This is extremely common in Indonesia, for the record, when you are sent to Jakarta on project, you are assigned a driver to take you to the office and back or anywhere you like. The roads are just too crowded, polluted and dangerous to drive by yourself. Hence, as a tourist, it is also quite common to get hire a driver for the day. Bali is a large island (even though the traffic is a lot better than Jakarta, the city of three-hours-to-the-customer-office), it does help a lot to have your personal tour arranged as the day passes by. I can give you guys the number of our driver, which was great... Just not 100% comfortable leaving his number right on the post.

Pura Luhur Batukaru was the first stop of the day. One of the island's holiest yet most underrated temples. Imagine an extremely spiritual spot where the masses of Chinese tourists don't come, located near the base of Gunung Batukaru, Bali's second highest mountain (2276m). The atmosphere is cool, misty and quiet. There are (at most) three couples visiting the area along with some locals praying. The temple is dedicated to Maha Dewa, the mountain's guardian spirit but it also has shrines for Bhatan, Buyan and Tamlingan lakes. I am not sure if it is because of being the first major temple we explored or because it is really that special, but the fact is I keep the memories very vivid. Pictures don't lie. It is really that amazing!

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Bali - Seminyak foodie

I love Asia. When it comes to culture, aesthetic, travel, life... Everything. I don't have issues sampling different kinds of food in a wide range of restaurant styles (from fancy rooftop spots to streetmarkets). The only problem is that back home, we eat quite clean, so after a couple of days eating local things, I start to feel terrible. Extremely heavy, thirsty all the time and deprived of hunger altogether. Hence, when traveling I do my best to balance - typically getting a full continental breakfast, minor lunch of local things and dinner including my staples (salad, raw/grilled protein).

We walked around Seminyak in the previous post, as in this we'll cover 2 favourites restaurants of Bali - the third is Warung Bamboo in Jimbaran Beach, which are ideal for my favourite meals of the day (breakfast and dinner). We had some problem with cash availability during our last night, but I would have loved to stay for party in La Favela, which is also in Seminyak area. Basically we could not get any cash with our debit card (and I had forgotten credit at the hotel) so we had to go back home, fearing we couldn't pay for any drinks we ordered... Still the mood, decoration and music was just perfect for ending a vacation. We did have dinner but took no pictures at Cafe Bali, which is an ultra decorated place where Birthday's are celebrated with Pitbull's fireball.

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Bali - Seminyak

Seminyak is one of the areas in Bali I really liked. We explored other "spots" together with our lovely driver, but this is a place where we walked for hours checking tones of cool places. We hardly have time together or put simply, time to go shopping, so it is great to window shop with no ticking clocks at the back of our minds. The blend is maybe 10% Balinese as street offerings like the one pictured above are still there, actually feels more like being in Australia - which is also a really nice thing. Streets alternated with cool Australian stores (worth highlighting are Seafolly where I got 2 awesome bikinis with my lost-luggage-money and For love and Lemons for really cute lingerie), restaurants, cafés and supper clubs. We did not spend any full days there - only the afternoon of day 1 plus our last dinner in the island - but the time was well worth it.

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