Candylicious Kuta

The last few hours of our Bali trip the other week was spent in Kuta. It's an entirely different place from the one I first visited in 1984. Look at this air-conditioned shopping centre, for instance. Looks like it could be on Queensland's Gold Coast.

But there's still all the same stuff going on on the beach: hair braiding, massages, coconut quaffing, beach football......

And still an excellent sunset most evenings.

Amazing place

In Bali you can get comfortable accommodation for $20 or less, and a bit more buys you a little luxury. But in Lovina, we went one step further. We lashed out and paid what we might have paid for a pretty standard Australian motel room, and look what we got!

Lata Lama is a unique resort, consisting of a collection of amazing designer hippy houses, which look like they would be more at home in Byron Bay or Mullumbimby.

Our 'Rumah Beryl' (Beryl's House) was rather magnificent. Every room, and every detail of every room, could have been at home in any of the 'Home Beautiful' type magazines, we thought. And we even had our very own nicely sized swimming pool.




It was a bit of a walk down to the beach, but that added to the charm, we soon decided.

Lovina's daily dolphin chase

One of the big attractions of Bali's Lovina is the dolphin watching cruise. Most people do it at sunrise (6 am), but there's an 8 am alternative too.

I wandered down to the beach just before six, and as expected, was soon aboard one of the outrigger fishing boats (perahu), and being motored out across the pre-dawn waters. We went a few kilometres out, and it was quiet for a while as we searched for any action.

Before long a big group of other boats was sighted though, and clearly that was where it was all happening. We roared off to join them.

Then there was an hour or so of frantic dodging, weaving, chasing, outmanoeuvring each other. And occasionally getting great close up views of the dolphins too. I actually thought the best part was just the spectacle of all the colour and movement and all the shapes and sizes of different boats and tourist groups.

There's much discussion of whether this does the dolphins any good. Locals point out that they do keep coming back every day, and I was inclined to think that they'd be pretty skilled at avoiding the boats if they wanted to, and maybe they enjoyed the daily entertainment anyway.

But then there was a story on the news in Australia today about how the dolphins in Adelaide keep getting hit and killed by speedboats there. So now I'm not so sure.

Lovina sunsets

We spent a very pleasant few days in Lovina, on Bali's north coast. It's come on a lot since I first visited many years ago, but it's still pretty quiet and relaxing compared with say, Kuta.

You can enjoy the beach, the fine food and local sights. Or you can go on a dolphin-watching boat ride. (More on that later.) The food is good and inexpensive. The sunsets are pretty good too.

Bali Geckos and other night monsters

The one on the right is a Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko). He lived in and around our Ubud accommodation unit, and had an amazingly loud and almost menacing call. He's very pretty though.





This other one is actually a day monster, and he's a skink. In fact, he's a Many-lined sun skink (Eutropis multifasciata).

Wisata Selfie (Selfie Tourism)

For Indonesians a day trip to a beauty spot was always mainly about standing in front of the said waterfall, or lake, or park or whatever, and getting some photos of yourself.

In the age of the selfie, there is now 'selfie tourism', which takes place in 'selfie parks', complete with all kinds of fun props. Sometimes quite bizarre props really.

Here I was on the ridge top road above the Twin Lakes in northern Bali. You could pose on swings, on coolie bicycles, as a Garuda bird.......

Or you could fondle bats, giant lizards, or other 'enimals'.

Balinese rice field tourism

A stroll in the rice fields is one of the things a visitor to Bali has always needed to do. They can be very picturesque indeed. Ubud especially, is surrounded by scenic rice field walks, though we found that some, like the Campuhan Ridge walk, have become rather too popular for comfort. The paving over of the previous dirt path detracted a bit too, I thought.

Some of the rice field locations have reached tourism superstar status. The Jatiluwih rice terraces, for example, are considered a must-see stop on day tours between Ubud and northern Bali. They're also among the iconic destinations the Obama family visited when here last year.


And it's easy to see why.

Too much monkey business

After Sulawesi I headed back to Bali, where we set up residence for a while in Ubud. Our accommodation was just outside the notorious Monkey Forest. We'd walk through it on the way into town.

There's an awful lot of monkeys, and they're not at all friendly. Always entertaining though.

Flying the Garuda bird again

Garuda is a legendary bird-like creature in Hindu mythology, the king of birds, in fact. He was a protector with powers to go anywhere. He's also part of  Indonesia's state insignia, and with particular importance in mainly Hindu Bali, where they're constructing the world's biggest statue in his image.

Here's a smaller version, courtesy Wikipedia, of a National Museum of India Garuda.

Back to Indonesia, and it's of course also the national airline. I'm more than happy to fly Garuda these days on my annual Indonesian explorations. They had an unfortunate bad patch for a while, with a few (unprotected) planes falling out of the sky and coming into unscheduled high speed contact with planet Earth. Along with all other Indonesian carriers they even got banned from flying to Europe. But that's all changed now. They haven't had a crash for a good while, they've been winning various international airline awards, and my experience this trip was one of efficient, friendly and comfortable service, and almost perfect on-time flying.

Indonesia's major airports too have made massive advances. They have some of the world's biggest, and most comfortable and best-organised ones these days. Vastly better places to deal with than Sydney's tired and crowded international airport.


On the subject of airline safety, there was an extraordinary incident at an Indonesian airport last week, when passengers on low-cost Indonesian airline Lion Air took it upon themselves to evacuate onto the wing of an airliner, after a disgruntled passenger claimed to have planted a bomb because there was no room in the locker for his hand baggage. Watch here: Lion Air evacuation





Another Garuda bird about to fly? Actually no. This was a tourist in Bali posing as one, I think.










My Garuda-enabled trip this year took in South Sulawesi and Bali. Watch this space for further reports.

Dodging 'cat poo', finding temples

On one of my Bali days I joined a minibus day tour, taking in a few of the places of interest to the east and north of Ubud. I had the pleasure of the company of a selection of young international backpackers, every one of whom provided delightful, intelligent company. Nobody spent any time at all playing with their mobile phone!




The first three stops were at nearby Hindu temples, known in tour guide shorthand as 'Cave Temple', 'Rock Face Temple', and 'Water Temple'.









'Water Temple' presented quite a spectacular scene, with crowds of tourists, domestic and international, shuffling forward for their turn under the holy water spouts. Some of my group would have liked to join them, but our slightly impatient tour guide didn't seem to be encouraging it.







We then called in at the Santi coffee plantation at Tampaksiring, where they grow coffee, chocolate, and tea, and a selection of spices to go with them. They also produce kopi luak (luwak coffee), using caged civets to do the eating and pooing of the coffee berries. None of the organic, free range, ethical 'cat-poo coffee' to be had here. And none of the group wanted anything to do with it.

But everyone happily got stuck into the tasting tableful of teas, cocoa, and more traditional coffees, some of which were very nicely spiced up.












And I'm quite a fan of the bog-standard Bali coffee anyway, and bought lots.

Dodging Obama

Indonesia had an even more famous visitor than me while I was there. Ex US President Barack Obama and his family turned up for a holiday.

He arrived in Bali on the same afternoon as me, and he stayed with me in Ubud. Actually not quite with me, but in another accommodation place nearby where they charge approximately 300 times as much. Not that my $40 per night place was uncomfortable. Anything but. See pictures here of my excellent little villa and the family who looked after me.







He'd been offered top level security for the duration of his visit, but fortunately had settled for a level somewhere below this, so they hadn't closed the airport for my arrival.

Anyway, the whole country felt a bit pleased and honoured, I think, that one of their favourite adopted sons had come back on a 'mudik'. That's the homecoming visit people make to their village of origin during the big post-Ramadan holiday. I felt a bit honoured too, though he never made the effort to seek me out.

He did visit many of the same Balinese tourist sites though, and the local police were kept on their toes, and maintained unusual levels of visible presence.

When I moved on to Jakarta for a few days, he was there too! Obama spent a few of his childhood years in Jakarta's Menteng suburb, a rather pleasant area full of embassies and parks. He has a half sister in Jakarta and was reportedly catching up with her and other relatives (as well as President Jokowi). I visited his old primary school, where there's a plaque and a statue of the young 'Barry'.

Indonesians are generally very happy to discuss politics and politicians. When I remarked on how sad it was that the Americans had replaced such a capable, articulate and sensible leader with a dangerous idiot, there were no dissenting voices.