Bali: Part One

I always think of Bali as a romantic getaway, where you laze by the beach, eat a platter of exotic fruits, drink cocktails, enjoy people watching and marvel at the pretty sunset while the man does just the same right by your side. However, for our Bali trip, we had none of it. The only time we set our feet on the beach was when we had our sunset dinner at Jimbaran beach, but even then, we missed the sunset, so the whole notion of romantic sunset dinner as noted in our tour itineraries was nonexistence. But I am not here to complain about the trip because I had been warned before the trip by Oliver and I quote, "This is not our honeymoon" as an inception to not expect anything romantic. So, the part of Bali that we got to experience was its wealth of culture, its religion, the people and the amazing talents they have when it comes to arts whether its batik painting, wood crafting,  paintings in general, etc. But more about that later because on day one, shortly after checking into our hotel, we were fetched by Ketut Adhi, our very nice and informative tour guide who along with his sidekick driver who I called Kedek drove us to Uluwatu, a temple high up by the cliff and is inhabited with monkeys who claimed it as their territories and we, human beings, the trespassers. I read somewhere that described Uluwatu as a 'temple situated majestically by the cliff..' and it was that. And since it was the first of many temples we visited, I was quite amazed with the centuries old architecture, the stone-weathered paths, walls and edges, the craftsmanship and details of the temple, the monkeys, well not so, they were fun to look at until they snatched Oliver's and Polly's glasses. And while Oliver managed to get back his glasses with minimal damage, Polly on the other hand had hers beyond repairable. Those monkeys are quick and aggressive I tell you. Anyways, according to our guide, 85% of the local Balinese practice Hinduism and they practice it to the core. Each family has at least a shrine where they can pray and make offerings to. Bigger and wealthier family will have family temples and they have different type of temples for different God like you have God of protection, God of destroyer etc. so you can imagine for the next three days, we saw shrines, temples and remnants of offerings everywhere at every nook and corner. Later during the first day, we went to Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park where there stood a huge, and I repeat huge statue of Wisnu which is an illustration of the Almighty God in maintaining and caring all life and its being. The god Wisnu is said to be the owner of Amerta in the form of water as the source of fertility , giving wealth and life to the universe. And that statue is only 20% complete. The complete statue will be 150 m in height. Gasp. We ended the first day with a trip to the local Starbucks near Kuta Beach and discover a new favourite Starbucks drink, Ice Hazelnut Latte or something like it. A pretty eventful first day come to think of it. Anyways, what is a travel post without pictures, right. :)