Bye Bye Bali

We are at the airport in Bali, from where we will be heading to Vietnam!

We had three days here, and we wish we had more time. The island is beautiful. It's covered in terraced rice fields, thick jungle, and Hindu temples carved out of weathered stone. The island is much more developed and touristy than we expected. Some of the beaches seem to be the Australian equivalent of Cancun. We fortunately stayed just north of the Spring Break crazyness, where the beach was much less populated and it was easy to get beach chairs.

We took a couple of trips to the interior of the island, where we saw several temples. One was built on top of natural hot springs, which fed a series of beautiful pools in the temple. We also went to Tanah Lot, which is a temple right on the ocean that is actually inaccessible at high tide, as you have to cross a tide pool area to reach the base of the temple at low tide.

We also enjoyed a performance of traditional Balinese dancing. Everyone wore costumes made of beautiful silk sarongs. The dancing was unlike anything we've ever seen. It's a series of repetitive jerky, almost robotic, movements. Even the dancer's eye movements were choreographed. There was also a god that was depicted by two dancers in a costume that resembled a Chinese dragon. One dancer moved the head and front of the body, and the other dancer moved the back end and tail. I enjoyed watching the orchestra during the performance. They had a number of marimba-type instruments, some of which were played with mallets, and others by hammers. The beat was set by two bongo drums, and the melody was carried by a string instrument and a flute.

We are really looking forward to our upcoming week in Vietnam!