Imagine a spherical cow, calmly chewing its cud and facing to the left. This spherical cow has only one udder, and only one teat on that udder. Now imagine you are a tiny ant moving from the muzzle to the teat of our spherical cow, and you will have a general idea of how big the island of Bali really is. We were coming from the west, entering from the muzzle, and the big town of Denpasar is on the southeast (the udder), and within this town is the tourist paradise (the teat). In other words, there is much more to Bali than just the beach.
Right as you come into Port Gilimanuk you get confronted by a gigantic statue of Shiva, blue with rage and ready to lop off your head with the parang he holds in his hands. He is looking with uncontrolled anger to the back of another gigantic statue, this time of a white Buddha, which looks benevolently over the island and happily ignores angry Shiva. Fortunately Shiva is held back by Brahma and Vishnu, and Hindus and Buddhists can live happily together on this most beautiful island. Today was a great day to come because it is the day of one of the big celebrations of Hinduism, and every temple (and there are temples every hundred meters) is decked in golden draperies, and entire families are dressed in their finest sarongs to attend the services. In contrast with the Muslim sarong, which is sober and of sark color, the Balinese favor bright yellow for the men, and electric magenta for the women (plus other bright colors), so I feel we are being received like royalty.
Once again I have to thank BMKG for asking the Chief of Station at Gilimanuk to come pick us up at the port, and to forgo his holiday by driving us for close to 5 hours to reach Denpasar. Driving is a bit more relaxed than in other parts of Indonesia, and of course the island is beautiful with sights of the Sunda Strait to the south (big waves, so if you are a surfer you will have to bring your board), happy rice paddies in the center, and of course all sorts of interesting volcanoes along the backbone of the cow. As I said before, you find Hindu temples all across the land, which must participate in an annual contest to see who can come up with the most hideous demons to guard their doors. I am sure Balinese children wet their beds until young adulthood, chased by nightmares of Hindu demons hiding under their beds.
Eventually we made it to Denpasar, just in time for passing "The Professor" from one set of BMKG hands to another set of BMKG hands. The Denpasar Regional Center is located in the teat part of the spherical cow, so on the way in we had a good chance to see the tourist part of town, which is very pretty indeed. By the time the transfer was completed it was too late to attempt any further adventures (plus these folks need to get back to their families), so Irvan and I retired to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and went out to explore the east side on foot. Later that evening we went to the Night Market to look at shops and have a tasty dinner.
Tomorrow we will go explore some of the lakes in the highlands.
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