Lazy Day in Bali

On our second day in Bali we decided to just hang around the ship. Ronnie is so disciplined and he likes to keep somewhat of a routine when he can. He went to run and I went shopping around the port. I will say that if one enjoys shopping and loves finding bargains, Indonesia is absolutely the place to be.

For starters, the prices are cheap compared to US prices, even in the stores. Also the individual sellers expect you to bargain. And they can be quite aggressive when it comes to selling. They use all kinds of techniques to get you to buy. Every single one of them will try to draw you over to their table or booth, first by invitation but then by insistence. Often they will try to put merchandise in your hands to engage you.

They may tell you that you are their first sale of the day or that you are bringing them good luck. One lady today would give me a "sad sack" look if it didn't seem like I was going to make a purchase. I've learned to try not to even make eye contact unless I'm willing to receive some hard pressure to buy. If you reply with something like "that's pretty" or "that's nice" then you're just asking for it! Also, there are no prices on anything. They will always start out at a high price and then if you actually stop or act halfway interested, the price automatically begins to come down. And they will usually reduce it even more if you're willing to buy more than one. 

Today I was walking down a row of booths and virtually every person - EVERY single person begged me to look at their stuff. Both men and women will come toward you to try to get you to take a look at what they have. Much of their merchandise is similar to the next seller.

This morning a man approached me with some silver bracelets in a box. He held one out that I think is the "Tree of Life" pattern and told me it was $50. I said "no, thank you" and continued walking even though he continued trying to sell it to me. It was quite pretty, but I wasn't interested in buying a bracelet, especially not for $50.

 

After I made my way around all the booths and started back toward the ship, I decided to walk down the middle of the parking lot (away from the sellers) so that I wouldn't be hassled again. But that same bracelet guy started yelling at me. I pretended not to hear him. After a half dozen or so times, he yelled out that he would sell it to me for $10. Ok, I have to confess that did get my attention. So I walked back over to him and we talked for a couple of minutes. I told him I would give him $8 and we settled on $9. So if you're reading this and you get a Tree of Life bracelet for your birthday, you already know the story!

This morning our room attendant Jose told us he went out to get a magnet. The guy told him it was $7. Jose only had $3 so he told the guy that. The guy told him $4 but when he showed him that he only had $3, he happily took it. 

On the one hand I feel sorry for them that they sell their items so cheap, but I think they must mark them higher knowing that they will come down. Once when we lived in Bandung, I had a pair of Keens and a strap or something broke. Our driver took me to a street that had nothing but shoe repair booths lining the entire length of the street. He told me to wait in the car while he took my shoe up to get repaired. A few minutes later he returned with my shoe - it cost 50 cents to repair! They for sure don't have the income that many Americans have, but their cost of living is also very low compared to ours.

I should also point out that while this selling behavior is very typical for individual sellers, the nicer stores (like the batik store we were in yesterday) do not expect you to bargain. A salesperson will still follow you around, and while they are eager for you to buy, they don't use the same aggressive sales techniques. 

I will also add that there is nothing wrong with the street sellers merchandise if they have what you're looking for. I bought a beautiful custom-made bird cage when we lived here for $35! However, it cost me several hundred to ship home - lesson learned!! 

While I love a bargain as much as the next person, and really enjoy visiting Indonesia, I would not want to live here. I remember the familiar smells and sounds - trash piles burning, the Muslim calls to prayer 5 x daily, incense burning, foods frying, fumes from the incredible number of scooters and cars on the road - not to mention the sweltering heat. Yes, the people are so very warm and friendly and it's fun to see and experience a little bit of their culture, but I'm still thankful that I get to live in the best nation on earth!

unframed prints

framed batik

 

Bali, Indonesia - pt 2

Our next stop was at a place deep in the jungle of Ubud called Swing Heaven. https://swingheavens.com/ We had never heard of this, so we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. As it turns out, "swinging" literally meant being swung out over a lush valley with a river rushing through it. Beautiful? Yes! Scary? YES! So NO. Even if they strap you in (?) I wasn’t interested in swinging out over the valley. If I had fallen into it, they might never find my body! Of course there was a waiver to sign just in case - even for only the picture taking part. Check out this website if you want to see what this place was like - it's a bit hard to describe here.

hook up for one swing - valley below

So we opted to just pay the entrance fee and get our photos made in some of their photo settings. That was enough for me. I failed to mention that if you wanted to swing, you could choose a long flowing dress to wear that would look pretty flying behind you in the photos. You could also choose between different settings and they would take your photo or make a video, depending on what package you purchased. From the pictures, you can see I wasn't too daring.

choose your flowy dresses/gowns and choice of packages

I have a little fear of heights, especially if there is nothing to prevent me from falling over the edge, so I'm afraid we only made it halfway to heaven in the picture below. ha! We did probably a half dozen settings but nothing too risky. It really was a gorgeous place though!

 

reflection in the water below

see what you're swinging out over!

such beautiful photo settings!

In Bali, 90% of the population in Bali are Hindu. All generations of the family live together. The property is not for sale; it just passes down through the generations. Even siblings families can live together. Ronnie asked our guide what the palm leaf decoration on the fronts of the cars was for. Yogi explained to us that twice a year they have a ceremony where they make offerings and pray for blessings on their cars. 

 

Twice a day, they pray for their cars and scooters. In the morning, they pray for blessings of safety on them, and in the evening they say prayers of thanksgiving. I read that Hindu's have 330 million dieties they pray to, so I guess they have one for their cars. However, Yogi did say there are a lot of car/scooter accidents. It would be miraculous if there weren’t because there are relatively few traffic lights. Mostly they just negotiate their way through intersections. Motorcycles are like water – they tend to just “flow” around cars that are stopped. Dogs get in the road and many of the roads are very narrow, especially for the amount of traffic they carry.

Re: offerings – there are tiny offerings to their "gods" and other objects of worship lying around pretty much everywhere - even in the streets. These are little square boxes made of palm leaves that hold flowers and sometimes even cigarettes or candies. I left my shoes in the photo of the one in the street to show size.

little altars

little offerings

Yogi also took us to a wood carving place. Again, the workers were sitting on the porch carving their designs. They use ebony, walnut, hibiscus, mahogany, teak and crocodile wood. They carve designs that have been handed down through the generations and they don't use any patterns. The finished carvings are shined with bees wax. They are very intricate but most of them are of their Hindu dieties or related. None were appealing to me, but I could appreciate the craftsmanship.

skilled wood carvers hard at work

sample products

Our last stop of the day was at Teba Sari, a local open air restaurant. Our table was on the side with a view of the rice paddies. We enjoyed a meal of nasi goreng (rice) and chicken satay. The Indonesian people love spicy foods, so one needs to be cautious with the small dishes of condiments.

sate and nasi goreng

 

Teba Sari Resto

our table view with rice fields beyond

At that point, we were still about 1.5 hours from the ship. Our last stop was at a pharmacy. Ronnie showed the pharmacist a bottle of Azithromycin and she sold us another round of it for $8 in Indonesian currency – no prescription necessary. Unfortunately, they didn’t accept American currency or credit card, but thankfully we were able to exchange $8 in Rupiah for US dollars. 

Since we were spending the night in Bali port, the ship had some local entertainers come in for our show last night. It was a long but enjoyable day.

 

Bali, Indonesia - pt 1

Bali is located in the western most end of the Lesser Sunda Islands between Java and Lombok. It has long been a tourist destination because of its miles of white sandy beaches, volcanoes, rivers and lush tropical forests. It is 96 x 50 miles in size and its main crops are coffee, copra (the dried, white part of the coconut), rice and vegetables. I might add that their tropical fruits are delicious! It has wet/dry seasons. It is 90% Hindu, then Islam, Buddhist and Catholic. It has a population of around 4.5 million. It is 8 degrees south of the equator and therefore extremely hot. My clothes are wet after walking around outside for even a short period of time! 

As we pulled into port, our ship was greeted by a Gamelan orchestra. If you're curious about what that sounds like, I encourage you to type "Gamelan orchestra" into www.youtube.com to get the idea. There was also someone dancing (?) or perhaps making fighting movements to the music.

 

Welcome, Oceania Vista

Balinese Gamelan orchestra

Welcome to Bali

our driver, Yogi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was a long but interesting day. Our excursion was through our travel agency and those are often much smaller, and sometimes even private. Our first day in Bali was a private tour with just Ronnie, me and our driver, Yogi. He had lots of things planned for us, but we had enough flexibility to mark things off the list that we didn’t care about seeing in our relatively short time here. We’ve seen plenty of Hindu temples in the past, so those was a ‘no’ for us. Our driver told us that every house has its own temple and I believe it; the island is covered with over 20,000 temples!

 

quick (partial) car window shot

We didn’t arrive in port until around noon and we decided to eat before we got off the ship. We met our driver just outside the port entrance a little before 1 pm. He dropped us back off a little before 8 pm and we crammed a lot in to those 7 hours. As with other recent ports, we are still in the last part of their rainy season so we did experience one really hard rain. Between large umbrellas, people to help us in and out of the car and the driver pulling up very close to covered areas, we somehow managed not to get our shoes too wet.

Our first stop was a batik factory. http://www.legongbatik.com We’ve always admired the Indonesian people because they are very hard workers and are so good at their crafts. Before entering the store, we watched employees painting the fabrics with their hot wax. The “pens” they use have a tiny reservoir that holds the hot wax and allows them to draw on the fabric. I was watching one man and he asked if I would like him to paint a design on my pants leg. He showed me probably 8 or 10 patterns and I chose the butterfly. I regretted it later because he added the date to it. If I’m still wearing these pants 10 years from now, perhaps I can change it to 2036. Ha! The store was very large. The downstairs was clothing and gifts while the entire upstairs was wall-to-wall framed batik prints.

applying wax pattern

From there he took us to Yanyan Gold & Silversmith. Almost all the houses up and down that road had their own silver shops inside the houses! Whatever business you visit, a salesman follows you closely, not because he/she thinks you’re about to steal something but just to hover and try to get you to buy. I’m sure they were disappointed that we didn’t buy anything but I was really only there because our driver thought we should go there. He probably gets a little “commission” if he brings in tourists that make a purchase. 

 

little offerings everywhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artisans were working on such tiny and intricate designs! There was another room where people were taking a class in jewelry making. After the silver shop, we traveled to Cantik Agriculture 2. As we walked through the property, a guide showed us coffee beans, vanilla and cocoa pods growing in the lush vegetation. 

ripe coffee beans

vanilla plant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tea and coffee samples

Front: grinding the beans  Back: roasting small batches

We watched coffee being pounded with a cobek (wooden mortar) and beans being roasted over a wood fire. We were seated at a table where our host brought samples of some of the teas and coffees that were made on site. My favorites were the mangosteen and lemon teas. I bought some of both along with some cocoa coffee (ground coffee and ground cocoa beans with palm sugar) and Ronnie bought some “mud coffee” – finely ground coffee beans that are not brewed but simply stirred in boiling water and allowed to sink to the bottom of the cup. He grew quite fond of mud coffee when we lived on Java.

If you haven’t heard of luwak coffee, it’s coffee beans that have been eaten (but not digested) by the luwak or mongoose animal. They had one in an aviary-type housing. Our guide explained that they go into the mountains once a week and trap one, then bring it back and collect its poop to make luwak coffee. After a week they return it to the wild and trap another one. Luwaks eat the red coffee beans when they can’t get papayas or bananas. 

And NO, we did not try it! Luwak coffee (kopi luwak) is considered one of the most expensive coffees in the world, with prices ranging from $100 to $600 per pound. This is because of its rare and labor intensive productive methods. A single cup of luwak coffee can cost between $35 and $100 in cafes. My apologies in advance if you have a weak stomach.

"before"

removing the outer husk

luwak (Asian palm civet)

This post is getting too long so I will continue with Pt 2....