Last Day in Bali..there’s still more to see!

 

Even though we have been here for almost three days, we wanted to get one last tour taken. There are hundreds of temples, each with its own personality and beauty. We were scheduled on the last included tour given by Viking. So at 12 noon we boarded our tour bus and waited to leave. Minutes later another couple joined us…10 minutes later.. no one else! Our guide decided we had waited long enough so off we went..4 tourists, one guide and one bus driver on a bus with 30 seats! It was a fun time! Our guide just sat with us and we chatted and asked questions and had a delightful tour! It was great to have our own guided tour. First we went to the city of Denpasar, the capital of Bali. It really is hard to tell we had left a different city as the entire area is one big metro. Most of Bali is populated along the coastline in the south of the island. Denpasar was a very busy, crazy city.  We went to the Bali museum where we could see many of the artifacts of art and history of the island. It is near the grounds of the royal palace that was burned to the ground during the Dutch intervention in Bali. The outside walls and courtyards are built using the style of the royal palace. Since there were only four of us, our guide took us through each building ( there are four total) and pointed out the significant items.  He is a Hindu, and was able to teach us how his religion is reflected in all aspects of Bali life. 

Side view of one of the courtyard gates

These doorways go through to each of four courtyards housing each collection: ancient artifacts,costumes, art and history.

Sculpture at the garden pond. A female water god possibly?

Our guide in traditional Bali clothing

This building houses the costumes and swords called kesin

Beautiful carved wooden door that tells a story in the carving

Each gateway into the next courtyard is more elaborate than the last.

Another gateway

One of the art exhibit of figurines made from palm leaves

The collections of sacred dance costumes.

Our Next stop was a five minute walk from the museum to a Hindu Temple down the road.  

Walking up to the Temple

This temple is named something about a holy chair.  Looking t the very top there seems to be a chair carved in the stone. The gold gates are the entrance to the most sacred part of the temple.

Notice the two guards at the entrance? They are wearing the black and white fabric that is sacred. As in most of Hinduism, there is always good and bad, dark and light. The fabric is black and white to reflect that balance.  All throughout Bali we saw the fabric draping many of the sculptures  even in the traffic circles.

Al and I in front of the temple. We are wearing sarongs to cover our knees. One of the temples we visited yesterday had purple sarongs and orange sashes. Here we needed sarongs but no sash. The other couple needed the sash only since their knees were already covered. Our visit at the temple ended with a bit of a song from our guide. It was beautiful.

On to the last stop on our tour- the public market. Here is where many people do their shoppping.  There were four floors of items. The first two floors were filled with spices ,vegetables,and in the mornings fresh fish,chicken,etc. Since we are late in the day the fresh meat sellers are closed. We did get to look at lots of dried spices and interesting fruit.

The red bucket is black pepper pods. Alongside ginger and turmeric roots.

Peppers! Lots of peppers!

Fruits and more fruits!

Beautiful solid chopping blocks found in every home

Sparkling bowels for taking to temple.

We returned to the docks after an interesting walk through the market. Looks like you really could get anything you could possibly want at the public market!

Returning to the dock, as we walked towards our ship we found this offering:

And with that, we boarded the ship for the last time in Bali and set sail for our next destination. It will take us a day of sailing to get to Semarang, Java for our next stop.