Bali Trip - 2016 April

As usual, Dev, my son, was having the summer vacations fast approaching, which meant it was time to start planning something for our yearly trip. This time we thought of an international trip - our first international trip. Manju, my wife, and Dev had never been outside India.

Dont want all these boring family details? Directly go to the travel details here.

Watch a video version here.

Even though we had not visited a lot of places in India, we decided to go abroad this time. My brother in law stays in the US, and we started thinking of going to the US and staying with him for some time. Manju and Dev wanted to spend the whole 2 months vacation there. She could go with her parents who were planning to travel early April, I could join them early May, and we all planned to come back together, end of May.

The first problem to tackle was to get a passport for Dev. We wanted to get the passport addressed to my native, as both our passports had our native address. This meant that we had to take a couple of days leave and go to a passport office in Kerala. Laziness and procrastination, kept us delaying this until Dec. Finally I felt that getting a passport for him with the Kerala address was not practical. So I contacted a travel agent close to my house. He said with our passports, a local address proof and the birth certificate of Dev we could get the passport from Bangalore itself.

My Midas touch of procrastination seems to have hit the travel agent too. He kept delaying the process until he was followed up on this a few times, a bit aggressively towards the final follow ups. Finally we went for the interview at the passport seva kendra, and the process went very smooth. We got Dev's passport in less than a week! Kudos to the passport Seva Kendra people at Belandur for the wonderful service they are providing. Due to some personal reasons, we had to cancel the trip to the US. So now we had to search for another destination. European countries like Norway, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, UK etc and Asian destinations like Hong-Kong, Malaysia and Singapore were thought of as our next destinations. Finally we decided upon going to Bali, Indonesia. My wife had read a lot about Bali and was very much interested in visiting that place. Bali is an island, a part of the Indonesian ones, about 7000 kilometers South East of India.

We contacted our usual travel agents, MakeMyTrip, and they promptly assigned us a travel expert. We had got good deals and service from MMT people in the past. So, we started discussing with the expert, the details. Unfortunately, the trip plans that were given did not impress us. Most of the days were left to us on leisure. So we had to research and find the top things to do in Bali and short list them. In parallel I contacted a few sightseeing operators in Bali with our list. One particular person from BaliTrips (http://www.balitrips.com), named Gusti was very prompt with the replies and gave us an estimate of the whole trip. The places which we wanted to cover were all covered. He also gave a detailed itinerary too. This plan was much better than what we got from MMT. So we asked the MMT travel expert to just book the air tickets and the stay for us. The rates which she gave was not less than what I would have incurred if I booked the tickets on my own. But since the MMT lady had spent so much of effort for us, we asked her to go ahead with the booking. The booking somehow took more time than expected, and the rates were increasing. So I asked her to speed up the booking, but she could not book the tickets as there was some technical difficulty in MMT to book AirAsia flight tickets. So, I decided to book the whole thing on my own. I got a better deal in goibibo for the flight tickets. The flight was booked from Chennai, as the rates were much cheaper than from Bangalore (almost INR 20,000 less). There were no good deals in goibibo for hotels. So I went with one which I got in MMT. It was Park Regis at Kuta.

The rates I incurred are given for reference.

• Round trip Air ticket: INR 68,000 (This does not include the check in charges)
• Hotel Park Regis: IDR 30,00,000 (INR 15,000) (including complementary breakfast)
• Sight seeing (5 days): $45/day (INR 15,000)

I did all the payments upfront, so that I dont have to carry too much of money while traveling. Now the only expense I was expecting was for lunch and dinner. I assumed each meal to be about 1000/- for the family, and allocated about 15,000/- for shopping. None of the currency converts had IDR. The travel cards also did not have an option of loading IDR. I had to load it with dollars, and then I had to convert it back to IDR. So I did not see any reason why I should pay for the travel card itself (which as 500/- or so). So I decided to carry currency with me. I was pretty confident about my currency carrying skills. I soon contacted a few currency exchange guys in Bangalore for the best INR to USD conversion, and I got a deal of INR 67.10/USD. So I got about $400 for about INR 28,000. I bought medicines for all the common ailments and kept the prescription and the bills with me. We also packed a few snacks (Rusk, Wafers etc).

On April 24th we started driving towards Chennai at about 6:30 AM. We reached Chennai by 11:30 AM or so. Gopalakrishna Prabhu, an ex-collegue of mine at NeST, and one of my best friends, took us to his wonderful home. He was the one who advised me keeping my car at his apartment. We chatted a lot about our old bachelor days, and how life has changed for both of us. Never knew how time flew. By the way, he is a wonderful cook, and does various experiments. The latest one was chocolates, which has come out exceptionally well. He dropped us at the airport, and on the way took us to this wonderful hotel for dinner. This was such a great help to us!

The real blog

There is no free check in in AirAsia. Any check in bag would be charged. We had just one check in bag, and that weighed less than 15 kgs. So we had to pay only the minimum fee. We could have saved a bit if we had paid the check in fee atleast 4 hours prior to the flight. So I paid for both the ways. The amount was about INR 6100. The security check and immigration check went smooth. We were at the waiting lounge by about 10 PM. The flight took off at the scheduled time of 11:45 PM. We reached Kaula Lumpur by 6 AM their time (2.5 hours ahead of IST). We finished another round of security checking and reached the gate. Veg food was difficult to get. All the eatery shops there had just chicken, and beef. Luckily, we saw one which had sandwich. Egg sandwich was the nearest to vegetarian I could get. We had a coffee and egg sandwich. The coffee shop people accepted INR. After that we took a nap for a couple of hours. Dev slept on the carpeted floor, and we on the seats. The flight from Kaula Lumpur also took off and landed at the scheduled times. Kudos to AirAsia guys for maintaining the times!

We quickly went to the immigration counters to get our Visa stamped. Indians are given free visa there. Jai Narendra Modi. We saved about INR 7000 on this. We got the Visa very quick. All the travelers have to submit a form declaring that we are not carrying more than USD 10,000. We were able to get out of the airport in about half an hour. Thanks to the bloggers who advised us to reach the emigration counter as fast as possible. By the time we came out, I could see a loong queue at the immigration. At the Arrival, there was a person who was carrying a placard with my name. I waved at him, and he greeted us warmly, and welcomed us to his country. His name is Komang. He got his car from the parking lot, and we drove to the hotel, Park Regis. On the way, he took us to a money changer, where I changed $200. I was a multi lakh pathi.. I got 27 lakh Indonesian Rupaiah for that! We then went to a mobile shop and got a SIM card for me. The first expense.. just IDR 85,000 - for a SIM card with 2 GB data and a few minutes of talk time! I realized that what comes big will go big too! We soon reached the hotel. All these places we went are a few minutes walk away. The roads there are very clean. The roads were wide and did not have any pot holes or humps. People obeyed the traffic rules. The traffic is not that heavy and the climate was good - a sunny day with a temperature below 30 degrees.

At Park Regis, we were greeted warmly at the reception, and was provided with a welcome drink. They took a copy of my passport, and soon led us to our room. The room was in the second floor, it was spacious, with a big bath room, and a big spongy bed. It was about 3:00 PM by then. We went to the restaurant, which was on the first floor and got the first shock there. They did not have any vegetarian dishes. The restaurant guys were very friendly and they said they can prepare a special vegetarian fried rice and a salad for us. I walked around. There was a good swimming pool near the restaurant, and they also had a spa on the ground floor. The salad was full of green leaves, and the fried rice was also having a lot of soya sauce. Manju found it very difficult to eat. I had prepared myself to expect only such food. Thanks to the three months in Japan, where I stayed alive with bread and plain rice and yogurt. By 4, we finished our lunch and reached back at the room. Manju and Dev took a nap for a few minutes, while I was trying to cope up with the high value currency notes. The highest valued one was of 1 lakh (100 thousand), then 50 thousand, then 20 thousand. The smallest one was 1000. Below that it is all coins. For simplicity, I made a formula to convert the Rupaiah to Indian rupees. It was to remove the thousands and multiply with 5. For example, if something cost me 10,000 Rupaia, then the equivalent Indian rupee would be 50 rupees (5 * 10).

By 5 we started walking to Kuta beach. It was just 1.5 kms from our hotel. It seemed that very little people walked on the streets there. We did not see a lot of pedestrians there, and on our way, a lot of taxi drivers asked us whether we needed a taxi service. In half an hour we did window shopping on both the sides of the road and reached the beach. We had taken a virtual tour of this road with Google streets during our planning phase. So the roads were familiar to us. The beach, to be frank, was not that clean. The sand was dark, and the water was muddy. Dev and me swam and played in the water for half an hour. By 6:30 or so, we started back. All of us were very hungry, as we had not eaten much the whole day. We searched for some Indian restaurants nearby. Google took us to an Indian restaurant named Ruchira. We had roti and some curry. It did not taste good. So we decided to buy some bread and Jam. Unfortunately most of the super markets there did not have bread or jam. Finally we saw one departmental store which had bread and jam. We bought a loaf of bread and jam and returned to our room. By 8:30 or so, we slept. End of a great day!

26-April

Today, we were supposed to be ready for that day's sight seeing by 8:30 AM. We woke up at about 6 or so, had bath and went for our breakfast. The breakfast was splendid, and had a very good spread They had Nasi Gorain (fried rice), fried noodles, a noodle sauce for it, a wide variety of fruits, bread and cheese and corn flakes for vegetarians. For non-vegetarians, they had an equal number of delicacies - I saw chicken, pork, a counter where egg items were prepared live, cakes and some salad. We finished the breakfast quick, and grabbed a few cut fruits for Dev who was still sleeping in the room. It was 9 by the time we had breakfast, and got ready. Komang was already there, and we set off. He suggested we go to a play nearby. The play is called Barong dance. Its a play that tells us a story of a fight between good (Barong) and evil (Rangda). Before entering the play, we were given a pamphlet with description of what we are going to see, scene wise. It was very useful, and we could follow the whole story. The ending is not of a victory of the good over evil, but a continuous fight of the followers of Barong with the evil.  The play was for about an hour.

After this we went to the Celuk village where we went to a silver making factory. A lady took us around the factory and showed how raw silver gets converted into beautiful jewelery.

Later we were taken to their outlets from where Manju bought a few ornaments. Then we went to another place nearby, where people were making batik (a particular type of fabric). There was an outlet also where we could buy the fabric. We were not very much impressed with the clothes and so did not buy anything from here.

We then went to the famous temple of Goa Gajah. This is a temple that was built in the 11th century, and is a place for meditation. Lots of rock carvings are there, and small temples where Bramha, Vishnu and Maheshwara (the trimoorthis according to Hindu belief) are worshiped. There are statues carved on rocks through which water flows. There are 7 of them, and its believed that the water is from 7 sacred rivers in Bali. The water flows into a pond, and I guess people can take a bath here. We sprinkled some water on us. Close to this is a temple of Buddha. Earlier there used to be a gigantic statue of Buddha which got destroyed during an earth quake recently. We were not allowed inside the temple where the pooja is done. Tourists in all the temples will be allowed only to a particular point. Beyond that only worshipers with some offering (flowers and food) are allowed.

It was noon, and we decided to go for lunch. Komang took us to a nice restaurant where we had a veg pizza and lemon juice. That was one of the few things which was vegetarian. The food was very good. The specialty of the juice here is that half the glass would be filled with ice.

After lunch we went to Monkey forest. This is a reserved forest where lots of monkeys are thriving. The monkeys are given lots of food to eat, and they are quite harmless. But if they suspect that we have food with us, and if we hide it from them, they could attack us.

Next stop was the Ubud palace. This is the place where the king lives. We re not allowed inside the palace, but we can roam around outside the palace. This palace had a few doors which had the same lock mechanism as we have in our old houses in my native.

We then walked to Saraswathi temple. This temple has a huge pond full of lotus - a very beautiful place. We then roamed around in Ubud market. We saw some slippers and were trying to buy a pair for all of us, but the rates in Kuta were very high (almost INR 400 per pair of chappal). Here the rates were normal (got 3 pairs for INR 500). On our way back to the car, we saw school students returning. All of them had a broom in their hands. We asked one of the students why they were carrying the broom along with the books, and she said that they have to clean the school everyday. This is done on a daily basis along with their studies. They are also taught to do agriculture near the school. Respect the school administrators for teaching the students the value of cleanliness and the value of self discipline. I am sure these students will have a very bright future, if not financially, but definitely morally.

It was 5, and we had covered what all we had planned for the day, except Tegalallang rice terrace. Komang told us that we will go there the next day. We reached back the hotel by 7:30. We got fresh, and went to another Indian restaurant near by. This restaurant, "The Gateway of India", was very good. It was crowded, but the food was very tasty. Came back to the room. The cash in hand was soon depleting. Each meal cost us much more that I had expected. A normal meal for a family who does not eat much would easily be 3 lakhs (300 thousand rupaiah). Again all the places we visited had an entry fee of either 50,000 or 100,000 per head. In two days, I had to spent about 15 lakhs. I was a bit concerned. This way, in another 2 to 3 days I would finish my $400. Manju saw that I was concerned and in deep thoughts, and asked. We discussed the matter and she agreed that we should rethink at the food expenditure. That's the only place we could reduce the expenses. I completely missed to consider the entrance fees, and the heavy expenses on food. A great learning. From next time, I should consider how much a normal meal would cost, and the entrance fee to each place we plan to visit.

27-April

Today we first went to a waterfall called Tenga. The waterfall was looking great. But we did not go near the waterfall. Komang said that a lot of young people go to the waterfall and jump from the top of it. I wished I had a day just for this waterfall! Then we went to a temple called Tirta Empul. This is where we could take a dip in the holy spring. Before we enter the pond to take a dip, we need to wear a sarong (a coloured dhothi, long enough to cover your legs). You can rent a sarong and a locker near the spring. We kept all our bags in the locker and wet to take a dip. Luckily, Komang was a very spiritual person, and he came along with us to the dip. There are 12 springs/fountains that contribute water to a big pond. He believes that each of the springs cleanse the chakras in you. He frequently visits this temple. He explained that each spring is for a specific chakra. So, we need to stand under the spring, water flowing onto our head. In half an hour we were done with the holy dip! What a refreshing experience it was. The water was so cool and clean even though there were a lot of people taking dips.

After this we dried ourselves, entered the temple. There was some pooja happening in the temple. Tourists are not allowed to the place where the pooja is done.

We walked around the temple. Komang explained the history of the temple. Its believed that Lord Indra had created a ever bubbling underwater water source and this temple, when the nearby river was poisoned by the evil forces. Each spring that gets sourced from this water source is said to have different mineral compositions, and is said to have medicinal values.

We could see a lot of plants near the temple, that we see in India, and the whole environment was not very different from that of a temple in Kerala. After Tirta Empul, we started our journey towards Kintamani volcanic mountain. The route was very green, filled with orange and apple trees. We had lunch from a restaurant at the top of the mountain, overlooking the nearby volcanic mountain. We could not see any smoke from the volcanic mountain, but we could see the remains of an earlier volcanic eruption. The lava that had erupted is now being used as building material. May be, after having enjoyed the mesmerizing views of the Himalayas, both of us did not feel any excitement on seeing this mountain. But the view of lava was new to us.

After spending an hour here, we started driving down. On our way, we stopped at a coffee factory where a lot of different coffee and tea is produced. The specialty of this factory is the Luwak Coffee. Luwak is an animal, almost the size of a small dog. Luwak selectively eats coffee beans and the beans come out along with its excreta. The thus "processed" beans are then cleaned and is considered  for one of the tastiest coffees around! We saw a few Luwaks here, and tasted all the different coffee and tea samples they gave us. They also had a outlet that sells coffee powder and a wide range of aromatic oils. After this, we headed towards the Tagalallang rice terrace. This is a mountain where rice is cultivated in a terraced manner. One interesting thing we saw here is that both the sides of the roads had paddy fields, but much above the roads.

We trekked along the terrace for about an hour or so, and reached back to the parking where Komang was waiting for us. The parking lot seemed to have a temple near by as someone was playing the "Gayatri Mantra", loud. It was about 6 PM, and we headed back to our hotel. We reached the hotel by about 7:30 PM. I then went to the Indian restaurant and bought steamed rice. We had bought some Yogurt the last day, and had kept it in our fridge. We had a hearty meal. Nothing can beat the taste of steamed rice and curd, with some pickles!

28-April

Today, after the usual breakfast, we went to Taman Ayun. Taman Ayun is a temple on the banks for a river (whose name I do not know). Taman Ayun means beautiful garden, and it was a very beautiful and well maintained place. They had statues of people doing cockfights. There was also a statue of a couple of cows and the rice god. They all represented how a village in the olden days were. Quite similar to what we see in villages of Tamil Nadu.

Next we went to Ulun Danu. This is another amazing temple in the river Bratan (yes, its in the river itself, even though there are some structures made on its banks too). We saw people doing boating here. This is the temple which is featured in their 50,000 notes. This temple is for the river Goddess Danu. This place gave some excellent views.

It was lunch time, and we had lunch from a hotel inside the temple compound itself. We had veg Nasi Gorein , Veg burger, tender coconut water juice and lime juice. The food was tasty. We then headed towards Tanah Lot. Tanah lot is a temple, situated at the west coast of Bali, The temple is built on a rock that is situated in the sea. The temple is believed to be protected from evil spirits and intruders by venomous snakes . Komang said that snakes come out near the rock in the morning and roam around there, and go back at night fall. This has been happening every day, for years. I have also seen in some TV shows that there are people who come out here with pythons, and let us take photos with them, on us. I was looking forward for this. The sea has to be in low tide for people to go to the temple. We were praying that it be a low tide. But when we reached the place at about 3 PM, the tides were very high. We were a bit disappointed. The tides were very strong. Wonder how the rocks were sustaining such a force. Komang told us that the rocks were affected by the tides, and it was the Japanese govt which helped to restore the rocks. Most of the rock we see now seems to be artificial rocks.

Komang was pretty confident that the tides would be lower if we wait for some time, and he was correct. By about 4:30, the tides got lower. So we all started climbing down to the rock. On our way Komang figured out the guy with the python, and arranged for the photo shoot. The python he had was kept in a big basket, and was quite big and scary. The python was taken out of the basket and placed over me. This was the first time I was touching a snake. I was expecting it to be a sticky think, but this one was very rough, and very very strong. It was about the weight of Dev - probably about 15 to 20 kgs. I was asked to hold its neck and tail, but it kept on trying to free its head. I was not holding it very tight to make sure I did not irritate it. The snake was also very friendly, and it seemed to pose with me for the photo. May be, it didnt know it was a python, but a model.

After a couple of minutes, Manju and Dev was also pushed near me, but they did not touch the python. After about 5 minutes, I gave the python back.We then climbed down to the Tanah Lot temple. The temple priests helped us cross the sea to the temple. Inside the rock there is a fresh water source, which is considered holy. We drank it and sprinkled on our faces. We gave a small donation to the temple. The priests there applied rice on our forehead, just as we apply sandal paste. We then climbed the rock to the point until where tourists were allowed. The view from there was excellent. On the way back we saw a snake lying down inside the pores of the rock.

We crossed the sea back to the beach. There, at a distance, there was another person sitting infront of a rock cave saying that we could see holy snakes inside the cave. We entered the cave, and saw 3 snakes on a pit. One guy was happily playing with it! We then wanted to climb back to the initial spot to view the sun set. On our way we bought a flying bird model, powered by rubber band for Dev. You "key" the bird, and it will fly some distance. We then waited for the sunset. While waiting we saw a few group of people playing a games. There were also a few women coming in their bridal attire. Komang said that this was a part of their photography package, and they get astonishing photos from this scenic place. There were lots of people just sitting and lying down on the lawn waiting for the beautiful sunset.

After the sunset, we started back to our hote. We started a bit fast to avoid the possible traffic jam created by the people returning from the place. This is the first time I was seeing a really "good" traffic jam. There were "smart" people there too who were trying to doing some really dangerous driving to get ahead of the queue. But Komang was a very mature person, and drove us very safe. We reached the hotel by 8:30 PM or so. Komang suggested that we go for a short trip tomorrow. It has been long trips for the last 3 days, and it would be boring for us. He suggested we go to Benoa tomorrow, which was planned for the last day. We agreed to that. Benoa, the place we were to planned to go the next day is a beach where lots of water adventure activities were conducted. We wanted to do sea walking and paragliding, if Dev was allowed to do them. I searched for the charges for the water sports at Benoa. They were huge. Sea walking cost about $90/person, and paragliding was about $30/person. I didn't have enough cash... I had to use my credit card if I were to take those. I contacted a few people organizing these activities, and they all said they accepted cards. With a relieved mind, I went to get the usual steamed rice from the Indian restaurant. I also bought a loaf of bread and jam for us to snack during our trips. We had steamed rice, yogurt, green chutney, and a couple of pickles for dinner.

29-April:

We started off to Benoa. The road was across the ocean. This was the first road I saw that was tolled. The road consisted of a very long bridge, I think about 10 kms, over the sea. The part of the sea we were crossing was not that deep. I could see fishermen even walking and catching fish.

Benoa is the place where all the govt officials meet for important discussions. There is a direct path from the airport to Benoa, so that people visiting for discussions can completely avoid the city. By 9:30 we reached Benoa. Private parties who conduct adventure activities have taken ownership of parts of the beaches. Komang took us to one of them. The cordinator there explained the different activities we could do. But unfortunately, they did not agree to take Dev to paragliding or sea walking as he was below the permitted age. So we took tickets to visit the turtle island and a ride in the jet ski. First, we were taken to the turtle island. The boat which we were taken in was having a glass bottom. We could see the bottom of the sea clearly through the glass bottom of the boat. The driver stopped at various points to show the various coral reefs and fishes under the sea. Dev was seeing these for the first time. We had seen this while we were in the Andamans. The view we had here was nowhere near the ones in Andamans. In Andamans, the water is crystal clear and the corals and fishes there are much more brighter in colour. Dev was scared when the boat gained speed. He was clinging on to the rails of the boat until we reached the island. The island is a 15 minute travel from Benoa beach. On the way, we saw a lot of people going jet ski, paragliding, banana ride, high speed boat rides, and a variety of adventure activities. The beach and the sea was full of people. We also saw a few flights flying low, about to land at Denpasar airport.

We reached the island, and a guide there took us through a lot of artificial ponds where the turtles were kept. We are not allowed to tough the young turtles, but we can hold the elder ones. It is said that they have turtles here which are about 300 years old. There are also other animals and birds kept here, like bats, eagles, etc. We are allowed to enter their cages and take photo with them. Felt pity for those captivated animals.

We then came back to Benoa beach, and we took the jet ski. Dev and I went together. Initially Dev was very scared, and after a couple of minutes he stopped screaming. Probably he understood screaming was in vain. He started enjoying the ski jumping over the waves. We reached the beach back after a 15 minutes ride. Komang then took us to a very peaceful beach called Nusa Dua. He told us that we could swim there. The sea was very calm there, and the depth of the sea did not change much as we went far from the beach. We enjoyed being in the sea for about half an hour. By the team we came out of the sea, a few people came there with surfing boards. We went to a changing room near by, and had a bath in fresh water, and changed our clothes. We then went to an Indian dhabba. Komang joined us for lunch. The food was very tasty.

I had been trying to reach Tiby from morning who was also in Bali. Tiby was my senior in engineering college, a college in my first company and my room mate while working there. Gopal had messaged me today morning that Tiby had posted in facebook that he was also traveling to Bali. I had a chat with Tiby in the morning itself through facebook. While we were having lunch, he called me. He said he was at a place we were about to visit next - The Garuda Wishnu Kekak. We reached this place, which is going to host the world's biggest statue. The statue is of Lord Vishnu (Wishnu as per them) on Garuda, the eagle. We could see the parts of the status being built. It was very huge. The statue is supposed to be complete by 2020 or so.

I met Tiby at the entrance of GWK and we chatted for some time. He was running a few software firms in Japan for some years from now. We discussed about some of his business plans for some time. He has a set of great ideas he is implementing... His business seems to be doing very well.

From GWK, we went to Uluwatu. Uluwatu is another temple on a cliff. We went around the temple. There was nothing very eye catching about this temple. It is here that the very famous Kackek dance is performed every day. This dance form tells the story of Ramayana. There are no musical instruments to back the dance, but only vocal sounds like "Ke and chek". So we took the entry tickets to the performance too and sat at a point where we could see the sunset also. Again, thank you bloggers for suggesting this. The performance is done around a set of lamps, and resembled sets of the Kerala art form, Kathakali. By 6 a priest came and lit the lamps. Soon, about 70 people in uniform came dancing and sat around the lamp, and started singing kechek... The story they were playing was that of Seetha being taken away by Ravana, and Hanuman going and destroying Lanka. Rama, Seetha and Lakshmana were played by women dressed up wonderfully well. Ravana was dressed majestic and scary. Hanuman was dressed in white, and was very athletic. He came jumping over a wall. The team did a great job to keep us entertained for about one and a half hours. By 8 or so, we started back to our hotel.

30-April:

This was our last day of planned travel. We were to visit a few places at the east coast. First we went to the bat temple, Goa Lavah. This is a temple where people come after some of their family members are cremated. They come here after a week or so after the cremation to invite the soul back to their family. When we reached the temple, we saw a lot of people gathered there to pray for a departed soul. We were invited to sit among them. We sat with them for some time. I think they appreciated people joining them for the prayer. There is lot to learn about their customs and beliefs. This short trip was not enough to even understand a small portion of it. 

While leaving, we did a namaskara to the idol there. All of them who gathered there were looking at us. Komang told us that they were very impressed by our act. Happy to know that they did not feel bad.
Next we went to Tirtha Ganga. This is a temple with a very beautiful pond, full of lotus flowers in front. There were platforms in the pond on which we could hop and cross the pond. The lotus leaves were extra ordinarily large. We saw that the lotus plants were kept on a pot to make sure the pond does not get dirty.

We spent some time here, and started back. On the way, we stopped at a resort to have our lunch. I had my usual dose of Nasi Goreing and Dev and Manju had finger chips and burger.

From here, we went to a village called Teganan. This was not included in the tour program, but Komang said that this is an interesting place to visit. The people in this village are special because they are experts in drawing in palm leaves. The villagers do not travel too much out of the village. If they travel out, they are supposed to return back by night fall. The village was well planned with community halls, and well laid out roads. A lot of villagers were sitting out in a tent like structure and drawing. Most of them had the Gods and Goddesses drawn on palm leaves. Most of the paintings were spread across multiple palm leaves, which are then joined to form the full picture. The drawing is made by inscribing on the leaf and then trapping the color in the depression thus created. The fine drawings they make is amazing. The lines are drawn so close to each other that we need magnifying glass to see them properly. Its said that the govt provides them all the amenities, and they don't need to earn living from these drawings.

We bought a drawing of Saraswathi from there. By 5 we returned to the hotel. We had asked Komang to take us to a place where we could buy something for our friends back in India. He took us to this super market called Krishna from where we bought a few paintings, a few wooden surf board models that can be stuck to the fridge, and a couple of dresses to Kingini and Maalu, our nieces. There was also a studio which offered us to be dressed in Balinese costumes. We had a few photos taken in this attire too.

We came out of the super market by 8, after a 2.5 hour long shopping. This super market contains what ever you need, at a low price. We saw a lot of items we had bought on our way kept here at a much more cheaper price. We reached back hotel by 9 PM, had a quick dinner and slept off.

1-May:

Today was kept at leisure purposefully. We wanted to keep this day as a buffer. Since we had completed what ever we had planned to do here in the scheduled time, we decided to take rest. We booked an appointment for an aromatic massage at the spa at our hotel for both of us. We were supposed to check out from our room by 12 PM. We packed our bags and checked out by 12. We kept the bags at the hotel reception, went out and bought fruit bowls for lunch, and then by 2 went to the spa. Dev also had a massage. By 4:30 we were all out waiting at the reception for Komang. Komang came at 4:45, and we went to the airport. We reached the airport by 5:30. We bid farewell to Komang who was such a wonderful guide to us. The success of this trip can be completely attributed to his guidance. Thanks to Mr Gusti too for the wonderful coordination he did. It was a boring few hours at the airport then. We had bought a couple of paintings from Krishna super market, and the paintings had a frame too. The frame could not be removed as the paintings were very delicate. Air Asia had a service called "red carpet" with which we could specially do a check in of fragile items. The flight took off at the scheduled time of 9:30 PM. We reached Kaula Lumpur by 12:30. The flight from Kaula Lumpur was at 6 AM. We bought a coffee and went to the movie room. Movies were played continuously on a big screen. We laid down on the carpet and slept until 4:30 close to the movie room. By 5 we finished our security check and reached the gate. The flight took off a bit late, but landed Chennai at the scheduled time of 7:30 AM. We finished the immigration clearances, stamped our visas to prove we have entered back India, got our baggages, and came out. Gopal was waiting for us outside. He drove us home, and on the way we had breakfast. What a tasty breakfast. I was missing Dosa, my daily breakfast, for a whole week. By 9:30 we started back to Bangalore from Gopal's home. We had lunch near Krishnagiri at Sai Sangeeth, and reached back Bangalore by 4 PM. There were no hiccups anywhere. Everything went as planned.

Thank you Gopal and Komang for helping us so much, enjoy our vacations.

Looking forward for our next trip!!!