BALI - INDONESIA

BENOA (DENPASAR) – PART ONE

SCOOTERS, TEMPLES & MONKIES!

Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 6 AM, Temperature 82 Degrees, 76% Humidity, W – 4.8 mph

Bali ranks 36th by size in the 17,000+ islands of Indonesia but 16th in population. More than 4 million people call Bali home. 90% of the population is Balinese and 87.91 percent are Hindu; only 3.3% are Christian. It is the only Hindu majority province in Indonesia.

What do you call a mass of two-legged riders (often multiple riders) on two-wheeled scooters in a busy urban environment? A herd? A hoard? A mob? John prefers the term Gaggle, as in gaggle of geese, but only their scooter horns honked! When we think back on Bali, the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the scooters come to mind first. John’s photos don’t really show the full impact of an intersection with 30 or more scooters waiting for the traffic light to change. There were scooters with single, double, and entire family riders – father, mother with a toddler between (or maybe two children) was not unusual – although our server told us later at dinner back on the ship it was illegal to have more than one child on a scooter. We saw people carrying crates of chicken, a garbage man with a trash bin, and, most challenging of all, one carrying a 6-foot ladder. Our five-and-a-half-hour tour turned into seven hours, with two hours of touring and 5 hours of riding in solid traffic. Stores on the main road hired “Flag Men” who would stop traffic so customers could have access to the road. John was glad he wasn’t driving (he would never do it); our bus driver did an amazing job! The traffic and scooters are just a part of city life in Indonesia. We were in Denpasar, which is the capital and main market center. Nusa Dusa, to the South is filled with nice resorts and the beaches for which Bali is famous. Ubud is the cultural center of the island.

We didn’t really participate in one of the best parts of the visit to Bali, but we saw pictures! Much of the staff in Zuiderdam come from Indonesia. Our two room stewards and our servers in the dining room were from Indonesia. With HAL's support, many of them had made arrangements for their families to come aboard while the ship was in Benoa. Everyone was very excited to have their families have a chance to see where they worked. Some have worked for HAL for many years but have never come into the ports of Indonesia. By 10:30 AM, almost 1,000 cruisers had left the ship for Excursions. At 11:00 AM, almost 900 family members came aboard! They were aboard until 4 PM and saw where their family members (father, husband, brother, daughter, mother, sister, friend, etc.) worked and slept. HAL arranged activities; they toured the ship and ate on the Lido Deck or in the dining room. Lots of ice cream was consumed! It was bittersweet when families had to leave; tears were shed, but many great memories were made. They were all gone before we returned, but photos and stories were shared.

When we left for our tour, we were greeted by beautiful Balinese Dancers. Driving away from the port on our way to the Royal Temple, we were immediately met by traffic, scooters, and a dense urban landscape (some modern, some old school). When we were an hour out of the city, the buildings were less dense, interspersed with rice fields. Growing rice is still a manual operation – the small seedings are planted and then weeded by hand. As the rice gets larger, it is weeded with a hoe. Mature fields are cut with a manual sickle.

Our first stop was the Taman Ayun Temple (Beautiful Garden), a Royal Temple built by the King of Mengwi Gusti Agung Putu in 1634 AD. It was built as a family temple to honor his ancestors. It has been renovated several times, with the most recent being in 1937. It continues to be a “working” temple with daily prayers and annual festivals. It has 3 sections, common in holy temples. We could not enter the inner courtyard but were able to take photos. One of the photos is of a lizard we saw there, our first lizard sighting! Is it still a Komodo Dragon if it’s not on Komodo, or is it just a Monitor Lizard? There were flower offerings. Driving through the city earlier, you would see offerings of flowers and fruit in front of many businesses to ask for blessings on the business.