Biking East Bali

We spent our third day of biking coasting a very long way down to the ocean on the side of the highway. At the bottom was a tourist area called Lovina (that Natalia hated with a passion – too touristy and full of traffic) and at the very edge of it was a beautiful guesthouse secluded from the noisy town. The pool looked over the open water and a beautiful sunset filled the sky as the sun disappeared over the horizon. Dinner was family style, with the few other guests and the family that owns the hotel sitting around a long table weighed down by food. The owner explained to us that he spent years looking for a place where he could build a guesthouse, a place where people could come and get away from everything out in the world. He wanted it to be a place with no rules. He described it as somewhere where there was “no teaching, just sharing – mostly with love.”

That was the day we reasoned with ourselves that there must be some way to stay two nights in one place. The guesthouses and lodges we were staying at were too beautiful to simply arrive in the evening and leave the next morning. Most of them only had a few rooms and not many guests since it was off-season. We rearranged things to stay two nights at Minabali Bunga ‘lo to relax from the long hours of biking we had done. We basked in the air conditioning and ate bowlfuls of homemade ice-cream (we tried almost all of the flavors – chocolate, dragon fruit, coconut, etc…).

Day 7 of our bike trip we stopped at two different palaces. One was a water palace (Tirtagangga), with beautiful fountains and bridges and stepping-stones over the water. Massive goldfish swam around you as you walked on the small platforms above the water. Statues of four armed people with crowns and masks adorned the far end of the palace. We went on to see another palace (Puri Agung in Amlapura) that was inhabited by the King of Karangasem (one of nine kingdoms in Bali) and his family before he died in the late 60’s. The king was allied with the Dutch who were brutal in colonizing what ultimately became Indonesia. The palace mixed Balinese and Dutch architecture, but was not refurbished in any way, and we were the only tourists there. There were family portraits on the walls and old Balinese instruments stacked in rooms of the main house.

We got to watch Balinese people praying and doing offerings in a traditional temple. We were given sarongs (cloth rapped around your waist like a skirt) and sashes to wear into the temple – a symbol of respect. Everyone was wearing beautiful white outfits, and brought baskets full of offerings. We also took a day trip to a traditional village called Tenganan. A man told us about what ingredients were used to make different colors of the fabrics he sold – turmeric for yellow, indigo for blue, mengkudu for red, macadamia nuts for black, the leaves of plants for green. We met a writer in his 80’s who showed us the wooden scrolls that he engraves with text (there was an article up on his wall that said he was the last person in Bali writing in this style).  

We also visited a local market early one morning. 

On our way back to Ubud we went through Sideman, a rural, rice-growing area high up in the hills.  We spent a lot of time on small (and very steep) roads.

On our last night in Bali we went to a Legong dance performance in Ubud.   

-Natalia