Indonesia - Bali II

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Lovina y Kintamani

Lovina esta en el norte de Bali. Al contrario de Legian, Seminyak y Kuta, donde hay miles de turistas y hay mucha fiesta, Lovina es muy tranquilo, hay poca gente, y la vegetación es totalmente tropical. Esto es como imaginábamos Bali.

Dejamos la carretera y nos metimos en una angosta calle de tierra que nos llevo casi hasta la playa, pero nos metimos a una calle mas angosta que nos llevo hasta la puerta del hotel.

Por la arquitectura de las construcciones de alrededor, uno podría pensar que todos son templos, pero muchas son casas particulares, otros hoteles y restaurantes.

Llegamos por la tarde y en el hotel no había mas de seis personas, además de nosotros. Nos acostamos un rato, escondiéndonos de la humedad y el calor con el aire acondicionado del cuarto, pero la imagen de la alberca que vi cuando llegamos no me dejaba relajarme. Así que decidimos ir a nadar, o por lo menos meternos a la alberca.

El agua de la alberca tenia la temperatura perfecta, suficientemente fría para refrescar pero no exagerado para que nos diera frío. Estuvimos dentro del alberca por un par de horas, relajándonos y disfrutando del momento.

Por la noche, después de un buen regaderazo, nos fuimos a cenar. La comida nos ha sorprendido, es muy buena y los vegetales y las frutas muy frescas; hasta el momento estamos muy satisfechos.

Por la mañana, después de desayunar, hicimos algunos pendientes y planeación del viaje en un ciber café y mas tarde caminamos a la playa.

Otra vez, nos quedamos un poco decepcionados por la playa. La arena era medio gris, medio café obscuro y había muchas piedras, el agua no era muy clara, y había algo de basura. En fin decidimos tirarnos un rato en la playa; había muy poca gente y solo uno que otro vendedor de fruta y collares interrumpió nuestra paz.

Como una hora mas tarde, ya estaba haciendo mucho calor y hambre, así que decidimos movernos a un restaurante en la playa donde nos sentamos a comer un excelente almuerzo mientras veíamos el Mar de Bali.

Por la tarde pasamos otras varias horas tirados fuera o dentro de la alberca, ni siquiera las amenazantes nubes y truenos hicieron que nos moviéramos. Llegaron mas huéspedes, pero la tranquilidad siguió predominando el ambiente.

Terminamos nuestro ajetreado día en un restaurante de comida tailandesa muy rico.

A la cinco de la mañana fueron a despertarnos para ir a ver los delfines y el amanecer. Caminamos hasta la playa donde ya nos estaban esperando para abordar una pequeña lacha donde solo cabíamos cuatro y el que manejaba. Iban con nosotros dos holandeses y salimos en busca de delfines.

Los primeros delfines aparecieron, y lo mas rápido posible, nos tomamos la dirección en la que iban. Lo seguimos por un rato y podíamos verlos nadar frente a nuestra lancha o brincando por un lado hasta que llegaban otras veinte lanchas que terminaban por espantar a los delfines y estos se sumergían.

Aparentemente, este matutino evento es muy conocido, porque junto con nuestra lancha había otras cincuenta, mínimo, que iban en busca de delfines.

Así pasamos un par de horas, esperando que los delfines salieran a la superficie para perseguirlos y verlos por unos segundos antes de que se espantaran y volvieran a sumergirse. Después de un rato, se volvió un poco frustrante y triste porque los pobres delfines no saben para donde ir con tantas lanchas que los persiguen por donde salen. Al final, nadie puede disfrutar de los animales y los animales no pueden disfrutar de una mañana tranquila. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTgy79Fqpc).

El amanecer, aunque con un poco de neblina al principio y algunas nubes, fue muy bonito.

Regresamos al hotel, nos duchamos, desayunamos, y emprendimos el recorrido hacia Ubud. En el camino, paramos en Kintamani, un pequeño poblado, para ver nuestro primer templo Hindú en Asia (Pura Ulun Danu) y para ver el volcán Gunung Batur, y ya casi para llegar a Ubud, en el templo de Goa Gajah.

Indonesia es el país con mas musulmanes en el mundo, pero en Bali, se practica mas el Hinduismo. En los pocos días que hemos estado aquí, hemos podido observar que la gente es muy devota, por lo que hay muchos templos, altares y todos las mañanas ponen ofrendas afuera de sus casas o lugares de trabajo.

El templo de Pura Ulun Danu fue construido en 1926 y es el segundo complejo mas importante en Bali. Para poder entrar, tuvimos que cubrirnos las piernas (los dos traíamos shorts) con una especie de tunica que nos enrollaron de la cintura, básicamente como una falda. También necesitamos de un guía, esta hablaba muy poco ingles y no entendimos mucho, pero caminamos por las diferentes plazas que conforman el tempo y pudimos ver gente orando y preparando ofrendas.

Por las celebraciones que pasaron hace unos días en Bali, los dioses estaban decorados con túnicas cubriéndoles el cuerpo y en algunos casos la parte de arriba de la cabeza. También por esta razón, hay mas gente de lo normal preparando ofrendas.

Salimos del templo, nos quitamos las túnicas y nos subimos en Jaime para seguir nuestro camino, no por mucho tiempo, ya que unos quince minutos mas adelante nos encontramos con el volcán, Gunung Batur.

Paramos en un restaurante, que desde fuera aparentaba ser muy turístico (había varios camiones estacionados), pero era un buen lugar para admirar el volcán y el lago, que esta en el fondo del valle.

La comida fue la peor que hemos comido en años, no solo en Bali, y además fue carísima. Un bufete, del cual probé todo y no pude comer mas que arroz. Fue tan mala que ya cuando nos íbamos, fui a buscar al gerente para decirle que era la peor comida de nuestra vida. El nombre del restaurante es Gong Dewata; se los paso por si alguien anda en esa zona algún día, se asegure de no comer ahí.

Eso si, la vista desde el balcón del restaurante es muy bonita y aunque había muchas nubes, pudimos disfrutar de la vista del valle donde descansan el volcán, con su forma cónica, y el lago.

Seguimos nuestro camino hacia Ubud, pero unos kilómetros antes, nos encontramos con el templo de Goa Gajah. Este templo esta dedicado a Ganesh, que es el dios que remueve los obstáculos. Goa Gajah significa “cueva de elefantes” y es que la parte principal del templo, donde esta Ganesh, es una cueva que por la parte de afuera tiene esculpido un elefante.

Frente a la cueva, hay una como alberca que se usaba para limpiarse y purificarse antes de entrar al templo, y muchos jardines muy verdes con algunos pasillos que llevan a otros pequeños altares.

Llegamos a Ubud a media tarde. Había bastante trafico, pero pudimos encontrar la calle principal y sobre esta pudimos encontrar una calle, que la Flaca traía apuntada, donde había varias casas de huéspedes.

Nos fuimos parando en cada una de las casas de huéspedes para ver cual tenia habitaciones disponibles hasta que encontramos una que no tenia cuartos ahí mismo, pero tenia unos bungalows disponibles al final de la calle.

El tipo se subió a la moto y nosotros lo seguimos atrás en el Jaime. Se estaciono y nos estacionamos, y seguimos a pie hasta que llegamos a un inmenso terreno lleno de campos de arroz y ahí estaban los bungalows. Era un lugar que increíble. Nuestra habitación era el segundo piso y desde el balcón donde nos iban a servir el desayuno, podíamos ver los campos de arroz y las palmeras. Todo esto por menos de 20 dólares por la noche.

Lovina and Kintamani

Lovina is in the north of Bali. In contrast to Legian, Seminyak and Kuta, where there are thousands of tourists and lots of partying, Lovina is tranquil, there are few people, and the vegetation is totally tropical. This is what we had imagined Bali to be.

We left the highway and went down a narrow dirt road that took us to the beach, but we went down an even narrower road that took us to the gate of the hotel.

By the architecture of the buildings around, one might think that all of these are temples, but many are houses, others hotels and restaurants.

We arrived in the afternoon and there weren’t more than six other people in the hotel, apart from us. We went to sleep for a bit, hiding from the humidity and the heat with the air conditioner inside the room, but the image of the pool that I saw when we arrived didn’t let me relax. So, we decided to go for a swim, or at least get in the pool.

The water in the pool had the perfect temperature, cold enough to refresh but not so much that it made us cold. We were in the pool for a couple of hours, relaxing and enjoying the moment.

In the evening, after a good shower, we went for dinner. The food has surprised us, it’s very good and the vegetables and fruit are very fresh; thus far we have been very satisfied.

In the morning, after breakfast, we took care of some things and trip planning in a cyber café and later walked to the beach.

Again, the beach disappointed us a little. The sand was half grey, half dark brown and there were many rocks, the water was foggy, and there was some garbage. Even so we decided to lie for a while on the beach; there were few people and only one or two vendors selling fruit and necklaces interrupted our peace.

About an hour later, it was very hot and we were hungry, so we decided to move to a restaurant on the beach where we sat down to eat an excellent lunch while we looked at the Sea of Bali.

In the afternoon we spent a few hours lying by or in the pool, not even the threatening clouds or thunder made us move. Some other guests arrived, but a sense of calm continued to dominate the atmosphere.

We finished our active day in a very nice Thai restaurant.

At five in the morning they came to wake us up to take us to see the dolphins and the sunrise. We walked toward the beach where they were waiting for us to board a small boat where only four of us fit in addition to the driver. We went out in search of dolphins with two Dutch guys.

The first dolphins appeared, and as fast as possible, we went in the direction they were headed. We followed them for a bit and were able to see them swimming in front of our boat or jumping alongside it until another twenty other boats arrived that ended up scaring the dolphins and they submerged themselves.

Apparently, this morning event is very well known, because with our boat were another fifty, at least, that were searching for dolphins.

This is how we spent the next couple hours, waiting for the dolphins to come above the surface to follow them and see them for a few seconds before they got scared and went back under water. After a while, it became a little frustrating and sad because the poor dolphins don’t know where to go with so many boats following them wherever they come out of the water. In the end, no one can enjoy these animals and the animals cannot enjoy a tranquil morning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTgy79Fqpc).

The sunrise, although there was a little fog in the beginning and some clouds, was very beautiful.

We returned to the hotel, showered, ate breakfast, and began our journey toward Ubud. On the way, we stopped in Kintamani, a small village, to see our first Hindu temple in Asia (Pura Ulun Danu) and to see the Gunung Batar volcano, and then just outside Ubud, in the Goa Gajah temple.

Indonesia is the country with more Muslims in the world, but in Bali, Hinduism is practiced more. In the few days that we have been here, we’ve been able to observe that the people here are very devoted, because there are many temples, altars, and every morning they place offerings outside their homes and places of work.

The Pura Ulun Danu temple was built in 1926 and is the second most important temple complex in Bali. To enter, we had to cover our legs (the two of us were wearing shorts) with a sarong that they wrapped around our waist, basically like a skirt. We also needed a guide, who spoke very little English and we didn’t understand much, but we walked through the different plazas that form the temple and we were able to see people praying and preparing offerings.

Due to the festivities that had gone on the last few days in Bali, the gods are decorated with sarongs covering their bodies and in some cases the top of their heads. Also for this reason, there are more people than normal preparing offerings.

We left the temple, took off our sarongs and got back inside Jaime to continue on our journey, but not for long, since about five minutes later we found the volcano, Gunung Batur.

We stopped in a restaurant, that from the outside seemed very touristy (there were several buses parked), but it was a good place to admire the volcano and the lake, which is at the other end of the valley.

The food was the worst that we had eaten in years, not only in Bali, and it was also very expensive. There was a buffet, of which I tried everything and I couldn’t eat anything except the rice. It was so bad that when we were ready to leave, I went to find the manager to tell him that it was the worst meal of our lives. The name of the restaurant is Gong Dewata; I pass the name on in case someone is in this area someday, be sure not to eat there.

That aside, the view from the balcony of the restaurant is very pretty and although there were many clouds, we were able to enjoy the view of the valley where the volcano, with its cone shape, and the lake rest.

We continued on our way toward Ubud, but a few miles before, we found the Goa Gajah temple. This temple is dedicated to Ganesh, the god who removes obstacles. Goa Gajah translates to “cave of elephants” and the principle part of the temple, where Ganesh is located, is a cave that from the outside is carved like an elephant.

In front of the cave, there is a small pool that was used to clean and purify oneself before entering the temple, and many very green gardens with pathways that take you to other small altars.

We arrived to Ubud at midday. There was quite a bit of traffic, but we were able to find the main road and on this were able to find a street, which la Flaca had noted, where there were various guesthouses.

We stopped in each one of the guesthouses to see which had a room available until we found one that didn’t have any rooms right there, but had some bungalows available down the road.

The guy got on his motorbike and we followed behind him in Jaime. He parked and we parked, and we continued on foot until we arrived to an immense area full of rice fields and there were the bungalows. It was an incredible place. Our room was on the second floor and from the balcony where they were going to serve our breakfast, we could see the rice fields and palm trees. All of this was less than 20 dollars a night.