Uluwatu

Uluwatu

The flight to Bali is short and easy. It is only because of it being low season that the flights don’t go directly to Bali from NZ.

I have a theory about the female Singapore air stewards. I think they have breasts built into their uniforms……

They are all very tiny but all have quite structured and extremely pert bosoms which move strangely (as if hollow) when they move around the cabin. It’s all I can do to resist reaching out and prodding one of them.

Bali is hotter and crazier than Singapore. It is raining and a driver is waiting with a people-mover to pick us up and take us to the Flower Bud Bungalows for our first three nights.

I don’t know how we would ever have found our own way there. There is an endless series of small winding lanes that take us down from Denpasar to the bottom of Bali near Uluwatu.

In 1996 when both Roger and I came to Bali (before we met) Kuta was already overrun. We have decided to go nowhere near that area if we can avoid it.

Our first full day in Bali, it is nice to relax, eat banana pancakes and swim in the pool. It rains a lot this first day and I realise that somewhere along the way, I forgot that it would be rainy season and extremely hot when we arrived. The beach at the end of the road is extremely rough and all the water orange from the runoff during the heavy rain during the night.

 

During our stay we go to Padang Padang beach, a tiny little white sand cove with a narrow cave like walkway from the road. It seems that 200 other people are also visiting.

It is like a bikini, tattooed traveller flesh fest (with monkeys). The monkeys are the cool part because they are the first we have seen. We don’t want to swim in rubbish so we head off to visit the temple on the cliff at Uluwatu.

Jasper has always loved monkeys. He was born in the year of the monkey and still goes to bed each night with a monkey that he received on his first day on earth. I had a bad feeling about the monkey thing in Bali and lo and behold, as soon as we head down the tree-lined path to the temple we approach a monkey sitting in the middle of the path. It is furiously inspecting all of us from a distance but obviously decides (perhaps through some cosmic astrological connection) to go for Jasper’s blue jandals. He runs screaming and crying and the monkey chases, trying to bite the jandals off his feet.

He said he went home later and told Monkey about it and Monkey was sorry.

At the temple we watched a Kecak Dance, a sort of dramatic dance interpretation of the Hindu Ramayana with amazing characters and fire. It was beautiful as the sun set and the mostly Indonesian and Chinese audience (there are not many other tourists here at the moment) sat in an outdoor amphitheatre looking over the sea.