We started from 6:30 am in the morning so that we get some time in the airport. Its very strange but I really love airports :) Did our light breakfast at McDonalds and did some currency change from Yens to Rupiah(Bali/Indonesia Currency). Got a rate of 1 Yen = 80 Rupiah which I thought was good before I discovered in Bali that they were giving a rate of 1 yen = 105 Rupiahs. And I advice you to do the currency change in Bali since they give better rate and they Money changers are everywhere. After that we moved to our gate after security check and did our immigration formalities.
Then we boarded the Garuda Indonesia flight at 11:25 (5 min early ;)).
Our flight was direct to Denpasar and it took 7 hours and 30 mins to reach there. We reached there almost at the time of dusk. We came out of the flight and the first thing we had to do was to get VISA on arrival. This was something I was witnessing for the first time.
When I came to Japan or went to Sweden I had to prepare lot of docs for Visa. And this was something new as an Indian. I always felt how comfortable it is for Europeans/Americans/Japanese to move easily in each others countries without a prior VISA. But this time I was also able to witness this phenomenon for myself. Not a big thing but since it was happening for the first time i was worried till i saw the board "VISA ON ARRIVAL" in spite that we confirmed with Indonesian Embassy in Japan for that. So the first step was to get the VISA which costed around 2, 500 Yens/head. I had taken Rupiah but paid there in yens since it was easy to calculate.
Then our holidays start as soon as we came out of the airport. As soon as we got out of the airport, our JTB guide was waiting for us with the name plate and he took out luggage and put that into a small truck along with few others who had booked with JTB. He then asked us to get into a bus and soon he started introducing Bali, guess in what language. Yes Japanese. The Bali guide could speak Japanese but he was reading from a written script he might have received from JTB. He was doing a good job though.
We reached hotel and checked in into our rooms and it was a wonderful delight.
From the next morning we tried to stuff out schedule as follows.
Day 1: Start from Narita,JPN at 11 am and reach Denpasar, Bali in evening. Settled down in the hotel, had our dinner, went to the beach. It was full moon period so the view was also amazing during our stay.
Day 2: Around Hotel, Kecak Dance. Day 2 we dedicated to the place around hotel, beach, hotel facilities, spa and in the evening a lovely sun set with Kecak Dance. Coming back we also found an Indian Restaurant which had really good food.
Day 3: Bali Countryside, art and local culture. Day3 we started early in the morning in a hired car with a person to guide us. We went to see Batik (cloth painting), Wooden carving, Ornaments, visited a traditional village in Bali, went to a Farm where they were growing all sorts of spices, went to visit lake Batur and volcanic mountain and coming back visited a Temple and Rice Terrace. Also had Nariyal Paani after a long long time:)
Day 4: Marine Sports. Day 4 we dedicated our day to Marine sports starting with Dolphin watching in the open sea. They say its like gambling to spot Dolphins in open sea. We were lucky to get glimpses of dolphin in groups. They also had a option of Swimming with Dolphin, but in a pool. You need to select what you want to do. After that we did Ski-Jet. It was kind of fun too. After that the we did our most exciting thing in the trip, the Sea-Trek. I highly recommend this. After that we ended our marine sport with paragliding with one end tied to boat in the sea :)
Day 5: Lazy Morning, Quad Bike and Catch flight home from 12:30 pm and reach early morning in JPN.
Save 1500 Yens/head as airport tax. They accept Rupiah here hence make sure you have sufficient currency while coming back.
Temples and the culture
We learnt lot of new things about Bali. Even though its an Island in Indonesia where majority of population is Muslim, in Bali you will find 95% Hindus who worship Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha (TriMurti - ThreeFigures) . Even though their Temples have idols of Trimurti, their offerings style differ from that in India. The astonishing thing was that they offer non-veg and other things to GOD like chicken, Cakes or anything they find it to be offered to GOD. The thought process is even the chicken is God's gift and we are just returning it back. And also since they also believe in life and birth cycles and realize that you have to die a lot of times before you get a human form and you are animal before it. Hence by doing so they are enabling that animal to take human form at an earliest.
Their temples look like more of Chinese or Japanese styles but the offering methods are like Indians. Every Balinese visit temple each morning and they really celebrate things like Full Moon or Purnima and visit temple for special offerings. Looking at that I realized that they are more religious that people back at home. The conspicuous thing you will notice is the way Balinese people dress and wear a flower (both men and women) on their ear or on their special cap like wrap around their head. History says that it were Chinese and Indians came almost during the same times in Indonesia hence the influence is mixed.
Tourists
When reached Bali it was half-way in route between Japan and Australia. The greatest number of tourist who go to Bali are Japanese, Australia and surprisingly Russians. Then small number of other south asian countries including India. I was informed there is not direct flight from India.If coming form India you might have to change flight from Indonesia or Singapore. Balinese do not speak Hindi though :)Their native language is Balinese which is different from Indonesian language.You will be able to survice if you speak Eng or Japanese or Indonesian or Russian at some places.
Tourism Industry at its best
The tourism industry was very conspicuous in Bali. The awareness in the guides or people related to the tourism industry was could be easily realized. I remember when we were going from our hotel to Quad biking in a car which was driven by a coordinator of the quad bike and we were already running late because of traffic, we liked a statue on a intersection of a road and i war trying to take its picture without asking to stop the car. The person stopped the car and asked us to take snaps in a very relaxed manner. I said no problem you can drive and i can take snap in a running car. He said no problem he can wait for that, since you want t take the snap means you liked that statue and you want to make memories out of that. You will go back to your country and share this snaps with them and they would also like to visit Bali which will be goof for us as a tourism industry. That was something amazing to hear that how a single person who is driving a car for a adventure sport agency is taking efforts to glorify the image of the island and helping to increase tourism in his own way. All the other guides/person related to tourism were friendly, polite and honest.
Also when we went for marine sports they had a option of having a photographer service at a price of 30 USD. The service meant that photographer will accompany you in each sport and will take video and snaps of the important moments of the activity. For example we were doing parasailing, the photographer will take our videos/smaps while take off and landing. They just don't stop here. In the sports like "Sea Trekking" which happens below water surface much like scuba diving, they take pain to have a underwater photography gear, the photographer also dives with you and takes the snaps and videos of you playing with dishes and corals along with your company. And then when we are done with the sports, since we have limited time, they copy all the snaps and videos in a CD and also print a label on a CD with one of the snap you like and hand it over to you there itself in 30 min. Isn't that a perfect professionalism ? If that was not enough, almost every sport operator conducts its own survey in the end where they ask some good questions which are directly related tot he improvement of the their quality of service. They had questions like "WAs the activity worth your money ?", "WAs the staff accompanied you in the sport was friendly and polite ?", "Will you recommend this to your friends ", "if not why ?" , "Suggest improvement points if any", which really makes us think that how serious they are about their own industry and how committed they are to improve it.
They knew if I am taking their services, that meant someone has recommended it and I found it suitable but at the same time they see this as opportunity that I might suggest this to others and they are taking efforts to achieve this.
We also visited places where they were making some artistic things and selling them. We visited the places where they were making BATIK (a cloth work in which they use a manual method for creating colorful cloth), Goldsmith shops and wood carving shops. The things common to all those places was that before you enter the shop they had a section where they first show how that thing is made which arouses our interest in that thing and also as soon as we enter the shop we understand what we want and why one thing is costlier or cheaper that other. So to conclude selling of things is of course the focus but also at the same time to involve the person into that art work, how to educate the person so that he/she can value and reason about the art work, along with the selling of the product. And the preservesess of the art is the positive byproduct of the whole process. It was a good way to to retain an old art, educate people about it, create awareness in a common tourist like us and of course creating more employment for the country. I call it they were the best marketing folks for their art.
Restaurant type
There are lot of Russian restaurants who served Russian food and dedicated live music performances in Russian too.Of course there were lot Japanese restaurants too with the complete Japanese food Menus. We were lucky to find an Indian Restaurant too which had amazing food. This was the best Indian food (Indian Dhaba) we could have between Japan and India. Near the place where we stayed were lot of good bars and restaurants with lively live music. I remember a lady who after enjoying lot of drinks in a open restaurant with live Russian music left her chair and started dancing almost on the street with the rhythm of music. Even though she was a big lady here enjoyment with the dance and music looked elegant. Her boyfriend/Partner also supported her full heartedly.It had amazing night life too.
Batik
Sunset
Kechak Dance
Chill !
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