Bali, Indonesia III

Even though I like visiting sightseeing places, what I enjoy the most from any trips is to look out of window from a car. I can see the actual local life styles; no fancied up for tourists, but what's actually local people are facing every day. It sometimes could be the struggle to survive day by day depends on the country.

When I saw this scene above from the car, the picture was so cute; a little girl grabbing her father on the scooter enjoying the ride. When our car was passing them, I realized that there was another little boy in the front of the fater (left). Now, that’s not cute anymore. That’s a dangerous scene.

I also saw many kids riding scooters with their friends. They look like 10 years old. It is incredible. I asked the tour guide if kids were allowed to ride scooters. He says not when police is around. Amazing! They are not even teenagers!

In Bali, even though most of the businesses are related to tourists, there are others, too. Harvesting rice is a major one. Balinese harvest rice three times a year. It is incredible, but it makes sense because it is hot all the time. What I was curious to know was that in one field, the rice is ready to be cropped (already brown), but the other area has just planted rice (green).

In Japan, we always have a season to crop rice; that is fall. However, where it is hot all year long like Bali, then when is the season for anything? I understand that the temperature doesn’t change much in Bali, but there are two seasons; dry and rainy seasons. I wonder how this applies to the harvests. Do pineapples grow better in dry weather than rainy? I’m not sure. What I know is that their fruits are fantastic!

These are some areas that are famous for stone carvings. When we passed by, there are so many stones shaped like Buddha, elephants, naked ladies, monkeys, you name it. It seems like they are mostly religion related though. They are made out of different stones. Some of them look very old, but probably it’s something to do with the color of stones. Brown ones make them look very old.

Guess what these are. These are mangos. I’d never seen mango trees. It was cool. I didn’t even think about mangos being on the tree. When I think about it, it makes sense though. They are like apples. This is what happens when shopping fruits or vegetables from super markets all our lives. We forget the fundamentals or don't even think about it. (Is it only me?)

Cows in the back of a track. Cows are very expensive in Bali, (or maybe anywhere else) and they cost about 1,000 USD each. Now, that's expensive considering their standard living costs (average annual salary - 800USD). According to the guide, those cows are sold to become food or to grow bigger to be sold later on for a higher price.

The difference between Indian cows and Balinese is that Balinese ones are in good shape and mostly, they are tied to something like a tree where as Indian cows are walking everywhere like human being and very skinny like you can see the bones. Speaking of animals, I also so many bird cages on the streets or hanging out of roof. I thought these were for little pet birds, but actually they were for chicken! They could be roosters.

For upcoming festival, each house had some decoration in front of their gate. It is a long bamboo standing, and the top is bent. The top edge part of the bamboo is representing rich people. By having the bamboo bent, it symbolizes that rich people are looking after poors. Also, there is an umbrella opened and tied to the bamboo. It is a symbol of moon. There are two different colors of umbrella; yellow or white. They are symbolized for women and men. A few of the houses have both color umbrellas, but most of them have only one, yellow or white. When we were going through this town, I saw one side of the street having yellow umbrellas, and the other side with white. They were very beautiful together.

I enjoyed my one and a half days of Bali experience. I would love to come back again at least for a week. Next time, instead of having very busy schedules, I would stay in a hotel for a few days relaxing having no plans. I would go down to the beach any time I want, and take massage whenever I feel like. The rest of the time, I would go out to explore more Bali! It would be fantastic if I could bring my parents.

Bali, I will be back!