BALI – Week 5 & 6 @ Tabanan – 1 – 13 July 2024
Before we left, and when I looked at the photos of our third villa, I could just imagine myself laying by the pool, reading a good book and drinking margaritas. It didn’t occur to me that (a) I’d have to buy some tequila; (b) one of us would have to know how to make them; and (c) I’d be getting sunburned whilst I waited for someone to bring the margaritas to me.
Despite the lack of margaritas, here I am at Pasat Beach in Tabanan Region, staying for two weeks in the middle of pretty much no-where, with hardly a tourist in sight. Have to say though, that where we are staying is next level luxury and the lack of tourists as far as I’m concerned is heaven. We are so far off the beaten track that whenever we want to book in for a “tour”, the tour companies are wanting to charge us an extra A$60 to pick us up and return us home. Plus, Sue, Sofie and Katerina took a taxi to Kuta Beach for some shopping and it took them 2 hours back and forth in horrific traffic, they wont be doing that again! But, am getting a bit ahead of myself.
Saturday – Ubud to Tabanan
We were picked up from the villa in Ubud at 11.30am and basically travelled south and a little west to our destination. The traffic was heavy, but not horrific.
Two guys on a bike, you can’t see the second guy, whilst they usually weave in and out of traffic, don’t think this guy will be doing much weaving.
Pretty cool statue in the middle of the road (taken out of the front window of car, so not that good), not sure which god this one is, but definitely Hindu.
The driveway to our Villa.
The front entrance to the villa.
Looking out from our kitchen/dining room to the pool and beach access. The pink flamingo was a bit of a nuisance, I put it aside (spoiled the view), but then the next day found it back in the pool.
Looking down to the beach from the back gate. I did a few walks along the beach but only got a 1/2 hour away before I ran across a creek too big for me to cross. Still a good 1 hour round trip and so nice to have a swim in the pool when I got back.
The house from the pool area.
My bedroom for the next 2 weeks.
And my own bathroom.
Christine, Katerina and I picked out our rooms and then we waited for the arrival of Sue N (7pm) and Sophie (1am). The house has four bedrooms, so when Katerina leaves on the 4th, we’ll all have our own room and en suite.
Sunday – hanging around and a bit of exploring.
Lily with Christine on the way to the “supermarket” a 20min ride. Lily and her husband greeted us on the Saturday, she then served us with an amazing dinner. She also arrives each morning to serve us with a full breakfast and her husband and her service our rooms.
An old traditional Bali house, apparently relocated to our Villa complex and used by staff as their “staff room”.
Two shrines on the property, each day offerings are placed at these shrines, plus one at the front door, one at the front gate, one inside the house and one at the gate where we access the beach.
Sunday – more exploring
About 100m along the beach there is a small stormwater run-off drain and a very nice stone retaining wall. I walked for 20m up the “drain/creek” and there in thee side of the retaining wall is a niche, about 50cm wide and 1m high, not sure what it’s for but it must have some importance because there’s a lovely dragon carved around it.
Close up of the dragon. Dragons have long served as symbols of power, danger, and wisdom, but what would the significance of a dragon be here in this niche?
Every day offerings are given to the Hindu gods, usually made of palm fronds, made into a small tray or plate and then flowers and offerings (cigarettes or candy) are added. They are replaced daily, what happens to them then? They’re usually tossed into the garbage or into the creeks. Here’s a stack of them laying on the beach after heavy seas.
From Monday to Wednesday we had bad weather. I did a short walk up the beach but was turned around after 2k because one of the creeks was too high, so basically we laid around and read for a few days, with the odd dip in the pool.
Wednesday night was Katerina’s last night with us so she took us all out for dinner in the restaurant next door. The restaurant overlooked an infinity pool and the beach, lovely atmosphere. We all had cocktails, a wonderful dinner, and had to walk just 100m to get back home.
Thursday we decided to bite the bullet and pay for a car to take us to Canggu to do some shopping, Sue, Sophie and Katerina hadn’t been there before and I was their guide for the day.
It was a 1.5 hour drive to Canggu, through a lot of rice paddies and residential areas, I was beginning to think we’d never get there and even when we did, the place I asked to be dropped off didn’t look at all familiar. Took walking down the street for 200m before I recognised something.
I wasn’t keen to do any more shopping, so I told them to meet me at a place everyone would be able to find, Old Man’s Bar. I’d walked by it on numerous occasions, and being and Old Girl myself it always appealed to me.
I happily stayed for an hour or so and drank two Passionfruit Mojitos – yum, and watched the tourist come and go. The view from the bar, so many motor cycles.
The traffic was so bad we only just got back to the Villa in time for Katerina to have a shower and then get in the hire car to be taken to the airport in Denpasar. It was sad to see Katerina leave, it had been a great two weeks with us.
Friday – another day lazing around, but Christine and I decided we’d better get our act together and go and see some of the sights, it’s now a mere week before we return back to OZ.
On Friday night Sue organised dinner for us at the villa, all Indonesian food, and so much of it we had enough for the next day!
Saturday – we hired a driver to take us about an hours drive down the coast to go visit Tanah Lot Hindu Temple. Tanah Lot is claimed to be the work of 16th-century religious figure Dang Hyang Nirartha, who was significantly influenced by Hinduism and who allegedly spent a night there in the course of his extensive travels in Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa. Apparently, he was the origin of the chain of sea temples that surrounds Bali. Each of the sea temples was established within eyesight of the next – but frankly I looked and couldn’t see either the one before or after Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot is one of the seven main sea temples, located along the south-western coast of Bali.
At the base of the rocky island, venomous sea snakes are believed to guard the temple from evil spirits and intruders. The temple is purportedly protected by a giant snake, which was created from Nirartha’s selendang (a type of sash) when he established the island. The Island can only be reached at low tide, we were there at high tide.
Looking at it from a different direction you can see the steps at the side going up to the temple proper. In 1980, the temple’s rock face started to crumble and the area around and inside the temple was becoming dangerous. The Japanese government then provided a loan to the Indonesian government of Rp 800 billion (approximately US$480 million) to conserve the historic temple and other significant locations around Bali. As a result, over one-third of Tanah Lot’s “rock” is actually cleverly disguised artificial rock created during the Japanese-funded and supervised renovation and stabilization program.
From the visitor lookout, looking back to the massive infrastructure surrounding the temple.
Looking from another direction you can see the causeway that would be used to access the temple at low tide.
A Balinese man making an offering at one of the many secondary temples surrounding the main temple.
a small water feature (about 75cm across with miniature water lilies.
In the six weeks we’ve been here, we haven’t had a good sunset, and miraculously on this night we got one, and a stunner it was.
Sunday – another quiet day lazing around until 5pm when the motorcycles start arriving. Apparently, our beach is one of the few that has road access and doesn’t have a lot of pesky tourists walking along the beach. This was the day that I discovered “mojitos to go” at the restaurant next door. I took over a mug, they mixed it for me and then I came back home.
So, the boys (not many girls), congregate on the beach to race their bikes. The first Sunday we were here, I swear there were roughly 1,000 bikes spread out over about 500m. This Sunday though, the tide wasn’t as low and there were probably only 500.
They are sort of organised, they all stand around, probably talking about bike-stuff and then a few (usually around 3 or 4) will line up towards the left hand end of the group, rev their bikes and then off they go.
They go for about 300m and then turn around and sedately drive back. The traffic is so awful on the roads that they don’t have a chance to ever go fast, so I guess this beach is the place to go.
I said to our driver on Monday that I thought it was a good safe way to go fast and he said that he thought that in the past there had been some deaths. So, I guess not as safe as I thought, mind you many weren’t wearing helmets (which are theoretically compulsory).
Monday – on the road again, we’d organised a driver to take us to some of the sights that were within a 1 hour drive of our villa.
First stop, Bali Butterfly Farm. They have a small museum with loads of butterfly specimens, some amazing colours.
It cost us each A$10 entry fee, quite pricey for Bali, but I would have paid more than that. The grounds were beautiful rainforest plants and they had two interpretive centers. The first one had this lovely young lady (who spoke excellent English) and she explained the life cycle of the butterflies and moths. This moth had only this morning come of its cocoon.
Here are some of the bigger moths, the cocoons are collected from around the gardens where the adult butterflies mate (and then die). The staff pick the cocoons off the leaves/trees and then they put them in these mesh boxes to mature. The reason they collect them is that ants and lizards (in the forest enclosure) eat the cocoons.
Me holding this huge moth, it’s not ready to fly yet, its wings are still drying out. Those triangle-like areas on its wings are translucent.
The enclosure, the legs of it are in buckets of water so ants can’t crawl up to feed on them, each cocoon is held in place by a peg and both the butterflies and moths usually come out of their cocoons in the morning, we saw a few of them hatch.
These were the butterflies, and the ones at the back are sitting there drying out their wings. Once they are dry and can fly around, they are let out of the enclosure to fly around, mate and live the rest of their 2 – 4 days (depending on species), and then they die. Any good wings that haven’t been eaten up by ants/lizards are picked up by staff.
The rainforest has a net roof, and leaves collect in it, both Christine and I wondered how they cleaned the roof. Sophie at the other side of the waterfall pool.
There were hardly any tourists at the Butterfly farm, but they were doing some renovations and I’m hoping that they get some more tourists, I loved it and thought it was well worth the A$10.
Our next stop was Pura Ulun Danu Batur, one of the 9 main temples in Bali. It’s located on a lake at the base of Mount Batur. Originally, the temple was in a different location near the village of Batur, however, Mount Batur errupted in 1917 and then again in 1926 at which time the entire village was wiped out, and much of the temple destroyed. In the reconstruction and new temple was built on the shores of the lake.
There are two areas which are in the lake, I’m not sure which area is the “proper” temple.
This one has an 11-tiered shrine which makes me think it’s the main one. There are a lot of shrines around, and interestingly, they all have uneven numbered tiers. If this is the main shrine, it apparently survived the volcano eruption and was moved to this new site.
I’m thinking to cater to the tourists (and there were thousands of them), they have made a lot of child friendly attractions – Christine, Sue and Sophie crossing one of them.
Another pagoda-like shrine. Apparently in the whole compound there are 285 shrines and pavilions. The compound is huge and has beautiful gardens.
Our next and last stop was Alas Kedaton monkey forest. Christine and I had already visited the Ubud Monkey Forest so we weren’t expecting much (the Ubud one is huge), but this experience was totally different.
On arrival we were greeted by our guide (with her monkey stick to stop the monkeys jumping on us). We were also given peanuts to feed the monkeys, who get overly excited when you’re carrying peanuts, hence the stick.
We were able to get close to this female with her baby who is approximately a week (I think) old. The females don’t get many peanuts as the males get agro and frighten them off.
The park also had an exhibit of fruit bats, they were just hanging around, obviously they were fed well as they didn’t bother flying away.
Christine persuaded Sophie and Sue to get dressed in traditional Balinese dress for this photo op.
We all agreed that Monday’s day out was well worth the long drives and traffic, totally different experience to what we’d done up to this point.
Tuesday and Wednesday were “lay around, drink cups of tea and read books” days whilst Sue and Sophie went off to do something touristy. However, Thursday was another sightseeing day.
The driver picked us up at 6.30 which meant that we drove past the local village market (which opens at 6 and closes around 9), you can’t see much of the produce, but there were heaps of fruit and vegetables, plus chickens laid out in various stages ranging from alive and dead and plucked naked.
Our first stop was the Mason Elephant Park & Resort. We were treated to breakfast first which overlooked the elephant swimming pool. One of the options on this tour was to swim with the elephants. One look at the elephants dropping turds the size of a soccer ball and I was less than enthused about a swim with them!
The Park is quite large, quite a few hectares and was established in 1997 when the owner rescued the first group of displaced and critically endangered Sumatran elephants from their holding camps in Sumatra. They were being held there as a result of deforestation, poisoning and poaching. They were in these camps indefinitely with the average life expectancy of 3 – 7 years due to the dismal living conditions and lack of proper care. It took a lot of effort to move the elephants and now the park is home to 27 of them.
One of the smaller elephants getting a wash, he was really enjoying it.
Then it was our turn to wash one of the elephants and get up close and personal with them. This elephant is 67 years old and was the first one to be imported from Sumatra. She has had a couple of babies since being rehomed, the latest one is four years old.
She didn’t mind posing for photos and the mahout (the handler), when I asked if they had teeth and asked about how they eat the bamboo, even let me touch the elephant’s tongue which was really, really soft.
The mahout had our cameras and took heaps of photos, I really like this one.
Group photo, Sophie, Sue, Christine and me at the end of our elephant washing experience.
The baby elephant of the one I washed, very curious about my phone.
Christine bought some elephant food (fruit and veges).
Unfortunately, having a ride on an elephant wasn’t included in our package, if I’d known it wasn’t I would have bought a ticket for it.
Sophie decided that she could overlook the elephant turds and had a swim on the back of one, there is a mahout on the elephant when you are in the water, it’s only at the end for the photo op that you are on it by yourself.
Once we’d finished with the elephants we drove over to Ubud – mainly because I wanted to pick up a piece of fabric that I’d seen in a shop 2 weeks ago, I figured it would be lovely framed, but I baulked at the A$250 price tag, but then decided what the hell! Only to find out that a Yank had been in the day before and bought it, ah well, not meant to be.
Friday night, our last night and we were having dinner at the resort/restaurant next door. Christine has invited the husband and wife team (and their two children) who have been looking after us for the past 2 weeks. Before that though, Christine and I had a quiet cocktail by ourselves on the restaurant deck admiring the sunset. Such a lovely way to finish our six weeks.
So, six weeks, what have I learned …
- I loved Tabanan, it was quiet, and a “real Bali” experience, but wouldn’t be right for most people, too far from everything else.
- I definitely don’t like “touristy” places and I am not a fan of “shopping” and “browsing”.
- My idea to do lots of yoga didn’t pan out, the only places where you can do it are in the built-up tourist areas and even then, often the class times weren’t convenient, so apart from the first week in Canggu the “yoga every day” idea was a fizzer.
- Check the visa in your passport and read the fine print, overstaying your visa costs A$100 per day!
- When you have your toe nails painted, nail polish remover doesn’t take off the polish, I’ve now got two big toes painted and the little toenails are polish free (because they’ve grown).
- The Balinese are beautiful, gentle people, but I guess everyone knows that.
A big thanks to Christine who progressed our original idea (2 years ago) to do a BIG Bali trip, you and Ally (our travel agent) did an amazing job co-ordinating everything. You’re great to travel with Christine, and already she’s talking about our next big adventure. Big thanks too to Katerina, Sue and Sophie who joined us for parts of the adventure, your company was welcomed.
Banner: dried palm fronds part of the decorations outside the Old Man bar.
Very different but fascinating posts! I think the dragon is a representation of the entity called nāga, which are like demi-deities and often tied to locations as local guardians. They are commonly associated with water and in snake form (but maybe they can take other forms). They are sensitive to pollution and a bit vengeful (e.g., pee in the water and get sores inflicted on you), so a good focus for environmentalism.
Hi Molly/Maureen,
Thanks so much for that information, makes sense re where it was located.
I often wonder how random people find the blog! And yes, they are different to normal posts, this series on Bali was more off-beat than my others, which are all about not giving up on the things you love doing, no matter how old you get! And also on crazy stuff that maybe I shouldn’t be doing at my age LOL.
Thanks again for the comment!