Day 49 - Part II - Wednesday Feb 15 Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia

Bali Part II photos

Continuation of previous post.

The guide announced that we were now going to a family compound and explained about it. We stopped fairly quickly in front of a very fancy and new-looking place that Clay had tried to get a photo of from the road going past the first time, of men putting up a roof and a beautiful roadside lotus pond. We pulled over half on and half off the road and thought we were just photographing the lotus pond until another van pulled up and crossed the pond bridge and went around the corner into the compound. Debbie asked the guide if this was the compound and he said yes, go on in. Like he had done at the temple, he stayed apart and silent. The rest of the group found places to sit in the shade at the side of the compound and again Debbie had to go get him and start quizzing him to get any idea what we were seeing. The rest of the group was now definitely ready to return to the ship. They were all too hot and sweaty and needed to go potty. We were loaded back up again, a testy bunch. We drove past another town market place and stop requests were ignored. Finally, the guide told us that we were nearly back to Klungkung for our final stop at the Ancient Court of Justice. He told us some about it and then told us again not to make eye contact with the vendors here. That there would be more of them here and being urban they would be more agressive than the past ones. We managed to get out of the parking lot squeezed by the swarm of them and crossed the road. The guide paid our entrance and then, like at the art museum, he started a guided tour of the site. The Asian couple bolted immediately. The lone woman did not want to do stairs. She had asked about the painted ceiling in here when we drove by in the morning. So, when she started to walk off in the direction of the Asian couple, Debbie called down to her that she was going to miss the painted ceilings she had talked about earlier and pointed up. She perked up and came back and asked the guide to come down and help her up the steps. She only went up in the first corner and the center pavilions. She sat down outside the museum and did not take the narrated tour the guide gave us. He was very informative and enthusiastic here, but it was too late. The elephant couple and us stayed with him, but... The other man and Debbie needed to use the bad public toilets here and did. We all got loaded up again and since the guide was talkative and Debbie was in the row directly behind him now, she asked him about our shopping opportunities now. Presumably, since it was the last thing in the tour description and he had been giving us shopping lectures all day in the van, that was where we were going now. The guide told her there was NO SHOPPING. He said he was taking us directly to the tender pier now and that there was no shopping within walking distance of it. The elephant woman told Debbie there was a place with T-shirts and post cards and some more woodcarving directly across the street from where we got in the van. The elephant couple felt terrible about the time they had delayed the group and the giant box displacing us after we had spent the whole day climbing and sitting back there with Clay's swollen ankle. Oh, well. When we drove past, the guide pointed out a mostly closed down market area in the town of Padang Bai about a 4-minute drive from where he put us eventually put us out. We did wander over to the little dockside shop and found the Captain and some of his friends kicking back a beer or two while waiting for the next tender. They did not have any nice t-shirts or any large ones either. We walked out towards the gate of the port area, but it was far too bleak and intimidating-looking to think about trying to get back to the mostly closed down market area and besides, what for, if all the shops had shut down. It was after 5:30pm. We had watched in horrified amusement as about a dozen men shoved and wrestled to be the ones to carry that elephant box the 12 steps of so to the tender line as the couple cried out and tried to wrest it back. We found them in line still trying to wrest the box back. They were still there when our tender sailed. Jamie and Dana were at the head of the line for our tender with several life-sized wood carvings that the Captain began loading and supervising the crew in loading the carvings before the passengers were boarded. Then several passengers had large bulky wrapped parcels of either baskets, or paintings, or woodcarvings as well as themselves to get aboard. The elephant couple would be first in line with their big box for the next tender to show up.

So, ended our long, but short, sole day in Bali. It is a beautiful and strange place. Clearly this would be a place to spend more time if one felt somewhat safer here. We had dropped anchor around the corner from Padang Bai apparently to avoid the traffic, but that did not stop the small boat traffic that was sightseeing the Voyager. The crew laid out a big, serious-looking water hose with a firehose nozzle on it, under our balcony on deck 5 today. Guess that is our defense against incursions on this side. We did not pick up a pilot this morning and we did not pick up any kind of escort until we passed Padang Bai, then we picked up a small boat with armed men aboard, a police boat maybe. But, it was too late after we had already had a couple of small boat get close enough for us to make eye contact and hear the people in them.

Tonight we had a Balinese BBQ under the stars from 7-9pm with Balinese music and dancers. It was very special and the weather cooperated by not raining us out this time. We managed seats at the last row of tables from the performance area in front of the pool. We could not really see anything, but we could hear. And we could get to and from the buffets this time since there was no rain and the entire deck was in use. The food was good with a big variety and no Mexican food this time! All appropriately themed food was served in great variety and abundance. Clay thought the BBQ pork ribs that have been on the menu of every BBQ we have attended were really very good this time out. He thought it was the same recipe, but just had more meat on the ribs this time. He thought maybe he just got lucky, but we noticed the pork ribs were the big repeater hit at the whole table, so everyone got lucky last night with ribs. Debbie got fudge cake and Clay got some ice cream. It was still pretty hot and humid even after sundown. Debbie sent Clay to the Pool Bar for something very cool to drink. He went and asked for virgin peach daquiris but was able to come back with virgin strawberry daquiris which still hit the spot and held us until the Balinese Dancers started. We moved upstairs during the second number because we could just barely see the tops of the dancers heads. They were very entertaining and the costumes were just amazing. Clay left before the last 2 dances finished. Debbie stayed and tried to videotape some, just to hear the music. She was probably still too far away to actually capture the dancers. Debbie went to the cabin by 9:30pm and there were still passengers returning by tenders and the last tender which was to return the Balinese performers was not loaded yet. The full moon is starting to wane, but it was still a beautiful river of moonlight reflected on the calm bay's water. It rose over Bali while we were eating and was faintly visible through the glass enclosure of the Pool Deck. There were villages in the hills lit only by fire, it appeared from the open top deck. We were asleep by the time Voyager sailed from Bali which must have been after the scheduled 10pm.

We have 2 sea days to Borneo and our fist stop at Sandakan in East Malaysia on that island. We have another all day tour scheduled there in an air-conditioned bus. It is also right next to the equator, though just above, vs. just below for Bali. Somehow, we doubt that being a few degrees north of the equator will feel any different than being a few degrees south of the equator. The Captain welcomed us to Bali this morning by saying that it was hot and it would only get hotter for several days now. We hope to get a little luckier on our next long expensive tour than we did today. We were very happy to have a van with working AC, but we were disappointed in how the tour turned out to take place and that we left Bali with nothing but photos. We are not big shoppers but we like to be able to buy something to take home from each place. It is keenly disappointing to visit a place as exotic and remote as Bali and leave empty-handed. We had especially chosen this tour because of the small group size advertised and the shopping opportunity that was specifically mentioned, which was a sentence not contained in any other tour description of this length in Bali. In any event, there is no shopping on our Wildlife Extravaganza tour in Sandakan.

Some catching up: We have continued to get sketches in our stateroom with initials that look like BU. Capt. Dag, had identified the artist as a friend of his from home who came aboard in Sydney to help celebrate his 50th. We had lately seen some similar looking framed sketches on decks 7-10 and a plaque crediting Baar Kolltveit. Starting yesterday, we have had lectures by "maritime historian, Baard Kolltveit." So, apparently, we are very lucky to have such a multiply-talented man onboard and Capt. Dag is very lucky to have him as such a good friend.

Bali Part II photos