Article

I wrote another article for "You and I" magazine here in town. It was about our Bali vacation. The article is below.

Our destination was Bali. It’s very name evokes the exotic, so we were eager to visit the island for ourselves. This was to be the last major trip in Asia during our two years in India. With our return to the US coming up this summer, we wanted to experience a setting that was unique and inviting. I had been working long hours and the rest of the family needed some R+R.

We found Bali to be just what we needed.

We arrived late at night on a Sunday. The island scenery around us was hard to make out, but we got a good sense that we were in a place that was different.

As we arrived at our villa in Seminyak, an up-and-coming section of the island, we were pleased to find a place that was pristine yet elegant. We were pleased to have our own salt water pool. We fell asleep easily that first night.

When we awoke, we had our first chance to see the surroundings. Bali immediately struck us as green and clean.

Our first day was characterized by an intense set of activities. We took a glass-bottom boat out to the coral reefs off of the island, snorkeled, and then went held pythons, flying foxes and our youngest sons rode on the backs of turtles.

After that day, we knew we had found a place that was different than any place we had been before. We also knew that vacation was about relaxing, so we turned off the American impulses that drove us through the first day at break-neck speed. We decided to take the rest of the vacation at a slower pace.

The remainder of our trip was characterized by relaxing fun. We spent two entire days in Ubud, Bali’s hip and eclectic shopping town. In Ubud, we strolled through shop after shop looking at the odd, fantastical, original and elegant items, then followed it up with a light vegetarian meal of tempeh and tofu in peanut sauce. Young bohemians from around the world wandered the streets, making us think of Greenwich Village and Haight Ashbury.

As the vacation progressed, we found ourselves increasingly unraveled. We told our driver that we were ready to back away from the tourist destinations. As nice as they were, we decided that there must be a side of Bali that is less-seen. We found that there was.

Bali’s population is overwhelmingly made up of Hindus. It is the only island like it in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. So, when our driver told us, “Today is a Hindu festival”, Tara and I smiled at each other. Life in India taught us that Hinduism is characterized by one festival following closely on the heels of another festival, so we were excited to see what this was like in Bali.

We were driven up to a temple on the side of a mountain. We were immediately struck by the unique nature of the temple. It has various dragon motifs and statues around its perimeter, and the towers within the temple grounds looked like pagodas. It was a blend of the familiar Hinduism that we have been exposed to in India, but also had aspects that borrowed from Thai and Chinese styles. We bought our dhotis at the front gate, and wandered through as streams of Balinese Hindus walked past us carrying baskets of fruit as offerings. It was a fascinating experience to sit and watch.

As we drove back from the temple, we stopped along the side of the road to have a coconut to drink. The setting was beautiful. We had the opportunity to see the terraced Balinese rice paddies that are so well-known around the world. In the interest of using the land of Bali in an efficient manner, the Balinese people have mastered creating terraced rice fields that are almost artistically carved into the side of the hills. It was nice simply to sit down while we drank our coconut water and look at the greenery. At that point, a man in a rattan hat walked in front of us, herding about fifty ducks along the edge of the rice paddies. It was a scene that almost certainly has been repeated for centuries in largely the same way that we were seeing.

Day by day, we experienced more and more of the fantastic island that is Bali. From the visit to the Monkey Garden where we fed the monkeys with our hands, to the zoological park where we had our picture taken with an orangutan, to the surf of Kuta beach where the boys played on boogie boards, Bali continued to allows us to be both amazed and to unwind into a completely new state of mind, one that was rejuvenated.

And isn’t that what vacation is supposed to do?

We will always offer a positive word to other world travelers about Bali. It is a place worthy of a visit.