We’re staying overnight in Bali and half of our time on this cruise will be over when we leave. However, if you think that because this email is numbered 15 that we’re half through with emails you may be greatly mistaken. I think it’s going to take me at least three emails to get through Bali....I’ve so many pictures and am limited by how many I can send each time. So those of you that enjoy lots of pictures, you’re in luck. But I won’t be writing too much....let’s see how it goes.
Oh Boy....a real foreign place. I am ready. The channel we came in was long and fairlyshallow for a big ship, but very picturesque. Even the way the plants grow in the waterlooks foreign. Love it. The dock area had so many interesting boats. And the airport was close by so planes were whizzing overhead full time.
The port is not much of a town but the building there is large and full of shops and places to get massaging foot rubs and such. And there is a large open market as well. No time for any of that, however, as we have a long tour planned for our first day.
A little background here. On Kauai there are quite a few shops that sell or use for display these lovely baskets....Tenganan baskets. I have a few baskets and also I’ve had severalpurses that I bought here at home. I knew that these were made in Indonesia someplacecalled Tenganan, obviously. And it’s not like you see these in Honolulu or other places I’ve been. They’re not super common. I have always been curious about the purses that I constantly get compliments on whenever I use them. So......there’s this tour that goes to Tenganan, among other places, and we booked it.
It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive with lots of traffic at the start and lots to see the entire trip. So many beautiful temples and plants and scenery. And then there is always the exciting driving and hundreds of motorcycles, that don’t seem to have any plan except to get where they’re going any old way they can. Lots of honking and it seems to be a form of communication that they all understand. Hey, whatever works!!
Others we know were on this tour as well. Here’s Ann, always shopping.
Tenganan was so wonderful. Once you get beyond the small area of shops and bus parking the village is two rows of parallel houses facing one another. There is a grassy area between and paths on each side. But the cool thing is that there are community or meeting places built in the middle, not everywhere, but many. I’m not sure how far this long, skinny village goes but a ways. There are shops in some of the houses but I believe they live there as well. It’s described in the tour book as a walled village, which is the ancestral home of the Bali Aga people and even today remains a pre-Hindu culture. The village has the most unusual layout of any on Bali.
The chickens there were dyed bright colors and were fighting cocks. This old man proudly displayed his roosters and got them to fight a bit. Not long, don’t want to waste a good fighting cock on a bunch of tourists. I found the ladies that make the baskets and bought a purse....actually two. One is tiny and my phone won’t even fit in it, but it’s so cute.
Next email will continue to tour.
Very soon I shall return....Gayle
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