Bali, Indonesia - January 2019

It's a pretty rare thing for me to come face to face with a monkey, so you'll have to excuse my enthusiasm with the camera.

I could of watched these guys for hours....if I didn't have a ship to catch.

Ulun Danu Beratun

I’ve never been to Bali before, the thought of 'wall to wall' pissed bogans in their Bintang singlets isn’t something that has appealed to me, well not since I was a teenager anyway, but I digress….On a cruise around South East Asia late last year Sam and I finally found ourselves on Bali...for a day, it'll do for a taster I suppose. So with us on the island for only one day today I wasn’t overly keen on heading for Kuta Beach, instead we decided to head up into the hills and see if there was another side to Bali.

Things were pretty murky when we caught the tender ashore first thing this morning.

We were greeted by a grey and heavy looking sky as we came ashore on the ships tenders at Benoa this morning, the mountains where we were heading were well and truly hidden beneath a cloak of cloud. After passing through the passenger terminal at the port we boarded the bus that would transport us around today. Now normally as soon as the bus is full you take off on the days activities but for some reason today the bus wasn’t moving.

First up today we visited Ulun Danu Beratun.

Eventually all became clear when a tour representative jumped on and told us that we were waiting for all the buses to be ready and then we were going to head off in convoy with a police escort. Soon enough everyone was onboard and our little convoy headed out into Denpasar’s New Years Day traffic complete with a traffic patrol car leading the way. Well I now know how the 1% feel, screaming around the traffic jams on the wrong side of the road, going through red lights, our bus didn’t come to a complete stop until we arrived at Ulun Danu Beratan an hour later. Anyone who has ever been in the Bali traffic will know how much of an amazing feat that was.

There was a lot of locals out enjoying the New Years Day holiday.

Ulun Danu Beratan

Ulun Danu Beratan

Ulun Danu Beratan is situated on the shores of Lake Beratan with mist covered mountains soaring above. This temple is used for offerings to the Balinese water, lake and river goddess Dewi Danu. With Lake Beratan sitting around 1200 metres above sea level the waters of the lake provide irrigation water to the central part of Bali. Today the place was heaving with visitors, both international and also local as the locals enjoyed the New Years public holiday. It’s a little hard to get a quiet, reflective type of photo of these spots when they are over run by tourists, but then I’m part of the problem there so I can’t complain. It’s easy to see why so many places around the world are getting sick of having tourists over run their cities, to make things even more complicated a lot of those places rely on the tourist dollars to bolster their economies, I’m not sure what the answer is…..

Ulun Danu Beratan is in a very scenic location on the shore of Lake Beratan.

Ulun Danu Beratan

Ulun Danu Beratan

Ulun Danu Beratan

Ulun Danu Beratan

Jumping back on or bus we visited the Pasar Wisata Jabe Puri Gede, a small wet market in the Pancasari Village, before jumping on the bus again to climb up to the Twin Lakes lookout. The climb up to the Twin Lakes Lookout was a steep one as the road twisted it’s way up onto the high ridge which separates Buyan Lake and Tamblingan Lake. The best thing about the drive up here was the road passed through a lot of lush rainforest which was home to a large population of monkeys, with a lack of monkeys on the ground in Australia I’m always excited when I see one in another country. The narrow high ridge that separates the Twin Lakes is a very touristy spot with local entrepreneurs have set up a variety of dodgy contraptions protruding out over the abyss for tourists to walk out and pose on. Unfortunately with the low cloud around today the views were somewhat limited from the lookout, I’m thinking if the mountains in central Bali are clear of cloud then that’s the time to head for the hills if you want a decent view.

Next up we visited this small market.

The markets were a colourful spot.

Leaving the market we were heading up into those hills.

Lake Buyan

Lake Tamblingan

Back on our bus once again we dropped back down the hill before heading to our obligatory buffet lunch (something that we could all probably do without, I’m thinking) before continuing on my favourite stop today, the Sangeh Monkey Forest. As seems pretty common in Bali the Sangeh Monkey Forest also features three Hindu Temples that date back to 1350’s but without doubt the main attraction for me was the large population of Long Tailed Monkeys. These monkeys are way smarter than the average human I think and provided endless entrainment for me as they took the piss out of their human visitors, sometimes literally.

Hmm, it must be time for lunch.

Everyone of these cruise tours seems to feature an hour out of the day at one of these buffet style lunches. I'd much prefer to be spending that time exploring a bit more after all we were hardly going to waste away on the ship....I think I may be in the minority with this though!

Alright..strap your self in for some monkey photos.

We weren't lonely.

I believe these are Long Tailed Monkeys.

Yes, the funniest thing I saw today was a monkey pissing on a tourist head. We were warned not to feed the monkeys or encourage them to climb on us on our visit but being a typical tour group there are always a few ignorant people. It just so happens we had two of the most ignorant and it didn’t take long before they were encouraging the monkeys with food, when one perched itself on top of the lady’s well coiffed head to eat it’s human offering, the obligatory photo was only made better as the monkey took a leak on her head just as the shutter clicked. Ah yes, karma.

Walking further into the park the crowds of punters dropped off a fair bit.

The Ubud Monkey Forest is home to just under 800 hundred monkeys apparently, although how they conduct a monkey senses I’m not sure as it would be a bit like herding cats (or tourists for that matter). There is also a selection of walking tracks leading out into the small remnant forest if you want to escape the crowds, the usual Feral formula of ~distance from transport = less humans~ applies here too. Apart from the native forest there is also a market set up by the local villagers, the Monkey Forest is actually managed by the local village both for conservation and income.

Monkey Style...!

I told you that there would be a lot of Monkey shots.

On our bus again we now headed back down towards Denpasar. We lost our police escort for awhile our bus had to wait while monkey piss got washed out of hair. Losing our escort meant that from here to our next stop at Batik Factory we were on our own in the traffic and it was a slow, slow journey. So slow that by the time we arrived at Batik Factory we’d missed the informative part of the tour and only had time for a quick browse through the shop, thanks a lot monkey piss lady! Sam was pretty keen to see this spot too as she wants to teach the kids at school about the process, thankfully after asking a few questions of the workers and taking a few photos I think we worked out the basics.

It's so humid here you can almost see the vegetation growing before your eyes.

Even the Ubud Monkey Forest has it's own market.

With the last tender back to the ship due to leave at 4:30pm and the time already being close to 5pm I figured that the ship was going to be a little late leaving Benoa tonight. The good news was that we now had our police escort again as we latched back onto our convoy, still it was after 5:30pm when we got back to the wharf and jumped onto the tender, arriving back at our room on the ship almost 12 hours after we’d left it that morning. Dropping our gear in the room we wandered up on deck to watch Bali recede into the evening gloom, the highlands still cloaked in cloud.

We didn't get much time at the Batik Factory unfortunately.

Batik Factory

Batik Factory

The Dirt.
Sam and I were in Bali on a Princess cruise out of Singapore on this visit. The tour we did was a Princess tour called Twin Lakes & Bali Highlands and it came in around $80 US each for the day. This was a fairly big day out, we were on the go for around 12 hours today, I can only imagine what it would of been like without the police escort. In case you haven't worked it out the monkeys were a real highlight for me today, easily my favourite part of the day. Keep in mind that our visit to Bali today was on New Years Day, while I think things are always pretty chaotic here it was next level today with the locals all out enjoying a day off I think.

Relevant Posts.
Singapore, 2017.
Sentosa Island, Singapore, 2018.

Tools of the trade at the Batik Factory.

Batik Factory

Leaving Benoa tonight conditions were still pretty overcast.