Bali Ha'i was definitely calling!

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As mentioned in my last post, my reason for leaving Fiji before the end of the crushing season in late 1973 was that I had a fully planned trip overland Asia to London with a number of fares already locked in, so I wasn’t about to let that opportunity lapse. I had been planning this trip for the best part of two years with my good mate, let’s call him Robert, so I also felt some commitment to him not to pull the plug. We had already pre-booked a bus tour from Kathmandu to London with Sundowners, starting in late March, so that was to give us two months to make our way overland from Sydney to Kathmandu, starting in late January.

When you take off for twelve months of continuous travel, you don’t expect all your travel plans to run to schedule. But you also don’t expect the very first part of the itinerary to go so badly astray. In keeping with the theme of the trip, we had wanted to maximise our time on land and minimise air or boat travel (and their associated costs). So we were pre-booked on a flight from Darwin to Bali, with the plan to travel from Sydney to Darwin via Broken Hill, Port Augusta and Alice Springs, giving ourselves a couple of weeks to do so. But January 1974 was the period of some of the most sustained flooding in Australia for decades, as it had also been just prior to that in Fiji. So, with many internal roads cut, and no guarantees of a through passage in time to connect with our flight in Darwin, we had to reschedule and catch a flight out of Sydney instead.

As such, departure day was delayed until early February, with an early afternoon flight on our national carrier taking us direct to Denpasar. But even before that there was a minor drama – I had my letter opener and a pair of scissors confiscated by Sydney Customs, and although they were sent through in the hold, I forgot to get them back on arrival in Bali. Bear in mind that these were long before the days of terrorism, and baggage inspections were almost unheard of. Anyway, the plane left Sydney at 2.30pm and after a relatively uneventful trip, reached Bali at 4pm after a 5.5-hour trip, the time difference being 4 hours. Service on board by Qantas was pretty ordinary, but the trip did throw up some great views of the magnitude of the floods over NSW.

First impressions of Bali were most favourable. Customs was very labour intensive but gave us no hassles. We had previously met up with two Sydney girls on the plane, let’s call them Ilga and Jane, and joined them to be met by their friend Liz at the airport. Liz’s endeavours to show us her negotiating skills to acquire us a cheap bimo into Denpasar cost us about an hour but gave us a lot of laughs, learning how to bargain with local drivers. We finally ended up taking a taxi for the 13km trip in, costing the princely sum of just less than an Aussie dollar, and got more than our money’s worth as the driver raced through villages spraying bikes, people, chickens etc. out of his way. We all booked into the Adi Yasa Hotel in Denpasar and our first meal that night at the Delicious Restaurant comprised a local rice meal washed down with a couple of Brem wines – very hot, and based on the after effects, fairly high alcohol concentration. Dinner was followed by a short stroll around the city area, where we checked out the markets and got our first taste of Gamelan music – like Xylaphones, Indo style.

We seemed to have formed a cosy little foursome with Ilga and Jane, and a further personality appeared on the scene next day in the form of William Big-Eagle – local guide, con-man and ‘Mr Nice Guy’. William arranged a bimo for the day and accompanied us on our travels. The first part of the trip saw us visiting the various craft centres, with the government craft centre at Tohpati being particularly impressive. We saw various craftsmen at work on batik, carving, silver, weaving etc, performed by a large age range of locals. There was naturally plenty of opportunity to view the finished products, and much encouragement from William to buy (and achieve his commissions), but with a year of travels ahead of us we didn’t need to get weighed down with ‘dustcatchers’. We got drawn into the usual haggling over prices, and very early learnt the key Bahasa word ‘mahahl’ = too much!

We then visited the monkey forests at Batuan, where I had my first experience of being ‘defleaed’ by a monkey, an experience I was to later enjoy on a number of occasions. The monkeys were amazingly aggressive towards the locals, but somehow trained to be very tame towards the tourists. Lunch was at Klungkung, about 40kms from Denpasar close to the east coast, and comprised a Bebi Ketcap, a type of pork dish. We returned to the hotel through some fantastic green layered countryside, with a fascinating cross-section of locals, via Kuta Beach, where we sampled the warm water, the average surf, and the sight of hundreds of Europeans, many of them freaks and lots of them clearly off their heads.

Our next day was a day of touring on motorcycles. It was no easy start to the day, with first of all difficulties in obtaining a bike, but we finally secured one for the princely sum of 4 bucks for 12 hours. We had all sorts of mechanical troubles early, but they were finally sorted out by a kindly local, who relieved us of a whole dollar. We travelled up into the interior of the island, with first stop at Mas, where we took in a range of woodcarvings and paintings. We had lunch a little further on at Ubud, where a young American ex-cheerleader Suzette joined our group of four. Our attempts to locate the monkey temple at Sangeh was a disaster, but was replaced instead by a million laughs, as we had a one hour run through the rocky roads of the Bali countryside, three of us on a Honda 90, with me driving, Suzette wedged in the middle, and Bob virtually sitting on the taillight, and having a bruised backside as evidence of this for the next couple of weeks. The local police did not find the sight of three foreigners on a bike quite so amusing when we returned to Denpasar, especially when I was nabbed travelling the wrong way down a one-way street! There were many ‘discussions’, mostly somewhat tongue-in-check, with the local constabulary down at the station, where I was held in custody for over 90 minutes, before being finally released with a reprimand. The bike’s owner was not so lucky and had to pay a fine to get his bike back.

We decided at that stage to remain for our complete stay in Bali at the Adi Yasa, given how well we have been treated by our hosts Tedja and Rika. The breakfasts had been great, they had helped us with travel arrangements, and accommodation had been made cheap by sponging off the girls and using their bathroom.

The next day we took on another day of motorcycle touring, albeit this time with a different hire place. We tripped up through Tjeluk, Batuan, Gianjar, Bangli and Penelokan, through to Kintimani and Mt Batur. The roads were generally pretty hilly, but the surface was not too bad, and the countryside really lush, with a predominance of palm trees and terraced rice paddies. First glimpse of Lake Batur was one of these special sightings you get when you suddenly round a corner and it just opens up in front of you. The green countryside contrasted heavily with the blanket of brown lava over a large area from the eruption of 1963. The bike was not without troubles on the way up, with constant spark-plug cleaning required, but we finally made it up to Penelokan for lunch. We soon became bound in by fog and heavy rain, and it was doubtful if we could get out. After two hours, Bob and I decided to desert the girls and make the break for home on the two bikes, which had to be returned by late afternoon. We had a memorable 68km bike ride in the pouring rain, fortunately predominantly downhill, where we stopped once or twice when the rain got too heavy but arrived home safely but soaked to the skin. Earlier that day, we had looked through the Temple Pura Ulun Danu Bangli at Batur, where were had to wear sashes to cover ourselves up. Most notable sight was the rotten teeth of the locals, especially the older women, from extended chewing of beetlenut. Many interesting villages are built up right to the side of the roads, and there was an abundance of Banyan trees.

It was a day of Balinese ‘culture’ today! After a relaxing morning, we joined some locals for a trip to the cockfights at Sanur. While I’m not a huge supporter of the sport (a bit like bullfighting, without the human involvement), it was fascinating watching the locals arranging the fights and their respective bets. Very bloodthirsty, with super sharp spurs attached to each cock’s foot, and they fight to the death. We had an easy afternoon being entertained by Tedja and Rika with their Kung-Fu demonstrations before taking off to a Ketcak (Monkey) Dance. This was a fascinating spectacle, although it was a little hard to follow the script and became a little tedious with the constant chant of “chak, chak ....”

That night we had dinner at the highly celebrated Poppies at Kuta. Great atmosphere, and a good meal, with plenty of Beatles background music. We took in an ‘es djuruk’ on the way home – the iced fruit drinks are fantastic value at only around 20 cents each, and other fruits include mangostan, salak, papaya etc. I also bought a chess set from a local peddler for Rp20,000 (USD33), and had it posted back home, and I’m pleased to say I still have it on display almost 50 years later.

It was a disappointing day to finish up our week in Bali. Six of us hired a bimo for the day and first travelled up to Tampaksiring, via Ubud, but found both the supposed therapeutic waters and the shops there very disappointing. We came back via Gianjar and Klungkung to Besakih, where we saw the Mother Temple of Bali on the slopes of Mt Agung (9,450ft). Unfortunately, this trip took longer than planned, and robbed us of the opportunity to go over to the other side of the island and see the famous temple at Uluwatu and the fishing villages there. Instead, we headed down to Kuta Beach late in the day for a surf and sunset – both were great. The water was pretty warm however, and very crowded but it was a relaxing way to complete our stay in Bali, with next stop being the major island of Java.

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Photos

Galungan Ceremony
Holiday which celebrates the triumph of good over evil

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Beauty
Fantastic photo.