Bean Traveling...

June 1, 2010

Kuta - Day 3

Another whirlwind day. I met two new Canadians today, Del and Anna. They were originally from Jamaica and now live in Toronto. (I'm not sure I would give up Jamaica to live in Toronto) We went on a tour of Eastern Bali today. We started in a Batik village. This took me back to Pulau Tioman in Malaysia, the smell of melted wax, painting 10 metres from the beach with Shauna in 2006. The batik pieces here were much more intricate than the ones we did. I love Batik, I think it's beautiful and so unbelievably creative. I never gave myself enough time to become any good at it though. Maybe one day I will give it another shot...

The next stop was a walled city, where the houses are practically on top of each other. It's really hard to explain the feeling when you walked into the city. It was like walking into a community, if there is such a feeling. Closer than neighbours, closer to family. I dunno...it was cool. The houses all had archway/entries into their own property. Small shrines are built on the outside as well as the inside. The outer ones were usually smaller and made from bamboo. Inside the shrines were more intricate and made from stone. There were a few comforts of a modern home to be found, such as running water. They all had private gardens where they grow vegetables and small amounts of crops to sell. The house we visited had two pigs, one of which just had 6 babies. Visiting this city makes you appreciate the amount of space and privacy that we have here, but I don't know any place in Vancouver that feels quite like this community did.

We drove up Mount Agung next and visited one of the most popular and scared Temples in Bali, Besakih. We had to wear long shorts, pants or a sarong in order to be allowed to enter the temple. Within the temple grounds were smaller temples, one for each tribe in Bali. The structures were amazing, such small detail over such a large surface. We walked through the grounds listening to stories from our guide and watched a funeral procession trail through the main Temple. The view from the top was amazing. Endless rice terraces and luscious forest lined the horizon. The view was just as beautiful from the restaurant that we ate at for lunch. The vegetation here is so lush.

Lastly, we went to the Hall of Justice. Images lined the tiered ceiling depicting punishments for law breakers. They were pretty graphic and really strange. A lot of the punishments involved fire, walking in it, burning in it, burning specific body parts...apparently fire is the most favoured means of torture to use.

The day was long and hot. I laid by the pool and watched the sunset over the water before heading out in search for food. I tried black rice pudding for the first time tonight. I don't even like rice pudding, but this stuff was pretty good, surprisingly.

Eastern Bali was beautiful, it would appear that all of Bali is, so far. I can't wait to go to Kintamani tomorrow.


~Bean