Indonesia is an archipelago comprising 13466 islands and has over 238 million inhabitants making it the world's fourth most populous country.
Denpasar is the capital and the most populous city on Bali, with a population of circa 1 million inhabitants.
It took something that felt forever to go through passport and customs controls and get a taxi to our hotel, but we got there... :) and our Best Western hotel in Kuta, is really nice. We have a roof top pool and a breakfast buffet every morning.
Kuta is a former fishing village, with a long white sand beach, in the southwest Bali. It was one of the first towns in Bali to have tourists and is still one of Bali's biggest and most important tourist destinations.
The 17th of August 1945 was the independence day of Indonesia and that we could see everywhere. The streets were decorated with red and white, big and small banners and flags literally everywhere, and we were listening to march-music during our breakfast. Before the independence Indonesia was a Dutch colony for more than three and a half century and a Japanese colony for three and a half year.
The first thing we did on our first day in Asia, was to get a Bintang - the beer of Bali. After that Carina got a full body massage and then we went to our roof top pool to relax and enjoy the cool ocean view over the city and the airport in the distance.
We went to eat later in the evening and on the way we shopped. Everything is so cheap here and they have these market shops everywhere.
It''s lovely that it is nice and warm here all the time, but it is also a bit more humid, than what we are used to and we sweat much more. We have not had days with clear blue sky, but instead we have a little wind and the sky is full of kites.... That is cool too.
On the second day here we hired a scooter for two days after breakfast.
This is our itinerary for the first day... :)
We were starting from our hotel (Best Western Kuta Beach) and then we went to Tanah Lot, then Mengwi for going back to the hotel later in the afternoon. Even that google maps tells us that our trip should only takes 1.5 hours we spend the whole day.
For that we payed 5 dollars a day and about 60 cents for fuel per liter. For 1 day we use for about 2 dollars fuel.
We went to see the temple in Tanah Lot about 35 km from Kuta, where we now stay.
There are Balinese figures everywhere. Also the entrance to the temple had statues.
Tanah Lot is a rock formation with a pilgrimage temple "Pura Tanah Lot" (temple on land in the sea) on top.
Tanah Lot is claimed to be the work of the 16th-century Dang Hyang Nirartha (a religious figure in Bali). During his travels along the south coast he saw the rock-island's beautiful setting and rested there. Some fishermen saw him and bought him gifts. Nirartha then spent the night on the little island. Later he spoke to the fishermen and told them to build a shrine on the rock for he felt in to be a holy place to worship the Balinese sea gods.
The Tanah Lot temple was then built.
We did not see any snakes at the temple, but it is believed that poisonous sea snakes guard the temple from the evil spirits.
The whole coast was kind of dramatic with rock formations and cliffs in and on the edge of the water. On this "natural bridge" there is also a little temple in the end of the bridge.
We are not allowed to go in to the temples. It is only for praying people.
After lunch we drove to see the temple in Mengwi.
Also in Mengwi they have these huge statues of their gods.
The Royal Temple of Mengwi was built in 1634 by a king of the Mengwi dynasty.
The temple complex stands on an island in a river.
Its Balinese name is "Pura Teman Ayun" which means "Garden Temple in the Water".
The story behind the temple is,
that the complex symbolize the mythological home of the gods, Mount Meru, floating in the sea of eternity.
An eleven-tiered meru is dedicated to the rice goddess "Devi Sri"
The third bale on the left is believed to be the abode of several different gods.
We saw cats everywhere.
Also in the temples...
We are really not the best at reading the very bad map we have of Bali and the few street signs we see on the way, are not always any help.
We were told that the police often stop tourists and make them pay a ticket on the spot for what ever reason they can make up. We saw some police on the road, but we were lucky and did not get stopped.
Tired after a long day, we went to have showers. We could feel in our throats, that the air in Kuta and around is really bad. But a shower, a rest, some food and a drink maked it much better.
We went on a new adventure on our third day in Bali. After breakfast we went by scooter to the town of Pecatu to see the Pura Luhur Uluwatu (sea temple) in the south.
Now we know that it is much easier and safer to drive a scooter, when you go north from Kuta instead of south. Markus is a good driver and Carina is a good passenger so we made it. But there is a lot of traffic in Bali.
The Pura Luhur Uluwatu was the most spectacular temple we had seen so far. We did not see the inside of the temple, but the situation of the temple is amazing.
It is one of Bali's oldest temples and is by Empu Kuturan a Javanese Hindu priest in the 10th century.
It is built in black coral rock on the edge of a 97 meter steep cliff of Bali's southern shore. It towers over the huge waves on the very crystal blue and green Indian Ocean and
we had magical views from the top.
At the top we could see the temple from the outside.
It was nothing special, but we took pictures at the god guard at the entrance to the temple.
Everybody visiting the temple area has to wear a sarong (skirt).
There were monkeys in the area, and
they were stealing everything from everybody.
But when they just sat, they were cute.
They never wanted to look at us.
The 20th was Markus's birthday and that day we spend by the roof top pool with drinks and some friends. Ryan and Christina and their visiting friend Anna from England joined us at the pool. Later that evening we all had a good dinner in the Hard Rock Café and drinks in one of Kuta's many bars. Markus first met Ryan and Christina in Darwin in northern Australia a year ago, then we met them again in Sydney, where we spend new years evening with them and now we meet again in Bali.
The day after was a hangover/tv day. We went up about 9.30 for the hotel breakfast, then sleep and watch tv until about 14.00, when we went on a walk around Kuta.
We went to see the Bali bombing memorial monument, that was built after the bombing on 12 of October 2002.
202 people was killed including 6 Swedish and 3 Danish citizens. A further 240 people were injured.
It took us some time, but in the end we found one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the area. It looks like a Chinese temple, among other things due to the majestic structures of the Vihara Dharmayana features elaborate Chinese motifs.
In the temple there was also a poster of different kind of snakes in Bali. For some reason we took this picture, but we never needed to know anything about Balinese snakes, because we never saw any.
On the way back to our hotel we went along Kuta beach.
And took some nice pictures of the incoming flights arriving to the airport we came to the day before.
Again we spend the evening in company with Ryan, Christina and Anna.
On the 22th we went to Ubud in a shuttle bus. It was a surprisingly positive adventure. The bus was only full, not over over over full and we had plenty of space in the bus. Also the bus did not have the ice ice cold air condition blowing for full power all the time. It is a cheap way of travelling and we will definitely use the shuttle buses again.
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