Bali | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Jul

Taking it easy: Bali or bust?

Warm sun, icy cocktails, hot Petitenget restaurant, fabulous fashion stores that I’ve cruised, but not shopped.

Head down, I’m writing Bali. The island of the Gods is so close, just 5.5 hours from Melbourne, and I soooooooooo want to go back. But then I think:
there are so many other places to be going at this moment. Should you just go with
what you know and love, or head somewhere different?

Egypt is, of course, massively on sale, but with many waiting to see how the new Muslim Brotherhood president beds in, it’s a waiting game. Vietnam is on fire and Cambodia is going crazy while the South Pacific’s Cook Islands are getting a run at the moment. The inbox is full of Asian deals, and the US, particularly Hawai’i, is going crazy, with more and more Aussies flocking to its gentle shores.

If you could snap your fingers now, where would you be? Shaking it at Burning Man? Standing in the middle of the Atacama Desert? Chasing wildflowers in the French Alps or chewing bagels in summery New York City. (Notice the ‘warm’ theme creeping through here?)

PS: If you boggled at the idea of 5.5 hours being ‘close’, then you’re obviously not Australian. Or maybe Russian. Russians understand what it is to be far away.

Jun

Where I (and you) should be right now

SOS Supperclub, on top of the Anantara Seminyak, Bali. You know you want to be there right now. It looks like it’s set up for a wedding in this shot, but if you could look behind you, you’d see all the day lounges set up to catch the sun setting over Seminyak beach.

Jun

Crazed monkeys and limbless Frenchmen: This is The News

Spread out before me is the latest copy of the Bali Advertiser, a local rag published mostly in English, which I picked up at the front of Biku cafe last week.

I’d stopped in to Biku for a coffee and tarot reading (both very good). I would have skipped the tarot and read the Local News headlines, if I’d realised it was such gripping stuff, particularly the local news page which featured stories on a killer monkey and a limbless swimmer.

East Bali residents hunt down killer monkey:

Residents of Nongan Village, Karangasem, East Bali, are still searching for a crazed monkey that attacked and killed a man on Monday 14/5…Villagers suspected that the monkey was seeking revenge for a previous gunshot wound when the monkey was shot by hunters. “Any monkey that is not a pet is a suspect,” said Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner of Karangasem Jefri Torunde.

Limbless Frenchman Swims from PNG to Indonesia:

A Frenchman who lost his limbs in an electrical accident has..(swim) from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia in the first stretch of a mission to swim between five continents.

Apparently, it took 7.5 hours to cover the 20-km journey.

Other stories included the Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s sentence being cut, a plague of tuberculosis in Eastern Indonesia and a tale of a 54-year-old Australian hairdresser being nabbed with a kilogram of hash and 5g of crystal meth IN his body (seriously uncomfortable).

Jun

What I love about Bali: a short list

Rice paddies, Tabanan regency.

Out on the street, you rip your favourite shirt: disaster? No! there’s a tailor within 100 yards, who’ll whip it off you, let you wait in the change room and stitch it up, better than new, for $1, in five minutes.
Run out of petrol in the middle of the street? Someone will sell you an old Absolut Vodka bottle of petrol for a buck, and nobody’ll scream while you refill the car, which has stopped in the middle of the street.
A happy, friendly, competent nanny costs $6 an hour, leaving you free to nip down to the spa for a:
$20 facial, $10 pedicure, $20 hour-long massage.
Kangkung: water spinach lightly cooked with sliced garlic and chilli. Alone, worth the trip to Bali.
Year-round warmth. It may rain occasionally, but even the rain is warm.
Easy visas: you pays your $20 at the door, you gets in. No queuing for six weeks with the chance of getting rejected (hello, India, China?) Remembering the 150,000Rp departure tax is a bit of a pain, but there are plenty of people to remind you.
Juice-tastic breakfasts: mango, watermelon, papaya, mint, all with a
healthy dose of ginger. Pure goodness, right from first light.

Alila Villas Soori.

Pools. Is it physically possible to rent a Balinese hotel room/villa without a pool? Well, yes, I guess if you are staying in a losmen (the super, super cheap Indonesian digs which can comprise just a single bed and a squattie loo). Otherwise, bring on the daily swim!
Find your style: you can do swank, you can do budget. You can do whatever you want on the island, from Bulgari to backpacker.

May

Trunk calls; night of the long noses in Bali

Room with a view.

It’s been a while since I’ve been woken up by an elephant. The last time was in the wilds of Kenya, when a massive bull elephant was busily ripping the forest outside my safari tent.

The second time was last night, and the location is central Bali. This time, however, the elephant was tethered, and it woke me by clanking its chain over and over again. Finally, risking being called a nuisance journalist who complains about everything (‘the birdsong is too loud in the morning!’), I rang reception who said they would immediately contact their mahout on call. Two minutes later: peaceful elephant, peaceful journalist.

Taro Elephant Safari Park is home to 30 Sumatran elephants, the world’s smallest elephant. However, they’re still seriously big beasts, and the view from my lodge room was of eight elephants, busily eating, snoozing and peeing, which sounds like a burst fire hydrant. The brief spurt of clanking aside, it was surprisingly quiet, sleeping beside eight elephants, save the occasional long, nasal snort.

Hats off to founders Nigel and Yanie Mason, who not only rescued the elephants from devastated landscapes and logging camps, but also envisaged such ideas as stepping out of your room and into a teak elephant seat, atop an elephant headed out for a night safari beneath the stars. A beautiful park and a wonderful chance to meet happy, healthy pachyderms.

May

Death becomes her: happy Balinese villages

A happy gong player in a cremation
ceremony, Tabanan.

We were pottering through the loveliest little village in west Bali when suddenly the street was blocked by a procession of about 100 people.

The procession was led by women in beautiful costumes bearing offerings, men playing gong (gamelan), a stick bearer and lots of folk walking behind them.

It was a pretty procession, and I wound down the window of my car and took plenty of pretty photographs. Everyone smiled and waved, happy to be snapped.

The procession finally finished and we started on our way again, and I asked Nata, my guide, what the occasion was.

“It was a cremation ceremony,” he explained.

But they all seemed so happy!

May

Words don’t describe beautiful Bali

Today, I was schlepping around the tourist-plagued Tanah Lot, a Hindu temple perched on a rock in the Tabenan regency, in west Bali. Avoiding the crowds that descend on the temple at sunset, it was still busy mid-afternoon, with a surprisingly large number of Indonesian tourists, out for a perve at their craziest island.

A schoolgirl from Jakarta stopped and asked me if she could take a photo of me for her English school project. No worries, I said. Her friends jumped in the photo, and so did their teacher, and the photographer snapped away with everyone’s cameras.

“Indonesians from Jakarta and other parts of the country like to come here to see the tourists,” explained my guide, Nata. “They go down to Kuta beach to photograph them and tell their friends back at home they met a foreigner.”

“What, in all their bikinis and Bintang beer t-shirts?” I asked. We giggled. Then a bloke walked past: bald, fat, grey goatee, a scrawl of tatts on both calves and a singlet that read: ‘Give me head until I’m dead: Bali’. I did not take a photo.

Apr

Nirvana for the wild at heart


Rafting the rapids.

By boat or bike, paddling or pachyderm, the Island of the Gods is heaven for the adventurer.

There’s
more to Bali than the nightclubs and Kuta’s beaches: get on your
elephant, cycle among green paddy fields or take to the water to explore
its underwater life.

Elephant tours

Tap
into Bali’s Hindu culture with a cruise through the jungle atop an
Asian elephant. Don’t worry about the logistics of steering a four-tonne
animal, the elephants are guided by their mahouts (handlers) through
Elephant Safari Park, a world-recognised sanctuary in Taro, 20 minutes
north of Ubud. It started when Australian Nigel Mason rescued 10
endangered elephants from Sumatra and now includes a luxe lodge,
restaurant, night safaris, botanical gardens and white-water rafting and
has earned the thumbs-up from animal luminaries such as Steve Irwin.
Elephant safari tours from $US73/$US49 ($70/$47), include hotel
transfers, lunch and admission to the park. Bali Adventure Tours, +62
361 721 480, baliadventuretours.com.

Rafting the rapids

Skim
through Bali’s lush green scenery, from rice terraces to rainforests,
on the rushing Ayung or Telaga Waja rivers, which provide the perfect
vehicle for white-water rafting. Run by long-time outdoors experts
Sobek, the Ayung River run is best for families, with grade 2-3 rafting
that has a few quiet stops to catch your breath, while the Telaga Waja
river route sends you down shallow rapids on a grade-3 ride in a
two-hour adventure. From $US79/adult, $US52/child (7-15 years), includes
towels, showers, lunch and insurance, Sobek Bali Utama, balisobek.com.

Tropical Trekking

Not-very-hard Bali trekking, Creative Holidays

Trekking
in the quiet of the early morning, you can appreciate Bali’s nickname,
the Island of the Gods. The most popular walking trails are around
Bali’s highest and holiest mountain, Mount Agung, at 3142 metres, and
Mount Batur, 1717 metres, in the north-east. Hiking the crater rim of
Mount Batur is best done in the dry season: head up pre-dawn for a
spectacular sunrise. From 450,000 rupiah ($47), includes torches, hiking
sticks, wet-weather gear, hotel transfers, breakfast and guide, baliecocycling.com.
For a more genteel amble, take a 2½-hour hike through rice paddies,
jungles and the village of Taro, with lunch at the Elephant Safari Park,
Creative Holidays, $63/adult, $45/child, 1300 747 400, creativeholidays.com or through travel agents.

On your bike

Julia
Roberts did it and you too can feel the tropical wind in your hair as
you pedal through the paddies. Staying off the scary main roads, with
their death-wish bemos (buses), seeing Bali by bike lets you listen to
the peaceful soundtrack of village life. From $47, includes transfers
and lunch, viator.com.
Intrepid Travel’s “Beautiful Bali” tour includes one day cycling from
Ubud up into the hills, from $672/nine days, 1300 018 871, intrepidtravel.com.

Dive in

Barat
National Park in north-western Bali is considered one of the island’s
premier diving spots, with the coral reefs of Pulau Menjangan (Deer
Island) the star attraction. Guides are essential when diving in the
national park: you’ll find them at the jetty at Labuhan Lalang, the
island’s jumping-off point. To organise from down south, combine luxury
and diving with Anantara resort’s two-day certification courses in Barat
National Park, $344, anantara.com.
Sleepy Sanur, near Denpasar, is itself a divers’ nursery and also the
starting point for the southern hotspot of Nusa Penida island. From
$US131/four days, +62 361 288 829, enadive.co.id.

Catch a break

Tropic Surf

Explore
remote point breaks from your base at the secluded eastern Balinese
resort Alila Manggis, with Tropic Surf owner and guru Jack Chisholm.
Using the full moon, he’ll lead you on a moonlit surfing safari around
the little-known eastern coastline, $US661/night, four nights includes
accommodation, spa treatments, some meals and daily surf guiding, Alila
Manggis +62 363 41011, alilahotels.com.
Private surf guiding is also available, discovering the iconic, the
infamous and the unknown, from $US500/half-day (extra surfers $US100
each), which can include coaching, surfboard factory tours, transport
and access to the top events on the islands, (07) 5455 4129, tropicsurf.net.

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