Day 12
This day it
was time for tour around the island of Bali. I went to the tourist office where
I met with the driver. He said to me that there was going to be 2 Japanese
women with us and we went to pick them up from their hotel which was located
outside of the town. Driver said it was good thing that I was on the tour with
the ladies because according to him Japanese people are too nice to say no. So
he said that I should save them during the day from bad situations and that was
what I did couple times during next 6 hours.
Our first
stop was Goa Gajah or Elephant Cave Temple. The driver said that we need
sarongs to enter and we should buy them here if we don’t have because we would
need them in every place we visit. Japanese ladies bought their sarongs but I
had heard that there are sarongs for tourists available for free on entrance
and that was true. So I didn’t buy sarong from there. The temple was
interesting looking from the outside; the door was carved as a mouth of some
kind of god maybe. Early European explorers thought it was elephant and that
why it’s named Elephant Cave. Inside the temple there’s nothing to see. Area
around the temple had some old fountains and other temple but otherwise nothing
special.
Our next
stop was Pura Tirtha Empul or The Holy Spring Water Temple. Again I didn’t need to
buy sarong because there was sarongs available for tourists. This temple was
very interesting experience. Like the name suggests it has a spring which is
holy so people bath in the water. I was watching the bathing ritual and people
tried to invite me to come bath with them. If there wouldn’t have been so tight
schedule and full day of sightseeing ahead of me I would’ve definitely joined these
people. I walked around the temple complex and watched how a praying ceremony
was just ending. In this place I did really feel the religious spirit unlike in
the Elephant Cave Temple. I really liked this temple and I recommend visiting
it. We walked back to our car through souvenir stall and I decided that it
would be easier for me just to buy a sarong. And that was a good decision
because in the next places where we visited there were no possibilities to
borrow a sarong. And it was also useful for other parts of the trip.
Next stop
was coffee plantation in Temen. Well, I’m not so sure about that plantation
part. There were couple coffee plants here and there and some other plants like
cocoa, black pepper and other spices. But I wouldn’t call that place a
plantation. And there seemed to be quite many of these “plantations” in the
area. But they also had couple of these animals called civets which eat coffee
beans. The beans go through their digestion and then people make coffee of those
beans. That coffee is called kopi luwak in Indonesian and it’s very expensive.
They had some teas and coffee for tasting at the plantation but if you wanted
to taste luwak coffee you had to pay for that. As I don’t like coffee I didn’t
taste it but the Japanese ladies paid the extra to have a small cup of luwak. And when
we started to leave from the plantation, surprise, surprise; we had to go
through a shop selling luwak coffee, normal coffee, different teas and local
alcohol drinks. I didn’t buy anything but of course the Japanese ladies were
shopping like crazy.
Before our
next destination we shortly stopped at Penelokan where there was nice view over
Lake Batur to Mount Batur, although the mountain was partly covered by clouds.
Air was much cooler here at the mountain which was nice relief from the heat
but our driver was complaining that air was cold :D Roads were quite crazy at
the mountain area, lots of steep hills. It started to rain when we got closer
to our next destination which was Pura Besakih or Mother Temple of Besakih.
Pura Besakih is the most important and largest temple in Bali. Many guide books
warn that this temple could be very annoying experience. Our driver also warned
us before we left the car that don’t listen to anybody and he gave me extra
task to guard the Japanese ladies. And soon it became very clear why everybody
gives warnings about this place. Soon some men were shouting at us from a small
booth that we have to check our tickets there. They looked so angry so I
decided to show our tickets to them. Then they showed us map of the temple
complex and I realised that this wasn’t a ticket checkpoint. Soon they asked us
to sign a paper and then we would have a guide which they say is mandatory in
the temple complex. Japanese ladies were almost already writing their names in
the paper but I quickly stopped them and asked the men to give our tickets back.
So without me the Japanese ladies would have got fooled in the first possible place.
Then it was time for the temple area. It was raining hard so the views from the
temple complex were hidden behind the clouds but I could see that the temple area
continued high on the slope of Mount Agung. People were all the time trying to
offer guide services or sell umbrellas even when I had one on my own. One of
the guides got angry at me when I was protecting Japanese ladies from him and
he lied to me that one of the temples was closed. Quite poor lie when I could
see other tourists walking inside. Well, there was other entrance to that
temple too. But even with all these troubles from locals I recommend to visit
in Pura Besakih. In my opinion the complex was very beautiful and the temple
design is so unique. On a clear day the views must be amazing. Just remember to
ignore everybody there, they will soon get tired of you and then you can walk
around in peace.
Next we had
lunch. Driver took us to some tourist restaurant which had nice view over a
valley. The restaurant had a buffet and the price of the buffet was the highest
price I paid for food in Indonesia (it was over 8 Euros). Even the Japanese
ladies were shocked of the price. So I decided to eat for full price. The staff
seemed to be little shocked when I went to get food for 5th time.
And I still went to get desserts 2 times after that. After dinner we started to
drive towards the city of Semarapura. On the way we shortly stopped to see a view
over rice terraces. In Semarapura sun was shining again but I was feeling
little sick. My ears didn’t feel ok after driving down from the mountain and I also
had headache. So it was good thing that Semarapura was our last stop.
Semarapura was known as Klungkung before and it used to be the centre of
Klungkung kingdom. We visited in Klungkung Palace or what is now left of it.
The buildings had interesting paintings on their ceilings but otherwise it wasn’t
anything special. The place had also small museum.
On way home
we were stuck in traffic. We first dropped the Japanese ladies to their hotel.
I also didn’t take the ride all the way back to the tourist office. Because
traffic was so bad, it was faster for me to walk back to my hotel. When I got
back to my room I noticed the wifi was working. While I was surfing in the
internet I started to feel cold and I realised I was getting sick. Soon my
fever had risen and I was feeling both cold and hot. I took all the medicines I
had and drank water all the time; thankfully I had quite plenty of it. I also
had some snacks which I bought earlier so I didn’t need go find food with fever
but I was feeling full of the buffet still anyway. I couldn’t get any sleep
during following the night.
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