Chinese New Years is coming up and the hotel set up a big, colorful display in the lobby on a massive wooden table.
Today was sort of an odd day. The itinerary said we were to be picked up at 3:00 for an itinerary that was basically a drive and a show. However, the guide decided to pick us up at 9:30. We added a glass bottom boat ride that wasn’t on the itinerary. Lots of stuff happening in the bay.
The pilot brought along bread for us to feed the fish (wish they had fish food…healthier for the fish). The fish were expecting us…swarms of them. They were almost all sergeant major fish, a member of the damselfish family.
In the distance we could see a Regent cruise ship, and a few parasailers.
We then headed to the Mood Cot Sari Turtle Far. The farm harvests turtle eggs from the wild and incubates them at the farm. When they reach a certain size they are released back into the sea. The guide indicated that sometimes they are able to release around a thousand turtles. We saw green sea turtles,
hawkbills,
and Oliver Ridleys.
The smaller tanks had very few pretty young turtles. However, they had a large thank with a number of very old turtles. We fed them seaweed.
Paul got to "hold" one of the larger turtles (so they could take a picture of him to then sell to us).
They also had a
mini-zoo where we saw a very large iguana,
a wreathed hornbill,
a big boa and a bunch of large bats (no idea what kind). It was in the middle of the day so the bats were all napping.
From there it was the boat ride back to the beach...
and then a drive through a different part of Bali, a bit more rural. But saw a lot of statues.
We stopped at Melasti Beach. It is relatively newly opened as they had to blast out a road through the cliffs to get access to the beach. Gate to the beach.
A "pirate ship" on the beach.
The beach is beautiful
and the cliffs are towering and beautiful.
Views from the top of the cliffs.
Because we opted not to go into the water or even sit on the beach (…really hot and we didn’t bring beach gear) we ended up at a little restaurant right on the edge of one of the cliffs. Pretty dramatic views. We opted for banana splits for a mid afternoon snack.
We found a
penguin in Bali…the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror in our car.
From there we headed to Uluwau Temple, high on a cliff overlooking the sea.
The monkeys there are quite aggressive. Someone lost their glasses to this guy.
We had an hour wait in the bright sun as we waited for this afternoon’s performance here. The crowd trying to shade themselves from the bright sun.
The dance is the Kecak Dance. There are about 80 bare chested men using hand gestures and chanting in a pretty staccato rhythm as the various characters performed.
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Video of Kecak Dance
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The basic story line is man and woman fall in love, another man covets the woman and steals her away, with the help of the White Monkey god (Hanuman) the husband eventually gets the wife back. (It is a Hindu tale that we have heard during our travels in India…this area of Indonesia is heavily Hindu, so the classic Hindu tales spread here as well).
The hero and heroine of the tale.
The villain in the piece.
Hanuman charmed the crowd when he climbed the railings by the stairs and then wandered through the crowd scratching himself and "picking lice" from peoples heads.
The performance was colorful and somewhat easy to follow.
Excellent performance
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