SINGARAJA - Place Interest In Bali

SINGARAJA

The important and historic realm of Buleleng is a narrow strip of land running the entire length of the island. Bounded to the north by the Bali Sea, it shares borders with Karangasem to the east and with Jembrana, Tabanan, Badung and Bangli to the south. The spectacular chain of volcanoes that stretches right across the island for a distance of some 150 kms forms a natural frontier between Buleleng and all of the southern regencies.

These mountains often appear as a distant backdrop, while at other times they seem to gently unfold right down to the coast. Lying between the mountains and the sea, Buleleng is a region of exquisite natural beauty.

In former times, the mountain range hampered contact with the rest of Bali, which in turn gave rise to Buleleng’s discrete culture. Buleleng also differs geographically from south Bali: its climate is drier and wet rice cultivation is not as widespread. In the western portion of Buleleng much of Bali’s fruit is produced, while the area is also renowned for the cultivation of coffee and cloves.

The modern administrative unit of Buleleng consists of nine kecamatan (sub-districts) - It covers almost a third of Bali’s total surface area, is more than half again as large as a other kabupaten, and has the largest population — with some 546,000 inhabitants.

In former times, Buleleng was the site of Bali’s major port, and was therefore the island’s traditional point of contact with the outside world. Even today, there are many Muslims and Chinese here (though there at now many more in Denpasar), and the main city of Singaraja has a feeling that is quite diferent from any other town in Bali.



Since the main harbor was relocated to Benoa in south Bali and especialiy since the removal of many government offices from Buleleng to the south in recent years, there has been quite an exodus of government employees and skilled workers and as a result, a corresponding diminution of the region’s influence within Bali. But do not let this situation mislead you — Buleleng was never a sleeping giant, as its vibrant history and rich cultural legacy attest.

Read More

KARANGASEM - Place Interest In Bali

KARANGASEM

In 1983 Candidasa was just a quiet little fishing village, since then many hotels, losmen and restaurants have been built turning it into a resort area. Due to the development that took place, much of the beach disappeared, compensated by many hotels with swimming pools located right on the coast. Close by is the town of Amlapura the capital of the Karangasem District, where three palaces dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are decaying reminders of Karangasem's period as a kingdom. Candidasa has the full complement of shops, moneychangers, bicycle, motorbike and car rental to mention just a few of the tourist essentials.



Candidasa is a good place to escape the bustle of Kuta. Accommodations are good and relatively cheap, as is the food. There are no beach vendors and aggressive hawkers are rare. Although the town has tripled in size in recent years, the surrounding area is still serene and very quiet. Everything is oriented along the main street that parallels the beach.

Candidasa beach is shattered by quays protruding into the water, intended to stop the erosion caused from years of coral blasting. These structures make it impossible to walk more than 50 meters on the beach, once a truly lovely landscape. The beach can only be seen at low tide.

Read More

GIANYAR - Place Interest In Bali

GIANYAR

Gianyar is the very heart of Bali a modern and prosperous center of the arts with a history dating back a thousand years. Most of the cultural activities relating to tourism on the island from painting and woodcarving to dance and music are focused here, as is a broad range of agricultural activities.
Gianyar is the second most densely populated district of Bali (after Badung), with the majority of its 340,000 people relying upon tourism for their income. Nevertheless, the region is quite diverse, economically as well as geographically. The old harbors of Ketewel and Kramas down on the coast are still fishing villages, while up in the mountainous plateau above Ubud, vanilla, coffee and cloves are grown.

The major tourist area of Gianyar consists of a string of villages along the main road up from Batubulan to Ubud, with each village being famous for a different artistic form, Bali’s most famous dancers and best known painters come from this region. Bali’s most famous antiquities have also been found in this area, including the 2,000-year-old “Moon of Pejeng” bronze drum, the Goa Gajah hermitage at Bedulu with its elaborate reliefs, and many other remains dating from before the 11th century. These all testify to the strength and continuity of the traditions upon which Bali’s modern arts are founded.

Lying at the center of the area in which most Balinese antiquities have been found, the village of Bedulu was the site of an ancient capital of Bali before the Javanese Majapahit kingdom conquered the island in 1343. Alter the decline of Bedulu, other parts of Gianyar have been important court centers.

When Majapahit established a line of kings in Bali in the 14th century, their first capital was at Sampragnan — now a sleepy town. Later, in the 18th century, the village of Sukawati established itself as a separate court center and members of the Sukawati royal family settled between the Ayung and Petanu rivers, with branches in Peliatan and Tegalalang up in the mountains.

At the end of the 18th century, the Sukawati dynasty was forced to surrender its control of the area to a new family based in Gianyar to the east, As a result, most of the important districts and villages of Gianyar have members of both the old Sukawati line of Cokordas and the new Gianyar line of Dewas or Anak Agungs, and the history of the 19th century revolved around competition between the two lineages.

In 1884 the royal family of Negara, from the Sukawati line, overthrew the kings of Gianyar and plunged the region into turmoil. The conflict was finally resolved only ten years later, when a prince from Ubud, also of the Sukawati line, took the side of the Gianyar family and suppressed the rebels. There are still other important aristocratic families in Gianyar, however — foremost of which are the Gustis of Blahbatuh, whose palace was a major 19th-century power.



In more recent times, Ubud and Gianyar have been the twin centers of the region. Ubud now has the reputation of being Bali’s cultural center, thanks especially to a group of expatriate western artists who made their homes here in the 1930s, but Gianyar has provided most of the political and administrative leadership. Bali’s most important politician on the national stage, Anak Agung Gede Agung, diplomat and former foreign minister of Indonesia, is from the Gianyar royal family, and has retired to the palace of Gianyar to serve in the now-ceremonial role of king.

Read More

TABANAN - Place Interest In Bali

TABANAN
Tabanan encompasses a broad range of landscapes — from the lofty peaks in the north, including Mt Batukau and part of Mt Bratan with its dramatic volcanic lake, to the verdant rice plains in the south. Beautiful black sand beaches between Pasut and Klating dukuh are now being developed for tourism, but apart from the famous seaside temple of Tanab Lot, this is not yet a touristed area.

Many rivers run north to south from the mountains to the sea. The roads follow their courses, with only a few running east to west. The main highway from Java passes through the gently-sloping southern part of Tabanan along the coast. This has turned Tabanan town into a thriving commercial center. A steep, winding road leading across to Singaraja on the north coast passes from Beringkit (in Badung) via Perean, Bedugul, Candi Kuning and Baturiti.



The mountainous area around Bedugul is cool, misty and rainy. Vegetables, such as carrots, cauliflower, cabbage and maize, as well as many fruits (including apples and even strawberries) grow well here and are sold at the market in Bedugul. It is traditional for travelers to stop here and enjoy the cool mountain air before continuing on their journey.

The fast-flowing rivers have cut steep ravines into soft volcanic rocks overgrown with giant ferns (pakis). There are huge boulders in the riverbeds and spectacular waterfalls. The mountain area around Apuan offers fine views. Here one looks down upon innumerable terraces with small rice plots, surrounded by jagged dikes and tiny canals with gurgling water

Read More

UBUD - Place Interest In Bali

UBUD

Far from the madding crowds, Ubud has long been a quiet haven for the arts. Set amidst emerald green rice paddies and steep ravines in the stunning central Balinese foothills, some 25 km north of Denpasar, the village was originally an important source of medicinal herbs and plants. “Ubud” in fact derives from the Balinese word for medicine — ubad.

It was here that foreign artists such as Walter Spies settled during the 1920s and ‘30s, transforming the viliage into a flourishing center for the arts. Artists from all parts of Bali were invited to settle here by the local prince, Cokorda Gede Sukawati, and Ubud’s palaces and temples are now adorned by the work of Bali’s master artisans as a result. Unfortunately, the tourist boom has transformed Ubud into a bustling business center, complete with traffic jams and fast food outlets.

According to an 8th century legend, a Javanese priest named Rsi Markendya came to Bali from Java and meditated in Campuan at the confluence of two streams — an auspicious site for Hindus. He founded the Gunung Lebah Temple here, on a narrow platform above the valley floor, where pilgrims seeking peace came to be healed from their worldly cares. You can still get there by following a small road to the Tjetjak Inn on the western outskirts of Ubud, then taking the path down toward the river.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s Ubud became the focal point for foreign artists and other creative people gathering around Spies, a highly gifted and versatile German artist. A painter and a musician by training, Spies heard of Bali on reading Jaap Kunst’s Music of Bali, published in 1925, in which the Dutch musicologist praised neighboring Peliatan highly for its gamelan orchestra.

His work and anecdotes on the island riveted the attention of Spies, who was then director of the sultan of Yogyakarta’s European orchestra. Many other talented foreigners were attracted to Ubud also at this time. Among others, Miguel and Rosa Covarrubias popularised the hitherto little known beauty of Bali upon viewing Gregor Krause’s magnificient photo album, published in 1925. Krause had worked as a doctor in Bali around 1912.

After living in Ubud and Sanur, Covarrubias wrote his Island of Bali, one of the classics on Bali to this day. Rudolf Bonnet, the Dutch painter, was told of Bali’s breathtaking beauty by the etcher and ethnographer Nieuweokamp in Florence and came here to seek inspiration in the late 1920s. Colia McPhee came to join Spies’ experiments and stock-taking of musical traditions, which were at this time very dynamic, with new creations springing up overnight.



They worked together with the legendary Anak Agung Gede Mandera of Peliatan. McPhee later published a book on Bali’s musical traditioi as well as an account of his experiences here, A House in Bali.
Ubud rapidly became the village “en vogue” for many of these visitors — an insider tip from the many musicians, painters, authors and others.

Read More

JIMBARAN - Place Interest In Bali

JIMBARAN

The first thing which strikes the visitor to Bukit Badung, the bulbous peninsula at Bali’s southermost tip, is that the landscape is totally different from the rest of the island. Most of Bali is volcanic — rich soils watered year- round by run-off from mountain lakes and streams, which support a lush, tropical vegetation. In contrast, the Bukit is a non-volcanic limestone plateau which has its own unique ecology.

The so-called “hill” — for that is what “Bukit” means — has an ecosystem characterized by its lack of surface water. The soil lies on a base of cracked and porous limestone, and any rain which does fall quickly seeps through fissures to a very low water table. The area is thus ill-suited to agriculture during the dry season, when the scrubby vegetation looks more Mediterranean than tropical. During the rainy season, however, the area’s vegetation becomes quite lush and crops of soybeans, sorghum, cashew nuts, maniooc, beans of various sorts and even corn, flourish.

The plateau which constitutes most of the peninsula rises abruptly to about 200 m above sea level, and is ringed on all sides by steep cliffs. It is connected to the rest of Bali by a narrow isthmus, upon which lies the village of Jimbaran. Many lovely beaches line the shores of the peninsula and the isthmus, although access is often difficult. The biggest and best-known beach is just beyond the airport, on the western side of the Jimbaran isthmus. More secluded and equally beautiful sands are found further to the south, at the foot of steep cliffs along the western and southern shores of the Bukit plateau.


Jimbaran as an administrative entity part of Kuta. and encompasses the area just of Bali’s international airport. Most of jimbaran’s 12,000 inhabitants live in a cluster of traditional battier neighborhoods at the narrowest part of the isthmus, but the Jimbaran area also includes the sparsely populated northest corner of the Bukit plateau and also including Uluwatu area. .

Read More

NUSADUA - Place Interest In Bali

NUSADUA

Nusa Dua and Tanjung Benoa are Bali’s modern tourist resorts — a government-run dreamland of coconut palms, white sand beaches and pristine waters located near the island’s southernmost tip. Geologically, the area is quite different from the rest of Bali, and even from the rest of the Bukit peninsula upon which it rests.

Instead of rice fields or limestone cliffs, there is sandy soil reaching down to a long, sandy beach protected by a reef. Coconut trees are everywhere — Nusa Dua was once a huge coconut plantation. The climate here is also drier than the rest of Bali, freshened by a mild ocean breeze.

Once upon a time, the Balinese giant and master builder Kebo Twa decided that the Tanjung Benoa marshes should be transformed into riceflelds, so he went to the Bukit and picked up two scoops of earth. While shouldering them along the coast, his pole broke, dropping the earth into the sea. Two islets appeared: the “Nusa Dua.”

The marshes were never to become rice- fields; the bay remained a bay with a long cape, Tanjung Benoa, jutting into it. Nevertheless, Kebo Twa, who created the area, is now engaged in a new venture — luxury hotel development.



Making Nusa Dua into a tourist paradise was a consciously implemented government policy, designed with the help of the World Bank. Two main concepts underly the project: to develop an up-market tourist resort, beautiful, secure, easy of access, with the most modern facilities, while keeping the disruptive impact on the local environment as low as possible.

Read More

SANUR - Place Interest In Bali

SANUR
The black and white checkered cloth standard of Bali’s netherworld — is nowhere more aptly hung than on the ancient coral statues and shrines of Bali’s largest traditional village: Sanur This was Bali’s first beach resort — a place of remarkable contrasts.

Sanur today is a golden mile of Baliesque hotels that has attracted millions of paradise- seeking globetrotters. And yet, within the very grounds of the 11-story The Grand Bali Beach Hotel, a war-reparation gift from the Japanese, nestles the sacred and spikey temple of Ratu Ayu of Singgi, the much feared spirit consort of Sanur’s fabled Black Barong.

Just a stone’s throw from any of Sanur’s benchside hotels lies one of a string of very ancient temples. Characterized by low coral- walled enclosures sheltering platform altars, this style of temple is peculiar to the white sand stretch of Sanur coast, from Sanur harbor in the north to Mertasari Beach in the south. Inside, they are decorated with fanciful fans of coral and rough-hewn statuary, often ghoulishly painted but always wrapped in a checkered sarong.

The Sanur area, with traditional Intaran at its heart, has evidently been settled since ancient times. The Prasasti Belanjong, an inscribed pillar here dated AD. 913, is Bali’s earliest dated artifact now kept in a temple in Belanjong village in the south of Sanur. It tells of King Sri Kesari Warmadewa of the Sailendra Dynasty in Java, who came to Bali to teach Mahayana Buddhism and then founded a monastery here. One may presume that a fairly civilized community then existed — the Sailendra kings having built Borobudur in Central Java at about this lime.

Read More

KUTA - Place Interest In Bali

KUTA
Kuta/Legian beach is living proof that one man’s hell is another man’s paradise. This bustling beach resort has in the short space of just two decades spontaneously burst onto center stage in the local tourist scene. It is here that many visitors form their first (if not only) impressions of what Bali is all about. Many are shocked and immediately flee in search of the “real Bali” (a mythological destination somewhere near Ubud).

The truth is, nevertheless, that certain souls positively thrive in this labyrinth of boogie bars, beach bungalows, cassette shops and honky tonks — all part of the Kuta lifestyle. What then is the magic that has transformed this sleepy fishing village overnight into an overcrowded tourist Mecca — with no end in sight to its haphazard expansion?

It took a young Californian surfer and his wife to first notice Kuta’s tourism potential. The year was 1936. Robert and Louise Koke decided to leave Hollywood and start a small hotel in Bali. They describe their discovery of Kuta as follows: ‘The next day we cycled. . . to the South Seas picture beach we had been hoping to find. It was Kuta . . .the broad, white sand beach curved away for miles, huge breakers spreading on clean sand.”

The hotel they founded was called the Kuta Beach Hotel, naturally. It was a modest establishment but things went reasonably well in spite of an occasional malaria attack and a run-in with a young and fiery American of British birth by the name of Ketut Tantri, who managed to stir up controversy wherever she went during her 20-odd years in Indonesia.

After the War, tourism in Bali all but disappeared. And when the first tourists began to trickle back during the 1960s, Kuta was all but forgotten. Suddenly and without warning, however, a new kind of visitor began to frequent the island during the 1970s, and their preferred abode in Bali was Kuta Beach.

Nobody quite knew what to make of the first long-haired, bare-footed travelers who stopped here on their way from India to Australia — nobody, that is, except for the enterprising few in Kuta who quickly threw up rooms behind their houses and began cooking banana pancakes for this nomadic tribe.


The main attraction here was and still is one of the best beaches in Asia — and the trickle of cosmic surfers and space age crusaders in search of paradise, mystical union, and good times soon turned into a torrent, as tales of Bali spread like wildfire on the travelers’ grapevine. Stories of a place where one could live out extravagant dreams on one of the world’s most exotic tropical islands — for just a few dollars a day — seemed too good to be true.

Read More

DENPASAR -Place Interest In Bali

DENPASAR

Denpasar is a “village-city” with an aristocratic past. Born from the ashes of the defeated Pemecutan court following the puputan massacre of 1906, Denpasar became a sleepy administrative outpost during Dutch times. Since independence, and especially after it was made the capital of Bali in 1958, it has been transformed into a bustling city of some 350,000 souls that provides administrative, commercial and educational services not only to booming Bali, but to much of eastern Indonesia as well. Denpasar is the most dynamic city east of Surabaya, and arguably the richest in the country — there are more vehicles per capita here than in Jakarta.

Denpasar is nevertheless a modern city. Shops, roads and markets have conquered the wet ricefield areas allowed to be leased and sold by village communities. Here, urbanization has taken on the same features found elsewhere in Indonesia — rows of gaudily-painted shops in the business districts; pretty villas along the “protokol” streets; narrow alleys, small compounds and tiny houses in the residential areas.

This new urban space continues to welcome waves of new immigrants — Balinese as well as non-Balinese. As such, it represents an experiment in national integration. Inland Balinese indeed make up the majority of the population. The northerners and southern princes and brahmans were here first. Early beneficiaries of a colonial education, they took over the professions and the main administrative positions and constitute, together with the local nobility, the core of the native bourgeoisie. Their villas — with their roof temples, neo-classical columns and Spanish balconies — are the modern “palaces” of Bali.

More recently, a new Balinese population has settled here, attracted by jobs as teachers, students, nurses, traders, etc. Strangers among the local “villagers,” these Balinese are the creators of a new urban landscape and architecture. Instead of setting up traditional compounds with their numerous buildings and shrines, they build detached houses with a single multi-purpose shrine. In religious natters, they are transients — retaining ritual membership in their village of origin, praying to gods and ancestors from a distance through the medium of the new shrine. They return home for major ceremonies, to renew themselves at the magical and social sources of their village of origin.



Denpasar has two hotels of historical and cultural note—Bali Hotel and the Pemecutan Palace Hotel. The rest of the hotels in Denpasar are Losmen-style, catering mostly to groups and domestic tourists. If you’re on a tight budget and travel with a group, these can be a great bargain. During the Indonesian holiday seasons (June through August, Lebaran and Christmas/New Year), the hotels fill up, so make reservations in advance.

Read More

More About Bali

Culture & Customs

Balinese remain conservative and traditional. Please respect their traditions and attitudes. Balinese are very polite people and smiles are characteristic. Shaking hands on introduction is the usual for both men and women. Using the left hand to give or to receive something is Considered taboo (the left hand is used for personal hygiene), pointing with the left hand is rude and crooking a finger to call someone is impolite. When bargaining for a purchase, settle all prices in advance. Don't ask a price or make an offer unless you intend to buy. When bargaining, start at half the asking price and reach a compromise. Remember that Rp. 500 can mean the difference of a day's meal; to you it is little.Don't display large sums of money.

Balinese have a strong sense of pride and consider temptation, and suspicion, insulting.Wear a shirt or swimsuit cover-up when not on the beach or pool. Swimsuits, a swim top and sarong, etc., are not acceptable attire on any street. Small passages to the beach may be through a residential courtyard or holy temple. Nude bathing is illegal and impolite. Leave shoes outside on the steps before entering a house or temple. Begging is not customary in Bali, but is prevalent due to Indonesia's economic crisis. If you hand out money you encourage people to ask again. The exception is to make a small contribution at the entrance to a temple, toward maintenance. Give what you can afford, as you would do in any house of worship.

Balinese are conscious of presentation, both for themselves and visitors. The "hippie look" is not well accepted by locals. Poor attire often attracts poor service, especially in government offices. Singlets, halter tops and mini skirts are not acceptable in government offices. The proper dress code: trousers and collared shirt with sleeves for men, and dress or skirt with blouse with sleeves for women. Keep a sarong handy. All temple visitors must wear a waist sash. A sarong is preferred. By an ancient law, menstruating women and anyone with a bleeding wound are not permitted in temples.

Temple ceremonies and other rituals are sacred events to the Balinese and appropriate clothing should be worn. To visit any temple ceremony, you must dress modestly, in "pakian adat" (the full native dress of a kain, kebaya and sash for the women and udung (head band), kain, saput (overskirt), nice shirt and sash for men. A sash over shorts is unacceptable. Wait outside the temple for an invitation if there is a festival in progress.

At festivals and dance performances, Balinese are relaxed around a camera. Don't interfere or stand directly in front of the priest or the kneeling congregation. According to custom, one's head should not be higher than the priest's or village headman. It is rude to climb on temple walls. Do not remain standing when people kneel to pray. Move to the back and wait quietly until prayer or blessings are complete. If local bystanders kneel in veneration, always move to the side. The Balinese are not performing for your benefit, but are in sacred ritual for their own worship.


Business Hours

Indonesians work in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. If you need to visit a government office, arrive between 8 am and 11:30 am. This also applies to banks and private businesses. Banks close on every possible holiday, often for up to 10 days at a time. Banking hours generally are 9 am-2pm, weekdays. Government offices close early on Fridays. Generally, offices are open 7 am-3 pm Monday-Thursday, 7:30 am-noon on Friday, closed Saturday and Sunday.


Security & Crime

Tourist Police, Tel: 754599, 763753Bali is not free of theft and petty crime. Don't leave valuables unattended. Be extra careful of purses, wallets and backpacks in crowded areas. Don't lend money if you expect it to be returned. Report theft immediately to police or security officers. Without a police report, new passports and documents to leave the country are difficult to obtain. Carry photocopies of passports, tickets and driver's licenses and keep originals in the hotel safe. All narcotics are illegal in Indonesia and prosecution means a long prison term and/or huge fines, even death penalty for trafficking.


Children

Children are loved in Bali. Reliable babysitters are available. Many hotels have kid's clubs and children's programs.


Time zones

There are three time zones in Indonesia. Bali is on Central Indonesia Standard Time, +8 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. There is no daylight savings time in Indonesia. Bali is on the same time zone as Singapore and Hong Kong.


Tipping

Most larger hotels and restaurants automatically add government tax and service charge of up to 21 percent to the bill. Tipping is unusual and you're not compelled to tip at restaurants. If you like your taxi driver, a tip of 10-15 percent is appreciated. Carry small change with you as taxi drivers often have none. Round up the fare to the nearest Rp. 500. If traveling in a group, a tip to drivers and guides is appreciated. Airport or hotel porters expect Rp. 1,500 per bag, depending on the size and weight.


Weights & Measures

Indonesia uses the metric system. One kilometer is 0.6 miles; one meter is 3.3 feet or 39 inches; one kilogram is 2.2 pounds; one liter is 0.3 US gallons or 0.2 imperial gallons. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8 and add 32; to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, subtract 32 and multiply by

Read More