Bali - The Arts & Crafts of Tourism

Continuing with the previous post on Bali.

Apart from its natural beauty & resources, Bali is also home to some stunning handicrafts. Beautiful stonework, woodwork, silver-work, paintings was found across the island. And to ensure that tourists carry back the memories and word-of-mouth publicity photography was allowed everywhere. Even inside the workshops of the artisans. Something which Indian Tourism Industry needs to seriously look into. Prohibiting photography doesn't help tourist growth. Anyways I digressed. Here is a pictorial collection of some of the beautiful Balinese work.

Stone Statues were a common sight on the roadside

The mask of the Gods

The intricately carved dressing table

Made from a single piece of wood

Work in progress

Balinese beauty captured in stone

Ram & Sita carved in wood

Divine Love

So this was it - a pictorial trip to Bali

Bali - The Land of Green & Blue

Been itching to write this pictorial blog for a long time. Finally getting into the groove to do it. Earlier this year had gone on my first ever foreign trip. And it couldn't have been to a more beauteous location. Mere words won't be able to convey the beauty of the place. So thought about doing a picture blog series on the Bali trip.

Some trivia to begin with

• The island of Bali has a population which is 95% Hindu. Means that Indian tourists are quite welcome here.
• The Indonesian currency is heavily undervalued. The minimum currency note is of 1000 rupiah denomination (1USD~9000 rupaiah). And lots of headache occurs in trying to figure out the number of zeroes during the conversion process.
• If you are travelling from Mumbai, you will be treated like royalty. Reason - you are coming from the city of Shahrukh Khan. Yes, Balinese are crazy about Bollywood films with Shahrukh being the favorite actor by a huge margin. Hrithik Roshan also comes up high in the popularity stakes.
• Chhaiya Chhaiya is the most popular Hindi song in Bali. One of the hotel drivers sang it for us on learning we that we had come from India. Also managed to catch on the local TV a live performance what seemed to be a remix version (called Cinta Cinta)
• Cuisine is mostly non-vegetarian. But people go out of the way to prepare vegetarian food.

Enough trivia for now. Now for the pictures. It was a pretty difficult choice to make. But have tried to pick the few most representative of the land.



Denpasar  Airport - View form inside the plane



Denpasar, the capital of Bali, is the airport with the runway jutting into the sea. The first feeling one gets is that we are going to land into the sea.



The traditional prayer offering



The ubiquitous prayer offering which was found in front of all homes, shops etc. Changed every morning.



The Kris & Barong dance depicting stories based on Mahabharat characters




Kintamani Volcano



Had a magnificent buffet lunch with this view. Kintamani is an active volcano. The smoke could be seen rising from the crater. The black lava flows with a volcano lake alongside, the misty weather all together made for a perfect scene of bliss.



Luwak 



Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world cant be made without key contribution from the animal in the picture above.





Lady roasting coffee beans







A house in the plantation





Now for the blue part




Discovery mall - The only airconditioned mall in Bali opens directly to the sea




A marble statue depicting the Mahabharat war



The place was full of signs, symbols from the Indian epics.



Balinese House

 All Balinese houses have to follow the traditional building design norms



Massive Roots - people can get lost in them



4 days of bliss. More pictures maybe coming.

But it wasn't just the place which made the trip memorable. It was the people and their amazing hospitality. 

Couldn't have seen and enjoyed so much without the excellent planning done by the tour agency. Pickups, drops, guide, hotel booking, ticket bookings all done in a very efficient manner. 

Bali - the island of Gods as the locals say. It certainly is.