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View of farmland from our villa near Canggu.
The black dots in the sky are actually kites
which are popular during the windier
dry season |
This is our last day in Bali, although Tamar & John will be staying for another month. Most of the morning was spent in packing, and although we had until around 1pm to leave, the time just disappeared.
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Example of a statue outside a
private house |
The villa we've been staying at is within the farming country, inland from Canggu Beach. Only about 20 mins drive, but a different world. More and more of these developments are being built to cater for the tourist market and gradually encroaching on farmland. It's not unusual to see groups of 1-6 villas in the midst of rice paddies or other farmland - so you're never far from crowing roosters and barking dogs.
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| Making offerings at least twice a day |
Apart from these visible changes, the Balinese seem little effected by the change (although the economy is now dependent on tourism) and their cultural and religious life continues pretty much as normal - whether the daily offerings at the many shrines (including business places), car dashboards, the many other seemingly insignificant locations, life events, or the major ceremonies such as the
Galungan Ceremony. Almost every house is guarded by statues, whether threatening or friendly and fronted by small shrines. There is also usually another shrine within the compound as well. As Frances said "I've never seen so many statues in my life". It makes places like Rome look barren in comparison.
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| Hang onto those cards |
Anyway, as we weren't checking in until 8pm, we had some time to kill, so we went to Seminyak beach for refreshments and a game of cards. It was nice to feel the sea breeze, but it wasn't very conducive to playing cards. However the sauce bottles on the table provided convenient paper-weights.
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| Barefoot building worker |
I couldn't help noticing that while we were there, sitting in the shade, having iced juices and complaining about the heat, there was a building site across the road where workers were carrying baskets of rubble on their heads and walking over the rocky rubble in bare feet. It certainly brought home the difference between our incomes and standards of living, not to mention OH&S issues.
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| Shopping in Jimbaran |
Later in the afternoon we drove to Jimberan near the airport for dinner and to watch the sunset - with hundreds of other tourists. This is a good place for last-minute shopping as the prices are reasonable and there is a fair selection.
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| Setting tables for sunset dining |
Conveniently we found a restaurant with parking and a view, sheltered from the wind, so we continued the card game without the need to grip the cards to stop them from being blown away.
Eventually we went to the last restaurant on the beach at the southern end, where we'd gone last year with Simone - the food is good and much cheaper than the bulk of restaurants pushing huge and expensive seafood-dinner-for-two packages.
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Locals playing barefoot soccer on
Jimbaran beach at sunset |
We were seated before sunset and watched the activities on the beach: Balinese playing barefoot soccer, tourists doing ridiculous things and photographing each other doing it; dogs sniffing around for scraps.
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| Three tourists doing the right thing |
Frances was still not feeling to well and avoiding eating, however she had bought some chicken stock during the day and, while we ordered all manner of delicious food, she just asked for a bowl of hot water so she could add some stock. Well, the bowl of hot water took as long to arrive as the rest of the meal and was only half full! Given we already had some trouble getting that much , the thought of getting the bowl topped up was too much, so Frances had a very small dinner that night.
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| Tempura Prawns |
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| Sweet and Sour Seafood |
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| Selection of sauces provided |
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I've only added a three of photos of the last supper just to finish on a tasty note. One is of 'tempura' prawns (it's all tempura now), the second is of a sweet and sour seafood dish that was superb, and the third photo is of the four sauces that were provided with the meal. Clockwise from lower left the sauces are; Sambal Olek (chili sauce), Sambal Mattar (chili, onion and lime sauce), Saus Bawang Putih (crushed garlic) and Kecap Manis (a dark brown, syrupy, Indonesian soy sauce that usually contains star anise and garlic).
