Day 48-49 - Bali Indonesia

Weather
Mid 80's, Cloudy 1st day, Rainy the next

Map

About
Bali is an Indonesian island and province and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller offshore islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan to the southeast.

What we did
Our 1st day in Bali had us taking a tour of the Puri Lukisan art museum in Ubud. It is the oldest art museum in Bali which specializes in modern traditional Balinese paintings and wood carvings. After a tour we then proceeded to the Ubud Palace, which was built in traditional Balinese style during the reign of Tjokorda Putu Kandel (1800–1823). We then had a little time to shop in the market in town before hopping back on our motor coach to head to the Mupu Rice Terrace. There we were treated to coffee and local snacks before walking down into the rice terraces to take them in and take pictures. It is amazing to see how they use dams and targeted drainage to water the different tiers. Tom bought some of the world's most expensive coffee called Luwak coffee. The Asian palm civet (sort of a cat like animal) eats the coffee berries and then those "digested berries" are used to make coffee.

That evening, Viking put on a special dinner on the pool deck for us featuring a sit down Balinese dinner and after a dance performance. Viking is truly pulling out all stops to make this voyage over the top special.

On our 2nd day we took a tour that took us to the Barong Dance Uma Dewi where we watched a production of Barong & Kris dance at Uma Dewi . The performance was outside and had colorful masks, live music using gamelan (traditional Balinese musical instruments, mostly percussion and xylophone like). The story was about the timeless battle of Barong vs. Rangda (good versus evil). The point of the story is that both have to exist. This was an entertaining stop and very educational about Bali culture. After this we drove to the Bali Museum. The heavens opened up by this time and the ponchos were broken out. We took in 3 different buildings of historical treasures. Once we were done there, we proceeded to the Pura Maospahit temple. This was a very wet affair and we were only there for 15 minutes before retreating to our coach to head back to the ship.

The drives to and from the ship showed us local businesses that specialized in stone and wood carvings. The main roads were lined with shops but if you looked at Google maps you could see 1 block off the main strip there were rice fields that the locals nurtured. They don't live an easy life but everyone was truly friendly.