Monday 12th November 2007 - Bali, Indonesia
I think we were surprised to learn that Bali was not typically Indonesian but an unusual island with a mixture of Hindi and indigenous culture as others can probably tell you. The most salient feature of this unusual combination is in the architecture of the island which is characterised by compound housing residences for the extended family, but with distinct buildings within the 'gated community' for different functions. It's literally the case that there are separate buildings for the main parlour/lounge, for bedrooms, for the kitchen and, in each house, for worship as a minimum.
We left the boat by tender at a resort village to an extremely friendly reception organised by the ships agents, but also to unbelievable levels of hassle by local sales people, of which more later.
We next took a coach tour to a wood carving family compound followed by a painting family compound. Fine, in their own right, but we were very much a captive audience in a string of villages which stretched for about 10 kms comprising much the same. Any doubts about tourism having taken over were dispelled with all prices, and we mean all prices, being quoted in US dollars. Possibly one thinks of geese and golden eggs which is sad because Bali is truly beautiful and friendly but spoiled by seriously aggressive hawkers.
We continued to a spectacular volcanic complex known as Mount Batur and Lake Batur. This was an uphill drive for at least 15kms to a height of 1700 m to the rim of a caldera (lip of a blown up volcano for the uninitiated). The centre comprised a large volcanic lake and the rim, about 5 km in diameter included the new volcano - a secondary fissure - and other higher residual peaks on the rim. Anyone with 'A' level geography would recognise this as a 'text book' example. Fascinating, but not at all active, unlike our Red Sea Yemeni experience, but nevertheless interesting.
After a tolerably OK local lunch (all too bland for us - to cope with geriatric European digestive systems) we drove back down from the rim to an indigenous local village where much of the building material comprised worked bamboo - and this bamboo was up to 10 m high, even to the roof tiles being sliced and shaped bamboo. Preserved as a tourist phenomenon, each house/compound had to be licensed for a given number of family members as elsewhere.
Finally, we returned via a very fine Chinese temple with three courtyards where we were obliged to wear sarongs out of religious respect. David looked a little like a rotund David Beckham and Mandi just looked rotund (no fags for 2 months!). We passed black volcanic sand beaches - a bit grotty - before arriving at the port - good yellow saund, but more sales hassle - after a largely successful day.
With the benefit of hindsight, we wished we'd done the day ourselves, although our tour guide was really excellent.
