Sights from Around Bali…

On the climbing wall at Como... It had been awhile since I last challenged a rock face, and for the next few days, my aching joints reminded me of that little fact...!!

The days here in Bali seem to drift into each other for me… I often have no idea which day of the week it is, and usually have to consult a calendar to determine the date and day…!! It’s a weird feeling when you believe that today is Monday and discover that in actual fact it is Thursday…!! Where the heck have Tuesday and Wednesday gone…??

Chamber of pain and suffering... Otherwise known as Patti's Pilates Studio at Como Shambhala...

I spent a good deal of my time either reading, walking Sadie, attending the odd yoga class, or visiting Patti at Como when she had any free time between the classes she was teaching…

We took long walks on the estate, stopping to do some exercises on the Jungle Gym apparatus and even doing some climbing on the climbing wall that has been set up on a sheer slab of rock close to the Ayung River…

Occasionally, I would collect Patti from work on the bike, enjoying the sensation of having the Big Fella under me again, jinking through the traffic and scaring the wits out of the riders on their smaller scooters… Just the occasional “Careful Honey…!!” from Patti to remind me that I was not alone…!!

People have become used to seeing me riding around, standing up on the pegs to see around the cars in front of me, and to keep an eye open for the numerous potholes that dot the road on the way to Como… They would wave and shout greetings to me as I passed, or stop and stare at the bike long after it had gone by wherever they were standing…

After almost two months here, I am beginning to feel like a local…!!

Mobile shrine... During the Galungan Ceremony, shrines like this one are hoisted onto the shoulders of the menfolk and paraded through the streets...

I have come to enjoy the friendliness of the Balinese people, who are not bound by the stricter Muslim heritage of the country they are part of…

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, and with a population of in excess of 220 million souls, is the fourth most populated country on the globe…

Employees at Como Shambhala prepare for a ceremony of their own...

Bali has remained a solid bastion of Hinduism, and has been allowed to operate almost autonomously from Indonesia itself…

Its culture has remained  unchanged for over a 1000 years, probably because Balinese society is based on oral traditions, handed down through the generations, that require its members to participate in cultural activities on an almost daily basis…

Offerings both large and small are placed at the entrances to homes and businesses alike each day. They usually consist of a small woven basket that contains a variety of flower petals, small pieces of fruit and homemade candy, and topped off with a few sticks of incense… The smell of this incense fills the early morning air as I either walk Patti to her waiting car, or take Sadie on one of our neighborhood  rambles…

Penjors line the roads in Bali during the festival of Galungan...

There is a very strong sense of community spirit here, and each village takes responsibility for the well-being of its people and the environment surrounding it… It is not uncommon to see a group of villagers cleaning or clearing an access route to their village, or working together in their own time to make improvements to shrines and temples…

Recently, the holiday of Galungan was celebrated, which takes place every 210 days in Balinese culture… It is akin to our Christmas, and is celebrated over a three day period…

On this day, Hindus thank the Gods for the creation of earth and all its contents… Cleansing ceremonies begin days and even weeks before Galungan itself, to rid the environment of all negativity…

Elaborate shrines are built and carried on the shoulders of the men of each village, paraded up and down the main streets to the accompaniment of singing and traditional music… Pigs and chickens are sacrificed to appease the spirits, and then used in traditional dishes, served over the holiday period…

Large bamboo poles are beautifully decorated and placed before the entrances of each family compound, and along all the major roads that pass through the villages… These “penjors” express the gratitude, appreciation and thankfulness for the prosperity and richness that the physical earth has bestowed…

It all adds up to a very festive few days, and above our villa in the village of Penestanan, music blared throughout the night and into the early morning over the three days of celebration… The Balinese sure know how to stretch a party out…!!

After a few days of deep navel contemplation, I decided to heed the grumblings of the Big Fella, and took him on an out-ride to cover the eastern parts of the island…

The Eastern Loop... It took seven hours to cover just 250 km...!!

Out on the road... After a few weeks of rest, the Big Fella gets a chance to remind me of just what he is capable of...!!

We took the road north out of Ubud, rode through the villages of Payangan and Ponggang, and then began the climb up through the valleys and over the ridges that form the lower slopes of the Batur volcano…

Petrol can be bought from a number of roadside outlets, without having to bother with a visit to a service station... "Don't even think about it...!!" came the Big Fellas reply when I pointed this out to him...!!

A thick layer of cloud blanketed the entire area, and at times, as we climbed up to the higher elevations, I regretted not wearing a windbreaker, as the cold wind tore through the thin shirt I was wearing, setting my teeth a-chattering…!!

After a steep section of hairpin bends and switchbacks, we reached the crossroad at Kalanganyar on the western edge of the massive caldera and the rim of the Batur volcano.

Mount Batur is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, and there had been a small eruption just the week before, but it had vented under Lake Batur, a crescent shaped body of water that lies on the eastern edge of the caldera… The only casualties from this particular eruption were the fish that live in the lake and those that are farmed by the locals who live along the shoreline of it…

The clouds had lifted by the time we passed through Kintamani, but at 1550 m.a.s.l., the air was still cooler than I had expected as we began the long and twisting section of road that would take us back down to sea level, east of Singaraja…

On the rim of the Batur Caldera... Lake Batur lies inside the crater...

With the bike stripped down, free of all luggage it would normally be burdened with, we took the sharp bends and cutbacks at a good clip, overtaking cars, buses and the occasional scooter with consummate ease… After only a few sharp corners, we settled into a comfortable rhythm, the Big Fella his usual light and nimble self beneath me…

We barreled through the little villages on this predominantly downhill section, scattering chickens, dogs and the odd pig… At the village of Kubutambahan, I sat the Big Fella for a few minutes, trying to calculate distances, routes, and the time it would take to get back to Ubud before dark… It had taken almost two hours to cover the 90 odd kilometres to that point…!!

We stopped near a Hindu temple on the northern coast near Alassari...

I decided to skip a visit to the nearby town of Singaraja, and turned east along the coastal road instead, looking for a place to stop and get something to drink… The sun was beating down on my neck and back by now, and when I wasn’t moving, sweat broke out on my arms in seconds…

At Alassari, near an ancient Hindu Temple, I stopped at a roadside Warung to buy water and a few snacks before riding on towards Tulamben, a further 65 km to the east… While I studied my map, a small group of young men gathered around me, pointing out the towns and villages along the way…

The road was in rather poor condition in this area, running alongside the sea and due north of the Batur Volcano complex… With our speed curtailed by potholes and roadworks to repair them, we reached Tulamben more than an hour later, where the road surface was being properly resealed… I was told that eventually, the roads in the entire area would be upgraded to encourage more tourists to visit the northern shores of the island…

This is a popular destination for divers, as the wreck of the USS Liberty lies barely a stone’s throw off the beach at Tulamben, in 20 metres of water…

The vessel was torpedoes by a Japanese submarine in 1942, while en route from Australia to the Philippines… It was beached at Tulamben so that it’s cargo of rubber and railway parts could be offloaded…

In 1963, a major eruption of the Agung Volcano sent the wreck sliding off the beach and into deeper water… This same eruption killed thousands of people in Bali, destroying vast swathes of rice paddies and their irrigation networks…

Paul Cripps, the friend I made in Denpasar when I first arrived in Bali, had suggested I visit the Mimpi Resort in Tulamben, and seeing the sign close to the outskirts of town, I stopped there for lunch…

At the Mimpi Resort in Tulamben, I stopped to have lunch, and sat enjoying the scenery...

It is a beautiful hotel, located on the black volcanic beach, with villas that give you a magnificent view out over the lush gardens to the beach and sea beyond… Definitely a place I could spend a few quiet and relaxing days in, snorkeling, diving and paddling about in the kayaks available for hire…

While I ate, I watched dive boats dropping divers onto the steep sea wall that was just offshore… This was the perfect spot for shore entry dives, and I wondered why they even bothered with a boat…!!

After lunch, I headed further east to the fishing village of Amed, where the majority of dive operators seemed to be located… Dozens of cheap backpacker lodges and hotels lined the road leading to and from the village, and having ridden through it, I decided to keep going along the narrow track that skirted the extinct and smaller volcano of Seraya, whose slopes ran down to the sea…

On this 30 kilometre stretch of nightmarish “road” I was thankful that I met only a handful of cars coming the other way…!! It is a sparsely populated part of the island, and the narrow road bears testimony to that… On two occasions I had to ride off the road and onto the grassy verge to allow a car to pass, and when the verge is part of a very steep slope leading down to a set of impressive looking drop-offs to the sea below, you will understand why my heart was in my mouth most of the time…!!

Small wooden bridges, which groaned and creaked under the weight of the bike, also had me wondering at the wisdom of having chosen to make this little scenic detour…!!

Skirting the lower slopes of Mt Seraya on the north eastern tip of Bali... Small fishing villages can be seen in most of the bays ...

I stopped to look back at the village I had just passed through...

Footsteps in the sand... A deserted part of the beach near Candidasa...

Fighting cocks are kept and sold from these baskets... Cockfighting forms a part of Balinese culture, and usually take place over a two or even three day period, moving from village to village...

Fishing villages dot the coast here, and on the sunny open patches of ground near the villages, woven baskets were laid out in the sun to dry… People smiled and waved as I passed by, some urging me to stop so that they could get a closer look at the bike…

I finally made it to the small village of Jasri and found the link to the main road running north to Amlapura and southwest to Candidasa…

We took the climb that ran between emerald green rice paddies, set on a series of terraces and then rode down into the long valley that leads to Padang Bai and the ferry port to Lombok, encountering the usual traffic congestion that fills the roads from here all the way to Denpasar…

I managed to avoid the mayhem by cutting inland and heading for Klungkung and from there to Gianyar and on to Ubud, which I reached as the sun was sinking behind the coconut groves and rice paddies…

Drying rice in the main road running through Penestanan village...

I had covered 250 kilometres and it had taken almost seven hours of solid riding to achieve that…!! Despite the stiffness in my arms and lower back, I had enjoyed being back in the saddle for a long ride again, and after parking the bike, sobering thoughts of the long rides that were still ahead of me began to intrude on the feeling of well-being that coursed through me…

Heads or tails...?? Either way, you're getting fish for dinner...!! Red Snapper, to be precise...!!

I had spent much of the last year and a half thinking about what came next; the next country I would be reaching; the next border crossing and the documents I would need to get through it; the next ride; the next town I would sleep in…

Spending such a long time in one place had diluted those thoughts to a large extent, and it had taken today’s ride to bring them all back into focus again…

And that just fueled the internal struggle that raged inside my head… How much longer could I afford to stay here without missing another important “weather window”; this time the one that would make the ride down to the southern tip of South America at the end of the year either a hellish nightmare, or just plain difficult…!!

Personally, I preferred to tackle it when the conditions would be “just plain difficult”, when the winds that tear through Patagonia calm down to a gentle 80 to 100 km/h…!! And that would be in late November and early December…

But first there was a bit of white knuckle riding to get to East Timor, which would take a few weeks depending on ferry schedules, and then that little island of Australia and the 15 000 plus kilometres my intended route would take, to negotiate…!!

Made, who manages the Warung (restaurant) next door, joins Ketut, our landlord, and his family to have their photo taken with the Big Fella... The girls helped me wash the bike, carrying a big bucket of water along the alleyway for me, and then stood patiently pointing out all the spots I missed...!!

Oh yes, and least I forget, a quick visit to meet Patti and her family in New York somewhere in between…!!

All minor details when you’re taking on “The World”, Dudes…!!

©GBWT 2011