The World’s Cheapest Destinations

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Laos is one of the best bargains in Southeast Asia—and that’s saying something, since most countries there are relatively cheap for travelers. Because tourism is only beginning to make inroads in Laos, visitors are not seen as mere revenue streams; locals extend a warm and genuine welcome. You can find an inexpensive guesthouse for less than $20 a night; open-air cafes along the Mekong River offer absurdly cheap French and Lao specialties.


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A world apart from the unrest that sometimes grips other parts of Indonesia, Bali seduces visitors with its magnificent beaches, lush volcanic peaks and impossibly green rice paddies. This serene tropical island, dotted with thousands of Hindu shrines and temples, is the stuff of escapist fantasies. Even budget accommodations feature beautifully carved wooden furniture and jewel-toned fabrics. For $10 to $20, you can bunk in a simple guesthouse or rent a beach bungalow.


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After decades of turmoil, Vietnam has finally achieved peace and stability. Today its fledgling market economy is revving up, and the country is welcoming an increasing number of Western visitors. In the colorful and chaotic cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, you can rough it for a few dollars a day, or get a comfortable room with air conditioning and hot showers for $30 a night. In any street market, a mere $1 buys a steaming bowl of pho and a cold beer.


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In India, if you have an adventurous spirit, you can get by on less than $20 a day—but even $40 to $50 a day will land you some creature comforts and more elaborate meals. First-time visitors might consider flying into sprawling, bustling Delhi before making a side trip to Agra’s wondrous Taj Mahal. Then go off to tour the vast province of Rajasthan, with its outrageously ornate forts and palaces. Rajasthan is full of adventure, whether you dream of spotting an elusive tiger or taking a camel safari under the stars.


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An African safari doesn’t have to involve forking over thousands of dollars to a U.S.-based tour operator. It’s possible to book your safari after you arrive in Zambia. You can even travel to the game parks independently. Zambia is also home to another of Africa’s most stunning spectacles: Victoria Falls. The Zambian side of the thundering falls offers camping for less than $5, or you can rent a hut for $40 to $50, with meals included.


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Tunisia is a modern and secular society in a land of ornate mosques and Lawrence of Arabia desert landscapes. Bustling markets tout rugs, pottery and colorful crafts—yours for a song. Archaeological wonders await, too, from the ancient city of Carthage to glorious Roman ruins. After you explore the culture, relax on a gorgeous Mediterranean beach where basic rooms and hostel bunks go for less than $15. If you can swing $50 a day, you’ll sleep comfortably and eat well.


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Laid-back Honduras offers a pristine rain forest that’s alive with howler monkeys and multicolor birds. You’ll find hiking, river rafting and impressive Maya ruins (at Copán). The Bay Islands are home to world-class scuba diving and snorkeling along a dazzling coral reef. For now, $8 buys you a hearty dinner; decent budget digs go for less than $25 per night. You can spend even less if you don’t mind sleeping in a hammock.


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Guatemala combines natural splendor with a fascinating glimpse into Mayan culture, history and traditions. The highlight for most travelers is surely Tikal: The ruins of a once-great Mayan city feature spectacular towering pyramids that rise out of the dense jungle. Wherever you go, you’ll find lots of simple bungalows and homey family-run inns that host budget travelers for as little as $20 to $30 per night.


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Peru offers some of the most rugged and diverse scenery in South America. Real shoestring travelers can get by on $25 a day, while $50 a day will put you up in midrange hotels with style and character. Cusco is best known as the jumping-off point for Machu Picchu, but don’t overlook several other excursions that are closer to the city, like the remarkable ruins of Sacsayhuamán. In the Amazon Basin, hostel bunks and jungle lodges are plentiful in gateway towns such as Iquitos, where boat tours reveal the diversity and wonder of the rain forest.


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Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a city of grand boulevards and tango salons. Parrillas (barbecue joints) offer incomparable steak dinners for $10; a bed in a hostel goes for $9, but in this town, $40 or $50 a night buys an extremely comfortable midrange hotel room. The beach resort of Mar del Plata is legendary for its rollicking nightlife, and the garden city of Mendoza makes a great base for touring the wine country or whitewater rafting. Or fly to the ends of the earth to see the towering peaks and glaciers of Patagonia and stroll among the friendly penguin colonies at Punta Tombo.

source travel.msn.com

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The Image of Bali

Over the last seventy years, writers of travel books, books on Bali and the writers for the internet’s pages have given a great contribution to shape the image of Bali, and until now the process of shaping the image of Bali is still on the way.



During the period of 1920s and 1930s, the image of Bali as a paradise was first created. On that time, the Dutch government began promoting Bali as a tourism destination. The pioneers of tourism in Bali such as Hickman Powell, Collin McPhee, etc, bolstered the image of Bali as a paradise. For Hickman Powell Bali was a vast wonderland, embodied the dream of pastoral poets. For Collin McPhee, each part of the day in Bali had a quality, which revealed a particular aspect of the island. The morning was “a golden freshness” when the island ‘dripped and shone with moisture like a garden in a florist’s window’. In the middle of the day, Bali ‘had become hard and matter-of-fact. In the afternoon and in the evening its qualities shone through, as “it grew unreal, lavish and theatrical like old-fashioned opera scenery.

Since that time the image of Bali is slowly built up with decades of tourist promotion, thousands of academic and travel writing, this great effort makes the image of Bali as the last paradise almost irrefutable. Each new writer has taken something from earlier works and developed it.


Nowadays, Bali could be nothing else but a rich ancient culture, the morning of the world, a forgotten medieval community where sun-bronzed women dress as eve, a land where nobody hurries, and all in peace, a spiritual community of care-free islander…as happy as a mortal can be, where everyone you meet is a dancer or an artist, where every day begins and ends with splendors of the nature: ‘as near an approach this side of heaven to a poet dream’.


As mentioned before, the shaping of Bali’s image is still going on. Bali changes a lot, these changes will eventually affect the already made image and reshape it into the new one.

Will Bali still be the last paradise?

Note : Most of the materials for this writing were take from Adrian Vickers’, Bali: Paradise Created

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Find Bliss in Bali

A holiday on Bali will take your breath away and stimulate all your senses — even some you didn’t know about. Invigorating and calming at the same time you will not want to leave this mystical island. Here’s what I loved about being here.

Top Ten Things to do in Bali and Lombok

1. Replenish your soul at Uluwatu resort at the south western tip of Bukit Peninsula - you will be lulled to sleep at night by the same waves that rock Dreamland - you will never rest more deeply. This sacred spot is an enchanting jewel - the bungalows cling to a cliff
with breathtaking views of the Indian Ocean. For lovers, surfers, poets, and solo explorers.

2. Take a surf lesson on Kuta Beach. Even if you don’t stand up - feeling the wave under you is divine. Don’t miss it.

3. Flex you flirt muscles on Gili Trawangan - this friendly island is filled with locals and foreigners who look you in the eye and laugh with you - white sugar beaches seduce you to stay longer - and the peace is hard to beat. No motorcycles, cars, or engines of any kind. Nirvana.

4. Scuba diving - get certified - get wet - get down under and do it! Swim with a big turtle and you will know bliss. On Gili Trawangan go to Manta Dive - they are wonderfully professional and authentically personable. The staff and owners want you to have fun and see the world beneathe us. It’s gorgeous!


5. See a Barong - every 15 days in Padang Bai there is a celebration and ceremony - the whole town comes out for the festival. Dress in traditional Balinese style - bring your lace jacket, sash, and sarong and you’re in the temple being blessed with holy water. And bring an offering - it could be a frangipani, fruit, or rice krispies just bring something. It’s way better than church.

6. Go to Ubud and see the local dances and art galleries. The clothing stores and jewelry are one of a kind too. Tour the rice terraces outside of town to be in a verdant, lush, green, landscape. Visit the Jazz Cafe at night for live music and to meet fascinating locals and foreigners.

7. Swim in stone pools fed by pure mountain water at the Water Palace 20 minutes outside of Padang Bai. Intricate statues, ornate fountains, and peace await you.

8. Ask locals about their favorite temples, you will get invited to a cremation or a wedding. Trust me.

9. Ride a motorcyle around the island - don’t be a Balinese family and go three to a bike - you’ll be fined. Drive on the left side! It’s energizing and you see more of the island.

10. Shopping and eating in Seminyak. Lily Jean was my favorite store - Made de Coney, a lovely woman from Brazil makes these sexy, zesty, and stylish clothes that enhance your body and make you happy - beautiful fabrics that move with you and designs that place her at the zenith of the fashion world. Buy a new suitcase for your treasures. Then eat at the Santa Fe Grill. Or find your own gem - there are many!

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Buried in the Fire

Ngaben is always translated into “cremation ceremony” in English, but unfortunately not all cremation ceremonies in Bali can be categorized as ngaben. There are two types of cremation ceremonies in Bali, Ngaben and Mekingsan ring Geni (buried or left in the fire) with the main differences lie on the offerings and paraphernalias which are used and the function of the ceremony.


A Ngaben ceremony can be done in a modest to extravagant way, a modest ngaben needs a few basic offerings and preparations; while the extravagant ngaben will involve massive offerings, cremation tower, cow sarcophagi (befitting the caste of the deceased), gamelan orchestra and hundreds of manpower; while Mekingsan ring Geni (buried in the fire) is always a simple affair regardless the caste of the deceased, with only a few offerings, few manpower and little preparations.


A ngaben ceremony functions as final send off of the deceased body (not the soul), in this ceremony the body of the deceased is returned to five basic elements of nature (panca mahabhuta, which are pertiwi = earth, apah = water, teja = light or fire, bayu = wind, akasa = ether, space, void). In Balinese cosmology, the human body is a representation of the universe, and built with same elements as universe, in ngaben ceremony all these elements is returned to their respective source. A Mekingsan ring Geni ceremony is not a final send off; it functions to buy time until the proper Ngaben ceremony can be held for the deceased.



In the old days, the most common way to buy time is by burying the body of the deceased in the cemetery and unearthing it when the time for ngaben ceremony is come. But a problem arose in relation with this practice in 1963. The great centennial purification of the world ceremony (Eka Dasa Rudra) was held in 1963 (end up with eruption of Mount Agung and considered as a failure, re-enacted successfully in 1979). During the official preparations and execution of this grand ceremony (around 3 months), all cemeteries in Bali had to be emptied and no cremation ceremony was allowed.



All the buried corpses were unearthed and given ngaben ceremonies before the official preparations of ceremony were started. “But if there is someone who dies during the preparations and execution of ceremony, what can we do?” This was a serious question since the burial and ngaben could not be done during the preparations and execution of the ceremony and the corpse could not left to rot in the house compound, a way out had to be found. The high priests of Bali held a meeting and the problem was solved with mekingsan ring geni (since it is forbidden to bury a corpse in the ground and to hold ngaben during the ceremony, then let the corpse be buried in the fire).

Though the practice of “mekingsan ring geni” is “invented” to cope with the delicate situation in the past many Balinese nowadays continue to bury their deceased family member in the fire in order to avoid unearthing the remnants of the deceased in the future.

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Nature of Bali

Bali is a part of Indonesian archipelago; lying 3.2 km east of Java and 24 west of Lombok, compare with some of the Indonesian archipelago’s giant islands, Bali is quite small with an area of 5,632 square kilometers The island is approximately 135 km wide east to west and 90 km north to south. The highest point is Mount Agung at 3,142 m (10,308 feet) and the lowest is the beaches all over the island (sea level, 0 m). Located approximately 8 degrees south of the equator, Bali has warm tropical climate with plenty of rain and agreeable dry season.



Bali is noted for the beauty and variety of the landscapes from coastal lowland to the exhilarating high mountain lakes, barren limestone plateaus to thick monsoon forests. A west-to-east volcanic chain divides the island in half. Bali’s mountains covered in tall rainforest stand in contrast to the wild and rugged beauty of volcanic craters, some of which are still active. Crater lakes are found at Batur in the east and Bratan, Buyan and Tamblingan in the rich submontane rainforest area around Bedugul. Fast flowing rivers, deep ravines, rugged saddles, and alluvial slopes score the surface of the island.


The south-central plain of Bali is intensively cultivated. Terraced rice fields dominate the landscape. As you leave the heavily cultivated southern plains ascend to the north, the landscapes change from cascades of rice fields to gardens of vegetables, onion and coffee plantations thriving in cooler climate. The mountainous highlands of Bali are field with streams, rainforests which house prehistoric tree-ferns, wildflowers, creepers, orchids, leeches, butterflies, birds and monkeys, while tall pines and cypress grow high above the mountain villages of Kintamani, Penelokan and Bedugul. Far in western part of Bali, an unspoiled, under-populated marine and forest wilderness are converted into West Bali National Park.

Far in the north, there is a sharp drop from mountain to narrow strip of fertile coastal plain around Singaraja. The lowland coastal fringe of the north is narrow and the absence of rivers makes the land dry and less suitable for rice cultivation. Clusters of palm trees, and tall grasses dominate the north Bali’s landscape give distinctly savannah appearance.

Bali has 460 km coastline but only about eight percent of the beaches consist of white sand, and they are found mostly in the resorts of Sanur, Nusa Dua, Kuta, Uluwatu, and Tanjung. The rest of the beaches feature gray-black sand. the coast from Sanur to Benoa Bay is long and sheltered, lined with 1,400 hectares of natural mangrove forest and mudflats.

Bali six volcanic peaks, all exceeding 2,000 meters trap rain clouds that swell the rivers rushing down from the highlands through deep narrow gorges overgrown with lush tropical vegetation to the astonishingly rich coastal plain of south. The pie-shaped realms of south Bali are always aligned north to south along the ravines rather than east to west. Because of this difficult topography most of highways carry traffic north and south.

The climate and topography of Bali’s fringes and offshore island differ drastically from the lush lowland plains. The far eastern peninsula of Bali, in the areas of Seraya, Amed and Ujung, are arid and hot with difficult land to cultivate. The plateau of Bukit on south peninsula of Bali is hot and dry with scarce of water and bushy thickets. The western and southern shores of this barren plateau are lined with rugged limestone cliffs and deep caves.

The island of Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan which are separated from the mainland by a deep strait are as hot and dry as Bukit. The topography of these islands are combination of poor rocky soil, limestone hills, scrubby vegetations, and open grassland, but they are blessed with spectacular reef and clear water which are excellent for diving

Bali lies over two major tectonic plates, the rigid Sunda plate to the north and Indo-Australian plate to the south. These two plates grid over one another producing frequent geologic instability; put Bali under constant threat of earthquake.

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Balinese Culture, Reading The Message From Nature

Balinese culture is always interacting with the surrounding environment. Their way of thinking, in order to fulfill the necessities ofthe physical and spiritual aspects of life, is based on the integration of intuitive intellect with the potential in their immediate environment. For example, if we look at their architecture, the habitat of the population living in the mountain ranges of Kintamani will not be the same as the houses of the Balinese living in the flatlands of Gianyar, or the coastal area of Kuta, even if the climate and weather is not drastically different.

Sirap (shingle) of bamboo is more often used as material for the roofs of buildings in the mountainous areas of Kintamani because, aside from the fact that it functions as a shield from the cold air, there are many bamboo bushes to be found around Kintamani. On the other hand, in lowland and coastal areas, people choose alang-alang (dry grasses) for their roofing, because this is the easiest material to be found in their surrounding environment.


It is not only in architecture that variations can be observed within Balinese culture. The people living in the different regions of this island have characteristics of their own in carrying out their daily lives. Their manner of speech, language, dialect, and attitudes in communication, very cleany shows their place of origin. It is also in their conduct of religion and art that local characteristics, which vary from region to region in Bali, are very cleany observable as well.

Desa-kala-patra, or place-time-situation, is a three fold concept which function as the basis upon which diversity in the conduct of the people of Bali exists in carrying out daily life. However, even if their culture differs from area to area, the goal is always the same, homage. As stated in a verse in a work of classical literature: ‘bhineka tunggal ika tan hana dharma mangruwa‘, which can be explained as ‘different but one, there is not two, but one truth’. The people find justification in the existence of diversity, directed towards one ultimate goal. For the Balinese homage, based on sincerity, is the realization of truth, or dharma, and it is here that Hinduism provides its followers with a path to cultivate their karma.

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Bamboo in Bali

Bamboo is a tree-sized grass that is the fastest growing plant on earth. Some species have a growth rate of up to 1-metre a month and can be harvested every 3 to 5 years. Although bamboo is native to Asia, it grows on every continent and is abundant throughout Indonesia and especially on the island of Bali.


Bamboo is often referred to as a source of life for the Balinese as every part of this renewable natural resource is utilized for ritual Hindu existence. The sheer strength of bamboo is amazing and it is perhaps the most versatile material within the local community. While bamboo is an ecologically friendly substitute for timber in building and furniture, it also conserves the environment by re-enforcing precious topsoil along riverbanks and deforested areas.

Balinese architecture takes full advantage of bamboo and it is used to create traditional structures with lightweight support beams, rafters and durable roof and floor tiles. Bamboo also makes inexpensive scaffolding for construction, a sturdy ladder, irrigation piping as well as strips for binding.

Balinese live by a strict set of guidelines that is determined by a devotion that seeks a harmonious balance between mankind, the environment and God Almighty. Therefore, offerings are constantly made to appease the Gods as well as the spirits of the underworld. Ceremonies and temple celebrations take place daily around the island and bamboo is an essential resource for the Hindu religion. Bamboo strips are woven into baskets, temporary shrines and carved into sticks for sate, while full lengths are used as decorative poles called penjors that are symbolic of the sacred mountain Gunung Agung. A razor sharp piece of green bamboo is used in the ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals that are required for particular ceremonial offerings.



Thin lengths of bamboo are used to craft flutes that produce the soothing background music favoured by many Balinese spas and hotel lobbies. Larger pieces of bamboo also make the xylophone keys and resonators of the traditional instruments played by villagers around the island. Different lengths of bamboo can be assembled into wind chimes and toys which tinkle lightly when caressed by a soft breeze. This multipurpose overgrown grass can also be styled into furniture, handicrafts, paper and matting.

Young bamboo shoots make a tasty and nutritional food source and the leaves of this flourishing plant is an alternative feed supplement for animals. The Chinese have always used bamboo as an ingredient in traditional medicine due to its healing properties. The root from a species of black bamboo is believed to treat kidney disease, while a powdered form of bamboo secretion can assist asthma and respiratory ailments.


There was a time when bamboo was once called ‘poor man’s timber’. However, the significance of bamboo was exposed to a world audience in 1995 when Bali hosted the 4th International Bamboo Congress. This event successfully brought together a unique group of environmentalists, scientists, architects, musicians, designers and business representative to discuss bamboo and its many uses. Bamboo has been used by the Balinese for centuries and if nurtured properly there is no doubt that it will continue to serve the island and its people well into the future.

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