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decided to go to Candi dasa, a small beach village on the east side of the island. I arrived to a sleepy little village, with no Atm,and beautiful turqouse waters. They built these hotels, bungalows on the beach years ago and harvested the coral to make the concrete to make the bungalows. in doing so, the coral reef was gone to protect against erosion, waves etc and the beach washed away. the hotels are still there, but not much beach, many jetties. I inquired about a snorkel trip for the next day and met a few of the locals. One asked me to go to a cock fight, Usually they are illegal, but because it was the last day of the Gulangan ceremony it was okay. i walked to Made's ' farm -house nestled among banana trees with pigs. piglets and roosterd roaming freely. there were about 50 men circled around a ring of sorts and holding two coks, getting them all excited by ruffling their feathers and letting them "sniff each other" as they got more excited, bets or "coks" were made then they let them loose. The knofe attached to the cock's foot stabs the other in the back
and evenutally one dies. about 10 minutes maybe. the one that dies gets it feet cut off and the winner gets the foot, then the children took the chicken, dunked it in hot water and starting plucking the feathers from dinner! This is a man's sport for sure and I was the only woman there, so got a few looks. I met a Swiss guy, Roland, the only other westerner and we decided to get a bite to eat later. First I needed money though and the closest town for a bank was 1/2 hour one way. Wayan, the snorkel guy offered to take me on his motorbike. As we cruised these these small rice/beach villages, the full mon rose over the ocean and backlit the Mt. Angun, a volcanoe nearby. the sky was lit like a candle, incredible. in all the villages we rode through there were cermonies and festivities going on. The Balinese are so happy, always smiling, don't worry about things, even when there is no work.
we arrived at the Atm and no luck! so back we drove. the whole way Wayan told me of his family, his girlfriend, his father who was a
Cock Fight
Children cleaning the cock who lost... drunk and died when he was 11 and left his mother with 4 children. They all take care of her as she has bad arthritis and cannot work. Very family oriented, I like that. There are only 4 names in Balinese 1. Wayan 2. Made 3. Nyoman 4. Kutut and then it starts over again. So if you are the 5th born you are also Wayan. they all have second names or nicknames and family names. This applies to women and men alike. so kinda easy, just say one of the four names and someone is bound to answer!
After getting a bite to eat we went to see a band that was surprisingly good, 4 guys from Lombok, Sumatra, java and Bali. I wondered if they knew what they were singing when they sang "Californication" by the Chili Peppers! one of the staff had on a tshirt that said "Friend with benefits"!! again, clueless i think they. amazing how much western society has injected itself into their culture. We drank beer and a concoction of rice wine, beer and sprite, called Akar I think.
I woke early again and set out to do some snorkeling in an
Mt. Agung
View of Volcano from boat in Bay outrigger type boat with my "captain - Made". we motored out to the blue lagoon and fed the fish under water. It was a complete feeding frenzy of parrot fish and others attacking the bagel bag, maybe 100 around me!! crazy! you can see where the coral has been harvested in the shallows. The Blue Lagoon by the way is located across a small bay where a huge LNG terminal sits! Tankers sit out in the bay awaiting to unload. On the way back we threw in a few fishing lines and caught a baracuda! it's a specialty here in the restaraunts. We were aiming for Mahi Mahi as it's the season. Did see some other fishermen though catch one. About 1 mile away and 1/2 mile out, the motored broke, right next to a huge oil tanker. there we were stranded with only one paddle! Oh well, i had time, just had to be back at 3 to go back to Kuta! Made paddled for awhile and we were able to go to shore and get another motor then back to where we started. Completely fried in the sun, i sat at this Hotel pool/bar and had lunch overlooking
Mt Agung at sunset
On the way to the bank in Amlapura from Candi Dasa the turquoise waters. I stretched my time till the last 15 minutes then back to my hotel to collect my things.
The traffic was busy back to Kuta. After arriving in Seminyak I met up with my friend Dedik, and he took me to his friends house for a birthday party. Gede's mother and grandmother made this huge spread of food. There were dogs, kittens, cats, puppies running all over the place! I finally met some girls, Ola and Victoria, both British. Ola and I played with the puppies, so cute.
Later Dedik and I met up with Nick Oneill, another friend who lives here. It was fun to hear them talk about Balinese culture. nIck is a British Expat and Dedik balinese. Dedik is a twin and apparently if you have a girl and boy twin that is bad luck and you have to cleanse the village and keep the babies separated for 42 days or something.
I am setting off for Thailand in a 2 hours and really hate to leave this place. I am completely smitten and in love with this place, the people, culture. I think I may sneak a return trip in
June before heading north too far.
I cannot explain the beauty here, I've never seen anything like it. I was fortunate to get out in the villages and see not only the surfers life here in Kuta, but also the day to day lives of Balinese! I am so sad to leave, have made some new friends and been fortunate to experience so much in such a short time. Bali, I will be back!!
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