We had resisted traditional dance shows for the entire trip, but we broke down on our last day while watching the tourists watch the sunset at Pura Uluwatu. We went to see a dance show afterwards, which consisted of about forty young men mostly sitting in a circle singing. And by singing, I mean swaying to music and chanting something like "Uga, uga, uga". It sounded more like a football cheer than anything Balinese. At least it wasn't as scary as most Balinese dancing, which consists of heavily made up girls with enormous eyes, shifting their eyeballs back and forth to the rhythm of the music.

The other must-see temple in the area is Pura Uluwatu, one of the directional temples that protect all of Bali. The temple itself is distinctly unimpressive despite its importance. However, its location atop a cliff jutting into the ocea is spectacular. Relatively quiet by day, at sundown the place is swarming with tour buses as every tourist in Bali comes to see the sunset. This is odd, since the sunset can be seen in equal measure all along the west coast, and the beauty of this location doesn't depend on the sunset, so it should be much more popular during the day, and correspondingly less chaotic at sunset. But such is the sway of tour operators that everyone is kept on pretty much the same schedule. And such is the sway of guidebooks that, although we were driving independently, we came at sunset too.

Between golfing, sunbathing and Kuta-ing, there wasn't a whole lot of time left to explore the neighborhood, but we did manage to take in a temple or two. Pura Tanah Lot is probably Bali's most famous temple, and also one of its most sacred. It's built on an island off the coast of Bali, and should be a very dramatic sight. Unfortunately, the currents have moved, and now the island is more like a big rock sitting on the beach, with a temple atop. It does sometimes flood enough to resemble an island once more, but when we were there it was just stranded in dirt. (I've stolen a photo of it as it's meant to be, on an island). And because it's so sacred, you're not allowed in the temple, so all you can really do is look at it from the dirt below.

We went into Kuta a couple of nights, which was fun. During the day it's Bali's biggest beach, and very popular with surfers. It's also very popular with touts, who will try to sell you things incessantly. During the evening it's where all the nightlife in Bali resides. The main strip of bars, souvenir shops and cheap restaurants wouldn't (or shouldn't) rank as a trip highlight for anyone, but as you walk further in either direction the strip gets more interesting. To the north in particular, there are quite a number of good home decor shops. And around the Oberoi hotel, there's a very cool restaurant called La Lucciola (see photo), an outdoor Italian restaurant/bar right on the beach. The food is pretty good, very cool atmosphere and it turns into quite a party at night.

The Amanusa villas were similar to the other two, with the usual marble floor flaw. But overall, I think these rooms were the most nicely designed. I also think I said that about Amankila, but that was influenced by the view there, which is infinitely better than at Amanusa. The bathrooms were the biggest of the three, with a nice outdoor shower area that was very nicely designed. And, for better or worse, you're surrounded by a golf course. Amanusa: Overall:6, (Rooms: 8, Facilities, 7, Service: 5, Wow-0)

Aman resorts really don't belong in a place like Nusa Dua, which is dominated by huge hotels from the international chains. At Amanusa, they try to bridge the gap between their high end, small resorts and the big chain environment of Nusa Dua, but it doesn't really work. It's the largest Aman I've been too, and also the emptiest. In fact, I think we were the only guests. It's got great facilities, especially a well designed pool. But it's on a golf course, which to me screams out suburbia and I don't understand the appeal at all. Of course, Somchai begs to differ, since he lives for golf, and in fact that's what he did every day. There's also a nice beach, but it's a buggy ride away and you can't see it from the villa, which I don't like. And the staff acted like they worked at a big resort. Usually at Aman you get to know all the staff, who are very friendly and personable. Here, they seem to have given up trying to get to know you since it's a larger hotel, but again, we were the only guests so it couldn't be that difficult to remember us. So after three days here, it's a bit disconcerting to be greeted with blank faces as though it's the first time we've met.

86. Nusa Dua

Left the friendly embrace of Amankila for a very long drive to Southwest Bali, into the not so friendly embrace of Amanusa. Amanusa is located in a peninsula that juts off the bottom of Bali, sort of an appendage that grows off the big city of Denpasar and the airport. It's cut off socially as well as geographically, as it's a strictly tourist zone, with all the big chain hotels throwing up posh resorts, and nobody allowed to be here except hotel guests. So it really has nothing to do with Bali, but people probably make too big a deal about that. Most islands in the South Pacific, the Caribbean etc. do the same thing, with tourists confined to the beach resort strips. But Bali does have a lot to offer culturally, and it would be a shame to come here and confine yourself to Nusa Dua. But spending part of your Bali holiday here makes perfect sense, as a great battery charger. It's also very close to Kuta, which is the big party strip, sort of Bali's answer to Thailand. (It's also the part that got blown up by terrorists a few years back, but it's recovered somewhat since.) There are also a few special temples within driving distance from here, some great golf courses if you're into that, but mainly it's just a strip of Hiltons and Four Seasons, so you wouldn't want to waste all your time here.

There's also a special romantic dinner the hotel puts on down at the beach. It's only for one lucky couple, but since we were the only couple, we won the prize! They set up a table at the beach, and have a lavish seafood barbecue meal prepared by your own chef and served by your own waiter. Of course it's dark so you don't really get much benefit from the ocean, but it's still very nice. Then at the end of dinner they make a big thing of saying they're leaving, and we should go skinnydipping in the pool, plus they laid out a special love nest, pictured here, strewn with love petals. I guess the general idea is you're supposed to have sex after dinner, which was awkward on many levels, so we skipped this part of the evening.

Somchai also got a special massage while at Amankila. He opted for some rigorous sports massage, but the hotel doesn't have masseurs on staff. Instead they called in the witch doctor from the local village, who's about one hundred years old and came dressed like Hollywood's version of a witch doctor. He did some massage, but mostly it was chanting and waving things around, which supposedly cured all his ills. Since he didn't have any ills to begin with, it was difficult to gauge the doctor's success.

Most of Klungkung was destroyed during the war with the Dutch, but the gardens and a few buildings from the royal palace survive. The water gardens are quite peaceful, and there are a few buildings from the original 1710 construction with interesting ceiling paintings on them. One of them is covered with nasty torture scenes, and served as the criminal court. The other building was used for the all-important tooth filing ceremony. The Balinese have about 50 life ceremonies that are held for special occassions and require huge village celebrations. This is one of the more important, and takes place sometime between puberty and marriage. The basic idea is the victim gets the points filed off the fanglike teeth whose name I learned once but have long forgotten (incisors?). You know the ones that make us all look a bit werewolfy. Well, the Balinese chop that off, which is supposed to eliminate our animal natures and make us more civilized. So this building is where members of the royal family got their teeth filed, to get back to the main narrative.

We also visited Klungkung, the district capital and royal seat for what used to be a kingdom controlling much of east Bali, i.e. not much. The kingdom was originally based in Gelgel, peaked in the 1400's, and went through the usual decline and civil war. In the 1600's the king decided the decline was due to a curse on the royal palace, so he uprooted and moved the seat of government to Klungkung. That merely saddled the kingdom with a huge construction bill and the decline intensified. When the Dutch invaded Bali in 1906, Klungkung was the last kingdom to fall. I assume that's due to its remoteness, because their battle plan leaves much to be desired. When the Dutch army showed up outside the city, the entire royal family and court, some two hundred people, marched unarmed toward the army until they all died in a hail of bullets.

I can't really remember everything we did during our three days in East Bali, but it was pretty laid back. One of the more interesting excursions was a visit to Tenganan. As you'll remember, Bali has been Hindu seemingly forever, but there was a big influx of Hindus from Java in the 1300's when Java was overrun by Muslim kingdoms. These Javanese Hindus were apparently too cutting edge for the Hindus already living in Bali, so they retreated to remote mountain villages, Tenganan being the most important. Supposedly, one of the Hindu kings lost a horse, and had offered a reward for finding it. These original Balinese found its corpse lying in the field, and inexplicably, as a reward the king decided to give these villagers all the land surrounding the dead horse. The new village was to be given all the land from which you could smell the stench of the dead horse. So the king's minister came out to lay the boundary, and it ended up being an enormous plot of land, as the stench seemed to carry forever. But actually the villager who was accompanying the minister had hidden a piece of the rotten corpse in his clothes to maximize the land grab.

So the upshot of this revolting story is that the village is hugely wealthy, and they do no work but have workers come farm their vast land. They live off the proceeds, and instead devote all their time to a complicated series of religious rituals throughout the day, every day. They've been doing these rituals for at least one thousand years, and believe that if they are not performed exactly as proscribed, the village will be destroyed. Sort of like the computer in Lost.

You're free to walk around the village, which truth be told doesn't look that wealthy.

The rooms were probably our favorite of the trip as well, more typically Aman in decor, although also probably the smallest (and still with the marble floors). But the rooms at the other two properties just seemed to have lots of empty space, which I find slightly depressing. The views were also fantastic as well, and hanging out on the terrace in front of our room was a favorite way to waste time. The big negative about the rooms is the walkway needed to connect them all. Since it's on a very steep slope, it would be impossible to get around the hotel without these walkways, but they're really ugly, white cement bridges and staircases that crisscross the whole property. While they're a practical necessity, they can definitely be less intrusive and they should rebuild them, because they give the whole place a Jetsons sort of feel that's not really what Bali is all about. Amankila: overall: 7 (room: 7, facilities: 6, service: 9, wow: 1, the view from the pool)

The public spaces of the hotel are quite pretty as well, airy and taking full advantage of the great views. We also thought the food was the best of the three hotels as well. As an added bonus, they had lots of impromptu entertainment, like a chorus of local schoolkids, which was very nice and not as kitschy as the traditional dance stuff that's very popular in tourist shows across Asia. The pool was the best feature, taking full advantage of the hotel's location along a cliff. It's really three levels of infinity pools layered like a rice terrace, and is a great place to lounge around all day. Between the three pools and the beach below you could easily spend the day sunbathing around the property, which is highly recommended because there's not that much to do otherwise.

85. Candidasa

The following morning we checked out and moved on to Amankila, our next hotel. Amankila is a long, 3 hour drive east of Ubud, on the very empty eastern coast of Bali. It was probably our favorite hotel of the three, although again not without drawbacks. Service was fantastic, again partly because it's an Aman, and partly because we were almost the only guests. In fact, a couple of Amans located in the main Indonesian island of Java had temporarily closed up and the managers were helping to manage Amankila, so I think there were more managers than guests during our stay. This is also the only Aman on a beach in Bali, which is quite strange considering Bali is synonymous with beaches for most people. Being on the water meant great views all around, from our room, the restaurant, and the pools, although getting to the beach itself was a bit of a chore. The resort is built high above the water, so the walk down to the beach takes about twenty minutes, and walking back up takes considerably longer. The other drawback of the beach is there's some sort of cement plant or refinery to the right of the hotel. It's quite far away,but definitely noticeable as you soak in the views.

I've got another picture-word imbalance. It was a long walk so we took lots of photos, but there's only so much I can say about rice. So while I post more pics from the walk, I'll talk about the Balinese language. The Balinese have spent a huge amount of time making their language as confusing as possible, by basing it on the caste system. As a Hindu culture, everyone belongs to a strict hierarchy of castes, which define almost every aspect of daily life. This includes language, so they've come up with three very different languages, one to use for classes beneath the speaker, one to speak with one's equals, and another to speak to classes above the speaker. I guess one benefit to being at the very top or bottom of the hierarchy is you only have to learn two of these languages, but overall this seems pointlessly complicated. Plus of course everyone needs to learn bahasa Indonesian, and many people need English given the island's dependence on tourism. Perhaps to compensate for this needless complexity, they've established extremely simple rules on people's names, presumably so expectant parents don't have to waste time thinking up baby names and can learn another language instead. But I'll use a discussion of names for a later post when I'm looking for some more filler.

By the way, in the distance behind the rice field, you can just make out the faint outline of a volcano. That's Mount Agung, Bali's biggest, and consequently most sacred, volcano. Mount Agung dominates east Bali, where Amankila, our next hotel, is located.

We then walked for about three hours through the rice fields. It was a beautiful day, the first sun we'd seen since we arrived, so timing was perfect. (Doing this walk in the rain would be a total drag.) Like the rest of Asia, rice is king, and the vast majority of the population grows rice for a living. In mountainous areas like Bali, rice growing is impossible, so the mountains are carved with terraces to produce the flat fields needed for rice growing. While the terraces therefore serve a practical purpose, they're also very pretty, and make for a beautiful walk.

At the end of our walk, the hotel car picked us up to take us to a picnic lunch. We were supposed to have our picnic beside a lake, but when we got there there were some locals already eating there. The driver clearly wasn't keen on our mingling with the locals, so he sped off to "a nicer place". This ended up to be a cement slab in the middle of nowhere, I think possibly at the edge of the local junkyard. So not the best end to our exploration of the local countryside, but I guess it's important to see all aspects of the local culture when on holiday-NOT! (haven't done that in about fifteen years, felt good).

On our last day in Ubud we got up early to visit the local market, then took a long trek through the very pretty rice terraces around Ubud. The market would no doubt appeal to many tourists, and it's quite lively, but it's not much different from the markets in every village in Asia, so we didn't linger. But we did buy some local food for an impromptu breakfast, and fortified ourselves for the long walk ahead.