Bali, Mountain Style
While it’s easy to spend a lot of time drinking beer on the beach, there are other places to see. The next stop was the mountains. We found a nice hotel with a view of some rice fields at the base of a couple volcanoes. It was nice and quiet, sometimes depressingly empty. A couple bus loads of old people showed up one night, but were gone the next day. They were on some sort of organized tour, and judging from the extremely sunburned beer bellies, they probably had spent the previous day at the beach.
The main attraction up here is Lake Bratan that has a couple of temples in it. We had seen pictures of these temples everywhere, they were even featured on the 50,000 Rupiah note. Since we were so close, we went to check it out. The temples were built on two small islands no more than forty yards from shore. They were also a lot smaller than we had imagined. We guessed they were primarily made to appear as if they were floating rather than for normal use. There was barely any place to stand, no one was on the islands, and there was a huge temple packed with people that was built on the shore of the lake right next to the ‘floating’ temples. The activity in the main temple was interesting to observe as well. We were told that there had recently been a death in the village and everyone was present, dressed in white, to attend the funeral.
We also had time to visit the botanical gardens and a local market in Candikuning. No big purchases, but it was still interesting to see. The rain eventually convinced us to go back to the hotel for dinner. Generally the mornings here are nice, but it rains all afternoon.
After three days in Pacung, we started to make slow progress toward our next country by moving half way down the mountain to Ubud. This is major tourist city, and the artistic center of the island. The streets are lined with shops selling wood carvings, batik dyed fabric, soap, clothes, and other crafts. There is also a large open-air market in the center of town selling all the same sorts of things. It was a nice city with a lot more tourists than we had seen in the past week.
Our hotel was a little different than normal. It was built inside a walled compound where an extended family used to live. Several small buildings, now the hotel rooms, were inside the outer wall, accompanied by a small temple and some gardens. The owners also had several exotic birds placed in cages throughout the grounds. They were nice to look at, but caused quite the ruckus at 7:00am. After finally getting out of bed to see what the birds were talking about, we were pleasantly surprised to find a warm pot of tea waiting for us on the front porch. Breakfast was served as we were enjoying our morning beverage.
In addition to the shops, markets, palace, and temples, we also managed to make it to the big attraction on the edge of town. The Sacred Monkey Forest. And, it was exactly as you might imagine a place like that to look, a forest with hundreds of monkeys running around all over the place. The monkeys were long-tailed macaques, and were quite used to human visitors. They didn’t hesitate to steal food or water, and would jump or climb all over people to get what they wanted. Luckily, they weren’t interested in cameras, money, or other valuables, although an old lady did get her glasses stolen right off her face! To make things worse, they were selling bunches of bananas just outside the park. Imagine hordes of people walking through your house with such a tasty snack. It didn’t take long for the monkeys to notice, and when they did, well, they went bananas.
Having safely escaped the dangers of the Monkey Forest, we soon had to say goodbye to Bintang and Bali coffee as we headed back to the airport. Our only experience on “mainland” Indoneisa, the airport in Jakarta, was an extremely frustrating process of eating dinner, checking in, and paying the departure tax. We also realized that we hadn’t tried the famous Luwak coffee yet, but then we turned a corner right before our gate and there it was. The only shop that was still open in the dark and deserted airport had a huge sign advertising the stuff. We figured we had to try some, even though it was $11 per cup and such a gross idea. For those curious about it, just stick to your normal cup of joe – it was not worth the price. The taste was certainly distinctive, not bad, but definitely not better than normal coffee.