To the Balinese, every living thing has a spirit. If they pick a flower to offer to the gods, they first say a prayer to the flower. The black and white checked cloth you will see around statues is to symbolize the balance between good and evil. Maintaining harmony is the life work of every Balinese person. Our day here was exceptional. We hope you can enjoy our day through these photos and plan a trip here. It is a place everyone should see!
Welcome to Bali, enjoy the scenery and don't step in any holes!!
Typical roof material. Caves where the local Balinese had to hide when the Japanese attacked their island during WWII. There are no street lights, so they paint the trees with paint that will reflect headlights as to not veer off the road and crash into a house or rice field! A real cocoa tree for chocolate!! Every home should have one of these! Although cock fighting is "illegal", you can still see games held around the island and see men waiting with their prize fighters in their baskets waiting for a mathch!!
The yellow corner of the home is one of the inside temples in the home. The pig was huge and it had a husband that was bigger. The babies were cute. The two piglets by themselves were only 2 days old!!!
We went to a village where there was only one street, cobblestone. No cars allowed. Bikes and scooters only. Mostly people just walking. We were able to walk through a family home. A proper Balinese house has exterior corridors and all the rooms are seperated. We toured the kitchen. You had to stoop very lowly to enter and still banged your head on the way out. The mirror they use to freshen up or comb their hair is a broken piece of a mirror that has combs stuck into the bamboo that is holding it up. Their laundry room is definitely outside, their living room was behind those ornate carved doors, that was locked. All proper original Balinese homes have 4 temples within the home on the front four corners of the home. All Balinese have dogs and family pigs!!!
Kathleen needed a closer look at some of the statues!
Hindu temple and intricate artwork on the ceilings.
A picture of our whole gang in front of a neighborhood temple. Kathleen could not get away from some very aggressive vendors after our stop for lunch. One little girl had rings full of keychains! She was desperate for Kathleen to buy some. When the price got to $5.00 for 20 keychains...she had to buy them! If you get a keychain that says "Bali" you will know you got a special deal!!
A visit to a Hindu temple and garden that was built in 700AD. This was a place where the water is holy on one side so we we not allowed to enter there, but on the other side we could enjoy "the fountain of youth"! Some of us felt it a good idea to give it a go, while others felt it more important to feed the fish! A person visiting the temple must have their knees covered, hence the cute skirts on Kathleen and Charles. We all had to wear pastel colored sashes. The meaning behind this is to seperate good from evil. We donned the gear and they let us walk through and admire their beautiful gardens, statues and temple area. It was a very peaceful place and only a handful of other people were there with us. It was in a very shaded area and made for a wonderful place of worship for these Hindu people. Speaking of Hindu. Bali is one of the only islands in Indonesia that has held onto it's Hindu religion. Most of the islands practice Islam (Muslim). In recent years, 2002 and 2005, there were attempts by Muslim extremists to overtake the island. The people of Bali held on and today still are able to practice their Hindu beliefs and some Christians are on the island as well. You cannot convert to Hinduism. You are either born a Hindu or you are not. No person "founded" the Hindu religion. Their main belief is in reincarnation and they think of cows as sacred animals. They are peaceful people and very devout. They have daily offerings of flowers, fruit and eggs and sometimes goats and chickens. We happened upon a "celebration" for a temple and it was like a small parade in Mardi Gras.
We had lunch at about 1,000 feet above sea level overlooking a volcano that last errupted in 1963! People live down inside this volcano cavity with permanent homes! The temperature went from a humid, hot 95 degrees to a cool 60 degrees on the mountain. It made for a very nice meal and a setting like we had never seen before. Shockingly beautiful really. Our luch was a Balinese buffet for the kings! All you could eat and more of ox tail, sticky rice, fried rice, sweet rice, fried bananas, satay pork, thai chicken, vegetable stir-fry, flat bread, ox tail soup.....endless.
The rice. The rice is planted in swampy looking areas. Some are terraced up hillsides, some are flat and near the roadside. The rice grows as high as wheat would and looks somewhat the same when at one stage. It goes from green to yellow to white/brownish when the stalks of rice are ready to harvest. We stopped on the roadside and our guide snipped off a piece that was almost ready to harvest. To the touch it is rough,it almost hurts to touch it and if you have ever had a "hitch hicker" on your socks when you've come out of the woods, that is EXACTLY what the rice stalk feels like. The rice is hand planted and harvested. Knowing that Bali has over 140 different kinds of snakes, most of which are poisonous...would you go into those rice fields??? YIKES!!!! Next time you sit down to a nice bowl of sticky white rice, remember the lives that were risked to harvest it!!
A stop at a wood carving shop. Who knew that the reddish color that many pieces of wood carvings that you see at Pier One or World Market have the Kiwi finish!??? The wood carving talent in handed down in families from generation to generation. They were all one of a kind where we went. We did see however, some shops that were mass produsing one type item only to be exported to some of the above mentioned stores!! Our guide for the day was Made. He was fantastic. He took our family of four and our new friends Mike and Ginny from Chicago out for a day of some of the best fun and excitement you could encounter in Bali!
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