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Bali, Indonesia 2023 including a few days in Nepal
Photographs
and commentary: copyright Jonathan C Nevill, 2023, unless otherwise credited.
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S21.
Bali has been a popular holiday destination for Australian tourists for several decades. I became interested in Bali art after seeing beautiful carvings of fish, many years ago. But somehow I never got around to visitng Indonesia, even thought it's a nation full of interesting places, and so close to Australia. I planned a trip in June/July 2023, concentrating on Bali art, food and snorkelling. I was interested in snorkelling with manta rays (at Nusa Penida - one of Bali's associated southeast islands) and turtles (at the nearby Gili Islands, which are part of Lombok). I bought a Lonely Planet guidebook, and watched YouTube videos made by western tourists travelling in Bali and Lombok. I got the idea that the tourist industry in Bali was well developed, with most Balinese within the industry (if not the general population) having reasonable skills in "tourist English".
Initially I did not think I would be travelling alone. Travelling as a couple feels secure, and it's great to have someone you love to share experiences with. Travelling solo, at my age... well, I feel a little vulnerable, but solo travelling is more flexible, so you can change your mind at the last minute. I flew by Virgin from Hobart to Bali, arriving late on Thursday June 11. I had booked into the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel, which was only a few hundred metres from the airport arrival gate. It was a good choice for the first night, within walking distance of the airport. It's luxurious, with a great buffet breakfast, and I had a big bedroom with two beds ($AUS110 per night, so a bit of excessive luxury for me, and definitely over-budget).
The next day I took a taxi to my Airbnb accommodation at Ubud (which I had booked before leaving Australia). Ubud is about one hour's drive north of Denpasar, through heavy traffic. Unfortunately the hotel had omitted to let Airbnb (and thus me) know that it was called "The White House". Without this information, my taxi dropped me at a random intersection in Ubud. I was completely lost, especially as my assumption about the understanding of English amongst the Balinese population turned out to be wrong. Luckily two school-girls, who had some English, took pity on me, and with their help I eventually found my lodging. The White House is made up of small cabins clustered amongst beautiful trees, around a small swimming pool. It is a little piece of paradise. Monkeys roam the gardens, especially early in the morning. When they attempt to enter dwellings, they are chased away by staff with long bamboo poles. Cats are rare. Dogs here tend to look thin and unhappy.
The White House: my Ubud Airbnb accommodation. A peaceful sanctuary away from the busy streets and shops of Ubud.
The staff (below) were just wonderful. Nothing was too much trouble for them.
The Balinese people are generally happy, friendly (although of course you can't understand them without the right language skills) neat, clean and artistic. And welcoming to strangers. The children particularly have charming and spontaneous smiles. Young people here seem to have a special beauty and charm about them... perhaps it's their smiles... If you are walking along a sidewalk, and there is a Balinese person approaching, she/he will usually look you in the eye and smile. I found the tourists here are mostly the exact opposite. Also, it's rare to see a Balinese adult smoking or drinking.
This image (above) captures the gentleness and serenity you often see in the faces of young Balinese. In my opinion, these are faces of exceptional beauty; a beauty seldom found in European faces. (Image source: artist unknown).
I found a vegetarian restaurant in Ubud. The food was great, the service was quick, and the staff (below) were always friendly and helpful. I ate there once a day while I was in Ubud, so for a while I became a "regular"...
Some tourists here have little or no interest in learning, or respecting, local customs. Half-dressed tourists on scooters are a common sight. There are massive public bill-boards beside main roads, erected I suppose by the national Bali government, asking drivers to dress appropriately.
The streets of Ubud are frenetic after 10am... just so many people; too many people. Full of Balinese, and tourists from all parts of the world, with European visitors predominating. The narrow roads themselves are constantly congested, noisy and dusty. Most but not all of the shops in central Ubud are focused on selling to tourists. I bought an Indonesian SIMcard, although my roaming package from Amaysim (my AU Optus retailer) seemed to be working well.
Below: One of the main streets in Ubud, early in the morning before traffic built up. Note the shrines amongst shops and houses.
I met an American woman, Myra, who runs a business in Bali providing information and treatments using Ayuvedic (traditional ancient Indian) medicine. After talking with her, I decided to look deeper into this area to see if my health can be improved.
There is a surprising absence of annoying insects - at least in Ubud. Ubud has many small rice-fields alongside houses, shops, temples, and wonderful "garden" tourist accommodation. I found that only the most expensive accommodation has mosquito protection, but that doesn't seem to be an issue here (in spite of Guidebook warnings about malaria and dengue fever).
Traffic in Bali is heavy but fast moving, at least on the multi-lane highways. Scooters travel in swarms at ~50kph, only half a metre apart. Apparently there are many road accidents every day, most of them minor. Occasionally fatal. Nearly as scary as a shark attack!
Scooters
are readily available for hire in tourist areas. The going price seems to
be around $US10 per day. In Ubud I hired a Honda Vario 125cc, which I just
loved. The traffic in Bali is more structured than traffic in Nepal; in
Nepal scooters are just all over the place, whereas in Bali the scooters
flow like coherent fluid. However, in Nusa Penida, I did drop my scooter
on a tight uphill turn on gravel; luckily without significant damage. The only exciting thing I found during my Bali trip was driving my scooter. I hired my scooter from a friendly couple who run a tourist support shop in Ubud (Anila Lane Tourist Service, anilalanebali@gmail.com, 0817 4777 233).
The tourist industry here in Bali, as far as I can make out, is based largely on supplying meals, accommodation, and organised tours... which of course gets around the problem of the near absence of public transport. Independent solo travellers, I suppose, experience some inconvenience (unless they hire a scooter - and that's really only viable for short trips). A wide variety of tours are available, including elephant rides, cycling, hiking, diving, cooking classes and yoga classes. The tourists staying with me at The White House numbered probably twenty, mostly couples in their mid-20s, from Europe, with one or two from SE Asia.
The elderly couples, and families with young children, who were so prominent at the airport arrival area, seem entirely absent for Ubud. Maybe they are at Bali's coastal resorts.
Below: one of the many shops acting as agents for a variety of tours.
As has happened in so many places, tourism is often about "created experiences" rather than any real cultural experience. Visiting a foreign country becomes a 'theme park adventure'. There are of course exceptions, like the "homestay" industry in Nepal (see my photo-essay: Nepal 2019).
Overseas companies, like McDonalds, have a presence here. I had lunch at Maccas. No-one could speak English, staff or customers, but luckily there was a self-serve system, running on a variety of languages including English. The cost of the meal, comparatively, was around half what it would have been in Australia. Food in local cafes tends to be about one third the equivalent price in Australia, while food in restaurants targeting tourists tends to be about half the equivalent AU cost.
Shortly before I left Australia, I watched a video by a solo female traveller in Bali, who had major problems with the lack of public transport, as well as low-key but annoying sexual harassment. I expected some harassment from local street sellers, as I had experienced in Egypt, India and the Philippines. In fact I saw nothing like this in Bali. Mind you, I didn't spend much time on the streets, and I avoided areas like Kuta Bali, which have reputations for badly behaved tourists.
Below: a street shrine in Ubud.
There is religious art everywhere you look. Some new, some ancient. Driving through Denpasar, there are huge buildings, often temples, gradually crumbling into ruins, while not far away, other huge buildings are being built.
My White House accommodation was three or four hundred metres back from the Ubud main north-south street, accessed by (thankfully) narrow laneways, which carry scooters but not cars. This local girl was walking towards the White House when I disturbed her, trying to park my scooter. Like so many Balinese, she had a calm and happy demeanour.
Well
away from Ubud's busy streets lie large and well-appointed houses, interspersed
with rice-paddies.
Some houses are private dwellings, while others provide tourist accommodation.
With all these paddy-fields, I would have expected to see mosquitos. Could anyone explain their absence to me? I hope the explanation is ecological rather than chemical!
Public art here is sometimes on a grand scale. The new ferry terminal at Sanur, for example, has two enormous stylised fishes, standing on their heads, painted in gold, at the lower entrance, and a wonderful sculpture of a giant sea-eagle on the roof. Artists here really know how to use scale. Amazing. I think that public space architects in Australia could learn a lot here. Balinese children grow up in a world surrounded by art. It is part of everyday life.
This amazing sculpture depicts a scene from Hindu mythology...
The horses are terrified, sensing that their beloved master is about to be killed...
A wonderful piece of art, capturing the terror and drama of the ancient story....
After Ubud, I travelled to Nusa Penida to do some diving and snorkelling. I decided on a snorkel tour initially. It was great to see lots of very healthy and colourful coral. However, the largest fish I saw was only about 20mm long. Like the other areas of the Pacific which I have visited, the larger edible fish have mostly gone... eaten long ago. I did see a couple of Green Turtles... that was good. Our guide looked around for mantas, but, well, no luck. I suspect that he deliberately did not take us to the channel between islands where I would have thought there might be mantas. The currents in this area are dangerous, and some of the tourists we had in our group could barely swim. I found more details about the currents in my guidebook. These currents can be powerful and un-predictable. There are strong up-wellings and down-wellings, which can begin and end without warning. Tourists on dive tours do get into trouble, with one or more deaths occurring every year. As I am no longer a strong swimmer, I decided to forgo the dive excursion I had initially planned.
Below: a typical local small fishing boat in Nusa Penida. The mast and sail are erected as necessary. This design seems widespread in Indonesia.
There are many small local stores, like this one below, in Nusa Penida. I guess that their operating costs, and their profitability, are extremely low. Note the petrol dispenser: this kind of dispenser, with the visible dispensing tank, disappeared from Australia before I was born. "Pertamini" means petrol.
Diamond Beach, in Nusa Penida, has been described as one of the world's most beautiful beaches. I have seen many beautiful beaches, like Wineglass Bay in Tasmania, and Green Pool in southwest Western Australia, but I have never seen one more dramatic than Diamond Beach.
Comparing Bali with Nepal, there are some obvious differences. Most Nepalese employed in the tourist industry have a workable grasp of the English language. Nepal has a good public transport system based on buses and mini-buses (and aircraft for longer trips). Most of the people who use these facilities are locals, with a scattering of tourists (almost all the tourists in Nepal are Indians, at the time of writing). In Bali there is, as far as I can make out, no (or almost no) workable public transport system, other than that dedicated largely to tourists (like the ferry network). This results in extreme traffic congestion on the urban road network.
Rather than stick to my original plan, I decided to make a quick return trip from Indonesia to Nepal, with the purpose of visiting my friends Bhim and Radhika (in Kathmandu), the "Three Sisters" in their trekking agency in Pokhara, Rabina's family in Bhaktapur, and a school where there are students who are supported by OneNewEducation.org (where I am one of their donors).
My flight with Batik Air (Air Malaysia) took me Bali - Kuala Lumpur - Kathmandu. Below: towering tropical cumulus clouds, lit by the setting sun.
Many of the ancient buildings in Bhaktapur, damaged by the April 2015 earthquake, still lie empty after all this time.
Rabina and I paid a visit to a local school, where some students are supported by OneNewEducation.org. We had not expected a formal welcome, however the school treated us as honoured guests. Not only were we met by Subash, the teacher who looks after the girls we support, but in fact we met the school elders, including the school founder, the headmaster, and the head teacher. It was a great privilege to be treated in this way, and reinforced how much the school values the funding from OneNewEducation. OneNewEducation is a great little aid organisation, essentially run by volunteers. I have been supporting them for some years and I will continue that support indefinitely.
Above, the girls present Jon with beautifully prepared "thankyou letters", written in perfect English.
Rabina's family. While I was staying in Bhaktapur, their amazing welcome really made me feel like part of their family. And I still feel that way, although I am now far away.
Rabina's family own the grey duplex on the left (her uncle owns the larger grey duplex on the right). The house lies at the upper edge of their floodplain vegetable farm.
Amongst Hindus, unmarried girls tend to wear western dress (often jeans and a T-shirt). Once married, traditional dress is used in public (as below).
Note the motor-bike. In Bali, scooters make up almost the entire 2-wheel vehicle fleet, whereas in Nepal it's now common to see bikes. Scooters have much better carrying capacity.
Below:
Bhaktapur Square, perhaps the best known Nepali tourist site for ancient
buildings. As mentioned, there are quite a few Indian tourists.
Bhaktapur Square is also popular by night:
The central shrine here, like many other important monuments, was rebuilt after the earthquake, using international aid agency funding.
I flew with Rabina and her mum to Pokhara. I wanted introduce Rabina to the Three Sisters. I met the Three Sisters (Lucky, Dicky and Nicky) on my first trip to Nepal in 1997. They have trained and employed girls as trekking guides, and in other capacities within the tourist industries, and in doing this they have changed the face of trekking tourism in this country. I highly recommend their company for anyone planning to trek out of Pokhara.
Rabina and I bought her mum two new traditional dresses for the visit. Her dress in this image is my favourite colour: deep blue-green, the colour of the deep ocean.
Below, the main tourist street in Pokhara, just a hundred metres from the lake's northern shore. Note the relative absence of traffic (i.e. absence of tourists).
The 3Sisters have two buildings close by each other. The guesthouse, and the trekking agency. We stayed in the Guest House.
Some businesses have not re-opened after the covid pandemic.
Many hazardous activities have become accessible to the public through tourist businesses. This is certainly the case in Nepal. Tourists with some mountaineering experience can be taken to many Himalayan mountains, including Mount Everest (at great cost).
These climbers are in an environment of extreme danger. Each year, many climbers die.
Since my last visit in 2019 (with Sophie) a new Hindu shrine has been built overlooking the lake.
If you want a wish to come true, you must whisper your request to the sacred cow. Of course this is what I did, too. It's important not to tell anyone about your wish.
Below: the nearby Buddhist stupa.
The hills on which both the temple and the stupa are built offer great views of the lake and, behind the lake, the sprawling city of Pokhara itself.
Once the sun disappears beyond the horizon, air temperatures drop, and the lake boulevard becomes a focus for a pleasant evening stroll....
Not to mention amazing sunsets....
But out of all that I recall, I remember the girl I met For she had given me something that my heart could not forget...
Cat Stevens, lyrics,1972, The boy with the moon and star on his head
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