Our Last Trip to Bali
Have you ever loved a place from the first moment you arrived? When you just know you're meant to be there? For me that place is Bali.
I first came to the Island many years ago, before the flocks of tourists started influencing life and society, before “Eat, Pray, Love” came out in books and film and crowds arrived looking for spiritual revelations.
I fell in love with the beauty of the place, the way of life, and its people. Since that first time, I went to Bali almost every year and I want to share with you the memories of our last trip.
The story of that trip started long ago. It started even before I first came to the Island or even heard about it.
In 1993 my husband Randy was going through a hard divorce with this first wife. He was working in the film industry and projects were not coming for a long time. Nothing seemed to go right. So, instead of trying to fix the broken pieces, he decided to take a break and with a couple of hundred dollars went to Bali. It was as far as he could get from California where he lived at the time.
After the first week in Denpasar (and it was quite touristic even that far back), he decided to move further away and went to the north of Bali, to Lovina. Lovina is close to Singaraja which was the Dutch colonial capital for Bali from 1849 until 1953, an administrative center and the port of arrival for most visitors until Denpasar and its airport came along in the south. It isn’t the destination many tourists go to now and in 1993 it was just a bunch of local villages with few foreigners around.
Randy fell in love with Lovina and decided to stay there for a while. He always played guitar well and he joined a local band that was playing western and local music in bars. He also spent time with his new Balinese friends. One of them was Nyoman, a young man, who introduced Randy to local food, traditions, and the way of life.
Bali is not an expensive place to stay (that is if you are not attached to the five-star resorts of the south) and Lovina is very affordable, so Randy stayed for 6 months. He probably would have stayed longer, but his visa expired, and he had to leave the country. He and Nyoman exchanged addresses and wanted to keep in touch. Randy was sure he would sooner or later find his way back.
When he landed in California, his wallet was picked right at the airport (one tends to become very relaxed in Bali as crime is virtually non-existent there, especially away from tourist locations), and it wasn’t only the remainder of the money that was gone, but also the contacts of all his Balinese friends. To explain to those of my readers who don’t grasp the concept of lost contacts, there were no mobile phones at that time, and we had to write down and save information on paper.
Then as it often happens, life interfered, and Randy could not return to Bali or find his friends. He always knew, though, that if he could go somewhere, it would be Bali.
Fast forward twenty years. I met my husband in 2014 when I moved to the US from Russia. I like to think that it was destiny. We had been dating for two years when we decided to get married. At the time, I was still waiting for my green card, and we could not go anywhere for our honeymoon. When we talked about where we would go when I was free to travel, I mentioned my love for Bali. And Randy immediately told me his story and how he would love to go back to the Island and find his friend. We started planning the trip.
My Immigration interview was finally scheduled for the middle of January. I had to wait for the green card to arrive in the mail before we could travel. To be on the safe side, we decided to plan for the end of February so that we could spend my birthday there.
As we wanted to save on air tickets, we decided to get an inexpensive ticket with EVA Air (Taiwanese airline). And since it is such a lengthy flight, we agreed to spend the first several days in Ubud before heading north to Lovina. We also wanted to make a brief stopover in one of the best golf clubs on the island as Randy is an avid golfer.
The flight was surprisingly comfortable. I could not stop laughing when I saw that our planes were all branded “Hello Kitty” both outside and inside.
We landed in Denpasar in the evening. The big surprise was that almost two years had passed since my last trip to Bali, and instead of the cozy, very old-fashioned airport of my previous visits, we landed in a completely renovated, state-of-the-art airport. However, what has not changed was the sense of recognition and well-being both of us felt as we existed in warm and fragrant Balinese night.
As neither of us was a big fan of Denpasar, we went straight to our hotel in Ubud. Where did we stay? We chose a hotel where we had previously visited and liked: Hotel Tjampuhan & Spa. It had been a legendary hotel in Ubud since 1928. It used to be a royal guesthouse, existed long before the days of tourism, and inspired numerous foreign artists, including German painter Walter Spies.
Walter Spies Home
The rooms are traditionally styled bungalows and guestrooms. The original home of Walter Spies is there as well. We went to have dinner in one of the local restaurants and booked ourselves for a white-water rafting trip.
I have done white water rafting almost every time I found myself in Bali, and it was always a discovery of something new, so we were anticipating the trip impatiently. Rafting in Bali is not a strenuous sporting affair. You are taken by an open truck to the river. The only exercise is going down steps to the start of the journey. (And it is a lot of steps as the river runs deep in the valley. It also calls for a lot of steps to go up, so be prepared!). Once you are down and get into the boats, the river flows smoothly, and the beauty of it is indescribable. The picture above is probably the only location where it looks like some sports activity. We made stops to stand under the waterfall, take a swim in the river, enjoy the beauty of the forest and carvings in the riverbanks, and pass small villages along the shores.
Coming back to the hotel, we just enjoyed relaxing and getting ready to continue our journey the next day.
In the morning, after a tasty Balinese breakfast (and the story of Balinese fruit deserves a separate post, which I will write one of these days), we moved to Nirwana Bali Gold Club, which was often voted to be the best golf club in Indonesia.
Randy was signed up for a day of golf, and I went along as the gold club is located facing the sea on Bali's southwestern coastline along with the lush rice paddies.
It was a beautiful day, and after a while, I left Randy to commune with his golf buddies and went to enjoy a spa in the hotel. Balinese spas also deserve special notice. They exist not only for foreigners; local spas are scattered all over the villages and towns and are a part of the Balinese lifestyle. The hotel spas are expensive for Bali (not so much in comparison to the US and European prices), but if you are willing to step outside and venture to the little local massage salons, you would be amazed at what you can have for a fraction of the large hotel prices. My favorite spa place charged $20 for an hour of excellent full-body massage with a selection of fragrant oils and a cup of honey ginger tea after the treatment.
After a bit of rest, we went out to Tanah Lot Temple in the evening, a 10-minute walk from the hotel. I think you saw the images of the temple in the brochures about Bali. It is one of the most spectacular locations as the temple sits on top of an impressive rock overlooking the sea. When the tide is high, the temple is almost completely cut off.
We were expecting a lot of visitors as the temple looked magnificent in the sunset, but we were surprised by the crowds around it. We were lucky. The temple was celebrating its 800 years, and it was a holy occasion; many people came from all over the island for religious ceremonies. And while we were not allowed close to the temple (local villagers guard the temple and enable local attendants only), we could watch village musicians play traditional music and families attired in their best traditional clothes coming to pray at sunset. They were gracious to allow us to take pictures. It was one of the most magical evenings we spent in Bali during this trip. I loved the comfort and beauty of the local traditional dress. I made a note for myself to buy a Balinese Kebaya (a nicely cut blouse, usually white for religious holidays) with the Kamen (batik skirt) and the Balinese Prada belt, which is a kind of shawl worn around your waist. (And for my female readers, I promise I will let you know where best to shop for nice summer clothes and traditional dress in one of my other blogs. Bali attracts so many western designers, and the sewing quality is so good that you can get quite a lot of summer shipping done in Bali.).
After the sunset and the ceremony, we went back to the hotel for dinner. We were also preparing to leave early next morning towards our destination of Lovina, where we wanted to stay longer to enjoy a peaceful vacation and to search for Randy’s friend.
Are you curious if we found him? Please wait for more of our Bali adventures to come shortly!
