The Bravery of the Men with the Red Flags

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We’re both feeling a bit sad. Today’s the 99th and last full day of our sojourn, and whilst we are indeed feeling melancholy, this is the longest we’ve ever been away so it probably is time to go home.

We have a very enjoyable beachside lunch with our friends Jane and Mark from Melbourne. They tell us that they come to Bali at least once a year. They’ve been over in Sanur on the slightly less frenetic east side of the island for a week and they’ve just arrived here in Seminyak where they’ll be spending another week before heading home.

We’ve booked a car from the hotel for a late afternoon trip to the iconic Tanah Lot temple. Mr Google says it’s less than 20 kms away, but it’ll take an hour and a quarter to get there. Maybe we should’ve rented a motorbike instead. We probably wouldn’t survive the journey, but if we did Mr Google tells us we’d be there in only 50 minutes. Huh?? The road’s narrow, and the traffic is ridiculously heavy and totally chaotic. I can’t believe I hired a car and drove when we first came here way back in 1995; you’d have to have rocks in your head to do that now. The motorbikes outnumber the cars by at least twenty to one, and no wonder Mr Google thinks they’re quicker. If they can’t get through the traffic, well there’s always the footpath, and there’s a steady stream of two wheelers up there where there are only supposed to be pedestrians. The unwritten rule of the road seems to be that if you want to barge in and you don’t have right of way, well you just beep your horn a couple of times and if you manage to get your nose in front they let you in anyway … not that they’ve got a lot of choice. We see the occasional traffic cop waving a glow stick to try to establish some order, not that anyone seems to be taking a lot of notice. Random guys waving red flags seem to command slightly more respect, maybe in recognition of their extreme bravery. Their mission in life seems to be to give cars a fighting chance of getting out of car parks into the heaving stream of vehicles. They leap out in front of the traffic with flags waving frantically, and like Moses at the Red Sea, a gap magically appears. And we haven’t seen a fatality yet.

We read that Tanah Lot is one of the most sacred Hindu temples in Bali. It’s closely associated with the revered Bhagawan Dang Hyang Niratha, who‘s generally credited with bringing Hinduism to the island from Java back in the sixteenth century. Legend has it that the great man meditated on the rock that the temple now sits on and it then supernaturally moved out to its current offshore location; Tanah Lot literally means “rock in the middle of the ocean”. There’s also another temple here, the Pura Batu Bolong Temple, which is on the clifftop connected to the mainland via a natural rock bridge. The whole site is absolutely spectacular. We wander along the beach watching what we assume is the Hindu equivalent of a Christian baptism. The baby’s carried out over the rocks just above tide level and is then immersed in a rock pool. It doesn’t sound overly impressed, but there are smiles all around from the dunking party.

It‘s low tide so we can walk across the rocks to the base of Tanah Lot. It seems this is one of the most renowned locations on the island for sunset watching, and sure enough a massive crowd has assembled to watch the great yellow-orange ball put on its nightly show.

Back in Seminyak and we dine again down on the sand. And we’ve now formulated a cunning plan to try to avoid our heads being done in again by the musical acts at the two restaurants next to each other constantly trying to drown each other out. Of course, we’ll just sit right next to one of them. I’m not sure why we didn’t think of that before. We’ll be deaf long before we’ve finished eating, but at least we won’t be able to hear the other act. On reflection maybe that’s not such a great plan. But all is not lost, we revert to the status quo of relying on alcohol to dull our senses.

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