Busy Day in Bali

Day 16 - January 26

Breakfast was a good as the day before. Wonderful in fact. The staff is very nice here. We were done well before Putu arrived and were ready to go when he got here. We were off on another adventure.

Barong and Kris Dance - The first act of the play dragged on too long. The story moved along more quickly after that. It would have been difficult to follow the story if there had not been a hand out in English. There are handouts in other languages as well. The costumes were very elaborate. It was certainly worth 100,000 rupiah. Once the play started moving it was much more entertaining. The group offers picture opportunities with a couple cast members and the tiger costume at the end of the show. The musicians are very interesting as well but since the focus is on the stage the musicians are pretty much ignored.

We stopped at a furniture store on the way to the next attraction. The furniture was made on premises. Most of the furniture are tables made from slabs with legs attached. I asked the price on a slab (8x3x5) and found that it was very reasonable at 8,000,000 rupiah (about $500). It would be 4 or 5 time that in the States. It was a fun stop for me.

We went to the Tegenungan Village Waterfall today in the rain. Rain had been falling most of the night and all morning before we arrived. The volume of water was probably 4 times that in most pictures I have seen. The water was very muddy instead of clear as in the pictures. I would say even with the brown water the falls was very beautiful and powerful. Certainly worth the trip and the 10,000 rupiah per person admission. Like I said it was raining so there were not very many people at the venue. That made it easy to move around and get different vantage points on the falls and the river.

Tegenungan Village Waterfall

 Lunch at Papuan Cili - This restaurant specializes in duck. However, not being fond of duck we ordered different types of fried rice. Both meals were very good. They do serve alcohol and I had a beer with lunch. As you look out the openings in the open air dining room you will see a pool which guests my use. There is a small cornfield and of course the ever present rice paddies. The setting is quite nice. The palms are tall enough to watch song birds flit among the fronds. The birds were singing a lot so it must be mating season for these small birds. Their voice were very pleasant. The establishment also keeps various parrots and other birds on the property for viewing by the guests. Would eat here again if nearby.



Batur Volcano and Lake are very beautiful. We did not spend much time here. We were getting pretty tired. There were a lot of people here hawking souvenirs to the point of being annoying. But the lake was very pretty especially when set against the mountains and the surrounding hills.

Batur Lake

Terraced rice fields - I'm not at all sure when the terraces were hued from the hillside. I can only imagine that it happened well before modern equipment would have been available to the rice farmers here. Terracing with hand tools would be very difficult and the hillsides here are quite steep. It really is an engineering marvel on the part of the people and a model of perseverance for today's young people. Certainly worth the stop to check it out.

Terraced Rice Fields

From the terraced rice fields we went back to the hotel.

We had dinner at a restaurant called the Nomad. The restaurant is about a half a kilometer from our hotel. We walked down the main street in Ubud and just decided to stop here for our dinner. It was about 9 PM and there were quite a number of people in the venue, mostly they were tourists like us. There are low tables that you can kneel at or chairs. We opted for the chairs. The menu has a variety of foods. There are Indonesian, American, Italian, and others.

I ordered a Nomad hamburger with mozzarella, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion, without bread. The burger was done perfectly. It was tender and juicy. I was given tomato catsup as condiment but asked for the Indonesian hot sauce. That is much more tasty and has a little zip. Bonnie ordered smoked marlin salad and said it was very good as well. We topped it off with with a shared two scoops of ice cream. It was a very nice meal. Since it was right off the street it can probably be a bit noisier during the day but this evening the noise level was fine. Would eat here again.