Welcome to the Bali 2000 Trip

Bali, a tropical island in the Indonesian archipelago, is so picturesque and immaculate it could almost be a painted backdrop. It has rice paddies tripping down hillsides like giant steps, volcanoes soaring up through the clouds, dense tropical jungle, long sandy beaches, warm blue water, crashing surf and a friendly people who don't just have a culture but actually live it. In Bali spirits come out to play in the moonlight, every night is a festival and even a funeral is an opportunity to have a good time.

Balinese are nominally Hindus but Balinese Hinduism is a world away from that of India. At one time Hinduism was the predominant religion in Indonesia (witness the many great Hindu monuments in Java) but it died out with the spread of Islam through the archipelago. The final great Hindu Kingdom, that of the Majapahits, virtually evacuated to Bali, taking not only their religion and its rituals but also their art, literature, music and culture.

Religion in Bali has two overwhelming features, it's absolutely everywhere and it's good fun! You can't get away from religion in Bali: there are temples in every village, shrines in every field, offerings being made at every corner.

Here on Bali an outsider will find Paradise.

The adventure began with 4 travelers from Houston, Texas.  We left Houston, Saturday Nov 11, 2000 (still not knowing who was President Elect but knew that GW had won) and made the obligatory stop in LAX to catch our flight on Singapore Airlines.  Our flight left on time and we had a stop in Tokyo for fuel and then off to Singapore.  We rented a 6 hour room in the Transit Hotel in Singapore, slept showered and got ready for the final couple of hours flight to Bali.  The vacation was about to begin.
Monday morning we left Singapore refreshed and ready to get in the touring mode for Bali.  We arrived on time around noon to arrive at the airport with NO electricity.  Beautiful teak building with lovely orchids and sand stone carvings, we knew we were on the right track, we just needed electricity.  Needless to say Indonesians are very power hungry and love a uniform.  So we weren't surprised that they tried to bully visitors and try to extort money, this is a common practice in third world countries.


Great Beer!

 We were met at the airport by the hotel shuttle bus, we arrived with all of our luggage and we were checked into our hotel ALUM KUL KUL in Kuta on the beach.  Black sand beaches, beautiful orange sunset and quite a few Bintang Beers (EXCELLENT beer, I made add!), we knew that life couldn't get much better when 2 of us looked up and saw 2 gentlemen we had traveled with LAST year to Indonesia!  One lives in New Mexico and the other is from Bonaire!  Talk about a small world, well our group was chattering about trips we had made since our last get together, our up coming travels in Indonesia and what we have planned for the years to come.  Our friends had just arrived 2 days before we did some light Bali touring and were getting ready to fly onto Irian Jaya (Papua Indonesia). All of us are scuba divers and they were traveling onto a very remote resort that has seen very few divers, they knew we were scheduled to go there next year (20010 and have promised to give us their reviews, we are anxious to hear about the diving there.  One of them had been to Kungkungan Bay Resort and we were promised excellent diving when we made it to Sulewasi on Saturday.  We knew we had 4 days of touring waiting for us in Bali and the 6 of us enjoyed the moment in our small world, waves crashing on the beach,  an orange sunset, watching people wandering the beach front and bar hopping.  Not much more you have to do when you're drinking beer and enjoying very inexpensive food in Bali.  

If I don't say it enough, Bali is an extremely inexpensive place to visit as well as one of the most beautiful islands in the world.


Papas's overlooking the black sand beach

Alum Kul Kul Lobby

This bowl of water is about a yard across and full of fragrant flowers floating in water, the flowers are arranged in a beautiful design.

 

Day 1 Bali

Day 2 Bali

Day 3 Bali

Day 4 Bali

Day 5 Bali

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