Bali - Day Two

Our first morning, we nearly missed our breakfast as we hardly slept the day before and Bali is 2.5 hours ahead. The first highlight of the day was Prasad's Balinese massage. There is a SPA at every corner in Bali , I hear that you can get $5 massages but I doubt I would enjoy one of those. The hotel was offering $60 massages but we decided to call an outside SPA which was 1/2 the price. In Bali, pretty much any restaurant or SPA will pick you up and drop you off for free to and from their establishment, gas seems to be very cheap here even compared to the US. It’s an excellent perk which Prasad took advantage of for his massage. That evening, we rented a car with driver to go to Uluawtu Temple. The company we chose was Bali Bagus Tours . Suta who is the owner arranged a mini-van (just like our Toyota Innova) with his sister as a guide, her name is Shanti. She was a young woman probably no more than 19 or 20, unmarried and very sweet. She was still learning to speak English but she went out of her way to make sure we were well taken care of. We were initially confused as we had only expected a driver and with Shanti, we were concerned they would charge us for a package but they stuck to our initial agreement. Rather than going for tour packages, I would recommend hiring a car/driver and customizing your own tour.

Uluwatu temple is an old temple situated on a cliff overlooking the sea. At the entrance, they provided sarongs for men and women who were wearing shorts. Uluwatu has spectacular views especially at sunset. We were warned multiple times about the aggressive monkeys, I took off my earrings and necklace and others were warned about glasses and purses. At one point, we were taking some photographs and leaning on a ledge and one monkey came from behind and took Prasad’s glasses. I started chasing the monkey and one of her friends hissed at me and I backed off screaming! Our guide, Shanthi talked to someone and he bribed the monkey with an egg and the glasses were returned! The monkeys know they can barter the items they take from the tourists for food. Later we watched helplessly as a monkey tore apart a pair of glasses that he took from another unfortunate tourist.

After sunset, we watched Kecak Dancing, a dance drama depicting portions of the Ramayana. It is a very popular Bali dance with a troupe of 50 people and is quite impressive and is equally entertaining for children too. Many hotels offer $35 dinner/dance packages but it’s only $5/person at Uluwatu and $4 in Ubud and given we’re vegetarian most of those dinner packages are not worth it for us. It includes a scene with Hanuman caught in a fire in Lanka and him putting out the fire with his feet. Rushil was wondering if the Hanuman in the play had special powers and didn’t understand how he put out the fire with his feet since this was a play and he was not the real Hanuman. Rushil and Sindhu watched the show with avid interest and since they knew they story already, they could relate to the scenes with minimal explanation. Rushil was thrilled as later he got to take a picture with Hanuman carrying him. They had the same program at our hotel a few days later and Hanuman was in the lobby and both Sindhu and Rushil got a picture taken with him again.

After Uluwatu, most people go for a seafood dinner at Jimbaran Bay but we opted to go to Kuta so we would have more variety and also get a chance to see South Kuta. Unfortunately we decided to go blind and just a pick a place but our driver and guide had a lot of trouble finding a place as they didn’t seem to know where all the restaurants were situated. We found one vegetarian place but it was one of those hole in the wall places and Sindhu didn’t find the menu appetizing. We finally picked a place that had a live band that played English music although Sindhu claimed she couldn’t understand their English. We had some trouble explaining our needs as we always need to be careful with Rushil’s food allergies but so far, the Balinese have been wonderful in accommodating our request.