Port of call Bali, Indonesia -Feb. 1, 2001

Position: Port of call Bali, Indonesia -Feb. 1, 2001

We have arrived in Bali to find a large city and a tourism port. During the past 10 years Bali has had major tourism development with many large hotels built on the south shore beach. Only one of these hotels was on the Nusa Dua beach when we visited about 10 years ago. Now there is a Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, and others. They have also built 4 golf courses and up scale-shopping malls. There are numerous sidewalk shops open for endless bargaining. On the Jimbaran Bay there is a beautiful Four Season, Ritz-Carlton and Intercontinental, all outstanding and places to dream about.

Off the beach in the towns of Denpasar, more industrial plus a huge market of fresh foods and Ubud classified as the area of the artists, you also find the usual native life. Local stores, the busy markets and hotels are filled with worldwide tourists and natives doing their daily marketing. Not far out of town you immediately find the terraced rice fields being planted and harvested, all by hand. Every spare piece of land has rice and local vegetables planted.

Bali is a very mountainous country of volcanic origin with some peaks reaching 8,000'. There is always rain falling in higher elevations making it ideal for irrigation of the rice fields. All of the terrain is terraced with the water draining through each level to the next lower level all the way to the sea. On our trips through the country we found the island beautifully green and lush with vegetation.

The island population is 90% Hindu religion and thus very peaceful compared to some of the other islands of Indonesia where the Muslins are creating unrest. Every home has several temples, and there are temples for every village and major temples throughout the islands. The temples are used everyday at home and larger ones for holiday and special religious events. We visited one large temple for a special native ceremony. This particular temple was on the seashore atop a large seawall with wild monkeys being fed by the tourists, including us. What a shocking surprise when one small monkey reached out and snatched June's glasses off her head. The monkey went over the wall with glasses in hand, looking back to see what would happen next. Shouts from some boys sent the monkey out of site, but fortunately one of the boys saw him hide the glasses in the grass before he took off. Fortunately the boys retrieved the glasses from the grass. We won't wear glasses around monkeys again.

We saw many Balinese dances with colorful costumes, native music, with bamboo instruments, drums and flutes. All of the dances tell a story with the hands, fingers, feet and toes. Most enjoyable and amazing dexterity.

We stayed on shore for a few days, at the Hyatt and at two of the Four Seasons hotels. One was in the mountains in middle of the rice fields. One of best accommodations of the trip. We played tennis, each of us with our own ball boy. That was a real treat and with the heat plus humidity, allowed us extra strength and longer play. We also played golf several times. Both a first for June's new shoulder and she survived very well. We also took a 3 hour guided hike thru the rice terraces adjoining the hotel which we found very informative and fun but challenging.

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