It took all day to get from Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia, to a place called Pemuteran on the north end of the island of Bali. There were only 2 plane flights (Kuching->Singapore, Singapore->Denpesar Bali), but  then we had a bumpy 3 1/2 hour drive up and over the hills of the central island to reach the northern coast. We are starting our visit to Bali with 3 nights at a beach front resort, where we will practice our favorite relaxing activities;  schoolwork, washing clothes, and snorkeling. 

We left on our drive from the airport to the north end of the island at about 5:30pm, and we saw a few of the monster statues ("monster" describes the size and the portrayed character) left over from the Balinese celebration of the festival of Nyepi a few days ago. It was soon dark and the rest of the drive was spent swerving around a constant swarm of motorbikes, potholes, and pedestrians (human and animal), chugging up and over the high hills and banging back and forth through the hairpin turns, skating on the narrow road shoulder to avoid an occasional wide truck, and finally turning into the drive of a beachfront resort at almost 9pm. It felt more like 2am. The road seemed to progress through a constant and almost unbroken stream of small villages, with houses and shops set so close to the road that we had very good viewing of the busy social activities of a warm evening. The Hindu architecture and shrines that are everywhere are slightly reminiscent of Nepal, but the physical environment is much less crowded and much more tropical!

Nyepi is the "Day of Silence" on which everyone is supposed to stay indoors.

They are forbidden to use lights or candles, and everyone is supposed to just

be quiet and think or meditate. The day before is a big party where they try

and scare away demons by making a lot of noise and parading around terrifying

effigies (like this one) and performing exorcism rituals in the streets.

Bali is a small island with about 3 million Hindu residents, and it belongs to the country of Indonesia, in which the total population of over 200 million people is overwhelmingly Muslim. The Hindus came to Borneo in the 10th century from neighboring Java and there were already some native tribal people living here. There still are some descendents of the original natives, but they are a small minority on the island. Independent kingdoms developed on the two islands, and when the Hindu kingdom on Java collapsed in the 15th century, coinciding with the insurgence of Islam, many of the Javanese Hindus migrated over to Bali, which has preserved it's Hindu culture up to modern times. 

When we checked into our rooms we read a small leaflet from the resort explaining the busy Hindu holiday schedule for this time of year, requesting our patience and apologizing in advance for the possibility of a  reduced quality in service due to limited staffing during the holidays. Nyepi (New Year) was celebrated a few days ago. Galungan is a 3 day festival which starts tomorrow and takes place inside temples. Galungan celebrates the victory of Good against Evil (I thought that this battle was still wasn't over...). Kuningan is a continuation of Galungan that takes place about 10 days later. I think we'll be here to see the whole Galungan-Kuningan process. Anyway, I need to stop writing to go wash some clothing and then grade math homework. After a few hours of  this sort of  "relaxing", everyone will probably get bored enough to decide to go swimming or ride bikes. Tomorrow we might go out on a boat for snorkeling and scuba diving. One of  the  most appealing sounding aspects of our visit to Bali is that after our short stay at this resort, we will be  spending every night in the same place for well over a week! 

The grounds of the Taman Sari Resort in front of our room.

View of the nearby mountains from the roof of our room.

This is the first "fancy resort" I've ever stayed in that has

outdoor bathrooms. They are very fancy (and attached

to the main room as sort of a "garden"), but you have to

share the shower with bumblebees and ants. This picture

is of the mirror over the sink, showing the shower and some

plants in the reflection.

                                                                                        - Rolf    4/22/02