A Day Full of Variety on Bali: Part 4 - Traditional House Compound and Temple

When our flight from Brisbane landed in Denpasar, Bali, three days ago and we drove up a main street to our hotel in Ubud, I wondered about the profusion of stone-cutter shops with elaborate sculptures of Hindu deities out front. How could so many statues possibly be used? On today's visit (August 23, for those wanting to keep track), as well as on our previous wanderings on the streets near our hotel, it became clear. Temples and shrines, public and domestic, were everywhere (often commingled with rice fields) and were adorned with elaborate stone carvings of impressive quality. This was exemplified in a traditional house compound we visited, with a family temple within the yard along with the plants and chickens. The compound was within Tumbakasa Village, not far from the large temple of Pura Kahyangan Tiga, enlivened outside its walls by a row of sculpted musicians and along a street lined with multi-story, stork-like structures paying worshipful tribute to the volcano Mount Agung.

A Day Full of Variety on Bali: Part 3 - Rice Terraces

The rice fields of Bali - often sculpted into deep terraces - occupy every bit of available land. They're not as large and monolithic as the wheat fields of the USA, but they serve the same purpose. We spent several hours, after lunch at the cooking school, working off the calories by hiking the paths along the terraces (starting off with sightings of a large heliconia and a small shrine).

A Day Full of Variety on Bali: Part 2 - Cooking Class

After the market, we got on our bus and drove to a cooking school, where we would learn some of the methods of preparing typical Balinese dishes.  The first three photos show our main instructor, who made us realize that key procedures such as dicing and grinding are hard to do correctly. The last two photos are of the lively founder of the school, who in the last panel presented us with the dishes we had made (which would be our lunch), but substituting professional preparations for our crude efforts.

A Day Full of Variety on Bali: Part 1 - Ubud Market

August 23 was full o f variety, most of which was photogenic. Therefore, I'm going to post the results over five days, each focused on a particular activity. First thing in the morning was a visit to Ubud Market.

First Day on Bali

After completing our Papua New Guinea tour, my wife and I flew to Brisbane, Australia for a couple of days and then to Bali to join a Road Scholar tour. We landed in Denpasar on August 21 but immediately drove to Ubud, the center of cultural tourism on this island. Here are a few photos from the first real day of the tour, August 22.

Rice field on the grounds of our hotel, Alaya Resort Ubud.

Our tour leader in Ubud, Ramis.

Couple working in a rice field in Ubud. Rice cultivation is absolutely central to life in Bali.

Elaborate stonework in the Pura Pengulingan Temple.

Stone deity in the holy spring temple of Tirta Empul

Western tourists bathing in the waters of the holy spring temple

We saw lots of big kites flying in the skies above Bali. Here were a few smaller ones on sale.

I love the intricate geometry and curves of the stonework in Balinese temples.

Statues near the entrance of the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud.

A small monkey and a large statue in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

Monkey enjoying dinner in the Sacred Monkey Forest.

After our own dinner, we enjoyed some traditional Balinese dancing by young girls

and by a larger dancer who I think represents the white monkey god Hanuman.