Beautiful Bali – Water Palaces and Dancing

28th February. 2019

By Monday we had settled in well to the routine of our resort, much helped by some welcome drinks (mostly the local brew, Bintang Beer), when we had the opportunity to meet our fellow guests and some of the management of the Karma Group who own resorts around the world. Praveen, from Mumbai with his girlfriend from the US, Natasha and Rafi and Marie from France played host and we chatted amiably with some Americans, Australians and Welsh who are staying here too. A very jolly evening and we are all now like a rather loose-linked family, which gives the holiday a nice feel to it.

We spent Monday by the pool where I discovered that even though I had been travelling around S E Asia for almost 2 months, it is still possible to get burnt if you are not careful. Nothing desperate, but something to remember next time. It is unfortunate that so many of my T shirts seem to be pink or orange!!

On the Tuesday we booked a taxi to take us to some of the local sights. First stop was a village called Tenganan 3 kms away that is home to about 700 families of the Bali Aga people. When Bali was conquered by the Javanese Majapahit in 1343 they imposed religious reforms and a caste system on the island. There were those who rejected these changes and withdrew to their village enclaves to live a life based around ritual and ceremony and now, nearly 7 centuries later, they are still a distinct group, known as the Bali Aga or Bali Muda or the ‘original Balinese’. They are followers on the Indra sect of Hinduism and trace their ancestral links to Orissa in India rather than to Java like most Balinese. Among other things, their exacting customary laws determine on which of the 3 streets of the village they can live and who they can marry.

I must just tell you the story of the founding of Tenganan. In the days before the Javanese invasion, King Bedaulu ruled the island. Legend has it that one day his favourite horse went missing and he offered a reward for its return. The horse was discovered dead, near Treganan and the king said he would give the local people the land within which the stench of the rotting animal could be smelled. A government official duly arrived to adjudicate and discovered the stench of the dead horse could be detected over a huge area at which point the boundaries were drawn. The official departed allowing the headman of the village to remove the piece of rotting horse flesh from inside his shirt.

You enter the village by means of a donation and a local shows you around and answers the many questions we had. Each family has a walled compound (as in much of the rest of Bali) but there are also areas where communal activities and meetings take place in thatched ‘bale’.

The village is famous for various handicrafts including basketwork and, especially, the unique and highly-valued ‘geringsing’ or double ‘ikat’ cloth. ‘Ikat’ weaving is common throughout Indonesia and the word ‘ikat’ derives from the word ‘to tie’ and the technique is effectively a sophisticated tie-dye one. Bali is quite unusual in favouring weft-ikat or endek, in which the weft yarn (the threads running across the fabric) is tie-dyed into the finished design before the warp begins, which produces the distinctive blurred edges to the predominantly geometric and abstract patterns. Now that is complicated enough, but double-ikat involves dying both the warp and the weft threads into their final designs before they are woven together. A double-ikat sarong can take 5 years to complete and there are only 3 areas in the world this method is practised – India, Japan and Tenganan. Not surprisingly, it is very expensive! Luckily, we are at the limits of our luggage allowance and were able to resist!

There are also examples of the original Balinese language before Indonesian took over.

I can’t resist adding a few more pictures from this rather special place….

Well, that was the village and we had only just started our tour, but we headed off to our next sight, Taman Soeka Sada or the Ujung Water Palace. Water palaces were a particular foible of the last raja of Karangasem, Anak Agung Anglurah, who had an obsession with pools, moats and fountains. Ujung was our first one of the day and we had another one to follow. It was really beautiful, very tranquil and wonderfully kept. It was actually only built in 1921 and was all but destroyed in a massive eruption in 1963 of Gunung (Mount) Agung. Luckily it has been restored since and is a very serene spot. The photos tell the better story.

It was not too long a drive from Ujung to the possibly more famous and much more visited Tirtgangga Water Palace. This one was built in 1946 and is constructed on the site of a sacred spring and is really more of a water garden than a palace with a confection of terraced ponds, shrubs, fountains, stepping stones and statues with plentiful of very well-fed carp.

We were now well and truly cooked and even a chilled coconut was not enough to cool us down, so we headed for what is known as Virgin Beach for a swim and a spot of lunch and some kite watching. We had a good view of Gunung Agung on the way, still an active volcano and Bali’s highest peak at 3,142 metres. Balinese people believe that the spirits of their ancestors live there.

OK, there is more to report, but I think this post is getting a bit long, so I will report again soon.

All the best…..