Indonesia, Malaysia & Singapore, November 2022 - Part 2

So todays plan was to do a full day tour of some of the touristy sights of Bali, so off to an early start. We did get a slightly different awakening than anticipated, even before the alarmclock went. An earthquake, although small, shook the resort and being on the top floor probably didn't help either. It was however, as already mentioned, enough for us to wake up. It was measured to 3.8 on the Richter scale, and had the epicentre about 8 kilometers from our resort. So off we went with our designated driver in the resort transport:

• Holy Water Temple - https://goo.gl/maps/k1DKtKjd1GRTXmsAA The first stop was the Holy Water Temple. It started out as the point where the river was poisoned by a God, but another God,now guarding the entry from his pedestal, struck his staff to the ground, and out sprung the Holy Water. The Holy is now surfacing in a basin and from there it is led to the outlets that people are using for the cleansing. Under each fountain, but two, you should wash your face three times, then your head three times and finally drink a sip three times. The two fountains that you skip, are used to collect water for the Holy Ceremony in connection with cremation. This ceremony is needed in order to release the spirit of the dead for reinkarnation. This is however a very costly ceremony, so people would typically wait and do it for several family members at a time, waiting up to 5 years. Meantime the bodies are buried when the person dies, but the bones aer the dug up, cleaned and collected for cremation. A bit of the ashes is given back to the Earth, and the remainder normally spread over the ocean. Another thing that we learned was the difference between the entrances to the temples. Some were like openings with nothing covering the entrance, others were like portals with varying structures forming the horisontal beam of the opening. The open ones were left open so that you could maintain an open mind when entering, where as the other had the beams in order to protect your head/thoughts.

The sacred pond that contains the source or spring of the holy water.

• Coffee Plantation - https://g.page/coffeplantation?share We went to the coffee plantation feeling like experts, having been in both Peru and Costa Rica several times. However, there is always new things you can learn. Almost all Indonesian coffee plantations have migrated to the best coffee sort, arabica, but here in Bali they are still growing both sorts although Robusta is an inferiour sort. We also saw the small mammal, Asian Palm Civet, that eats the ripe coffee beans. It does not chew the beans as it does not like the bitter taste, so with the excrements the beans are exiting as whole beans. The beans are seperated, thoroughy washed and then dried for 3-4 days, before being being processed just like the normal beans. That is roasted over a mild fire for about 45 minutes, grinded or not, put on bags and sold. They also produced various herbs and spices, from which the made different teas and coffee mixes. Vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemongrass, ginger, curcumin amongst others. A great tasting of 14 types of coffees and teas. Asian Palm Civet - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/160429-kopi-luwak-captive-civet-coffee-Indonesia

• Mount Batur Vulcano - https://goo.gl/maps/VRDj48i37NdWcfWf6 There was little to see as the clouds were hanging low over the SE side of the lake that remains inside the crater of the original volcano. Mount Batur las erupted in 2000, and has been slowly growing in height, but hasn't reached the height of the three neigbouring volcanos. The funfact here was that there was a small town on the brink of the lake, who buried their dead with their faces visible. After some time they would move them to under the trees, but still with the skull visible... We did not feel the urge to go and check, we took the drivers word for it. I guess that the day wasn't really the best, and surely on a sunny, not rainseason morning, the views would be stunning. The floating platforms in the lake are fishfarms.

• Tegallalang Rice Terrace - https://g.page/tegallalang-rice-terrace?share So on to the rice terraces in Tagellalang, and a little lecture on how this was done. First step would be to plant rice seeds in small pots, and wait for the to grow roots and surface. The pots would be covered in water. When the rice sprouts would be about 5 cm they would then be planted in the fields by men, who prior to planting the sprouts, would have prepared the ground for the planting, drenching it and turning over the leftovers from the last harvest. The rice would then, while always flooded, grow for some 2-3 months and only when the green rice leaves would start to get yellow tones and the rice be bending the branches down, would the field be dried out. The women would then enter and do the harvesting, get their pay in rice, and the harvested rice would have to separated from the stilk. Today this has been mechanized, but not too many years ago this was still a manual process. The ricefields in Tegallalang are extreme in the sense that the soil does support rice farming with out changing the crop every 2 years, which is normal for most other locations in Bali. Rice is harvested 3-4 time a year, depending on the weather.
  

• Tebasari Resto, Bar & Lounge - https://goo.gl/maps/LYeUhC6yGQBXP8XHA Finally lunch, and while we had hoped for a local lunch, we were driven to a fine restaurant, full of tourists, with touristy pricing, a local couple of guys plaing Ed Sheeran songs, but a beautiful building and setting in the mountains. Built in bamboo, even the supportive beams were bamboo, and not just steel rods either painted to resemble bamboo, or clad in bamboo... Food was fine and so was the service.
  

• Goa Gajah - Elephant Cave - https://goo.gl/maps/V22egwY7XvoLxavc6 This temple that dates back to the 9th century, was once underground, but a major earthslide uncovered most of it, and broke the large Buddah that once was carved in stone, more about that a little later. Back to the only thing still in a cave, or some would probably call it a hole in the wall. The picture of three dark stones in a row, are what is left of the stone statues of the creator, the protector and the destroyer, the ones who give birth to us, the one who protects us through life, and the one that makes us return to the earth that we came from. The other end of the cave holds the elephant God, Ganesh, who here in Bali is brings luck, protection and prosperity. When we were there, there were also 3 asian ladies there, all believers, and as they were giving their offerings to Ganesh, one of them was struck by fear, she totally changed. She started crying, sweating and shaking from what appeared to be fear, and the guide that they had along had to act. He hit her on the back and then with open hands he like brushed the bad spirit of her. He kept repeating it until she suddenly was back to normal. He then had to go and cleanse himself, making offerings to both the three Gods in one end, and also to Ganesh in the other end. The explanation we got was that she had brought some negative energy with her, and the overwhelming positive energy from Ganesh forced the strong raction as he tried to help her. A cute story had we not ourselves witnessed the hole thing. We went on visiting the rest of the area, and the rocks dressed in black and white in the picture is actually the Buddah Statue, or what's left of it. We tryed hard to make any sense of it, but guess the only thing that makes us believe that it is true, is the one stone that has a set of rings carved into it, which was the hair with decorations, so yes, it must have been enourmous when it was intact.
  

• Tegenungan Waterfall - https://g.page/tegenungan-waterfall?share So off to the last stop on the tour. A waterfall, and guess we had both at this stage seen enough and we have also seen our fair share of waterfalls elsewhere, but OK, it was on the list and it was our drivers lunchbreak, as guess he couldn't find something around where we had lunch. We had invited him, but he had politely declined. So off we went, heading down the stairs to the sound of a disco playing boom-boom music, and the faint sounds of a waterfall. Making our way down the stairs we came across several of the "Selfie Opportunity Spots" that we have learned that Bali is very rich on. Swallow nests, Stork nests, I ❤ made in concrete to stand on, swings and endless other initiatives to lighten tourists of a few rupees. Once we finally got down to the waterfall, it was the rainy season waterfall. Quite violent and brown water, all swimming and jumping of the cliff was forbidden. Heading back up we saw a drone that was doing some pretty cool flying, all the way until the and, where the owner was quite lucky that it had good propeller protection as it survived hitting a tree without crashing.