If you are lucky enough to be in Bali during a big festival such as GALUNGAN, which celebrates the victory of good over evil, you will see streets lined with elaborate penjor – tall ornamental bamboo poles covered in palm leaf decorations and holy drawings that flutter in the breeze. Essentially a shrine, each penjor is highly symbolic. The curve part represents the holy mount Agung, an abode of the gods. Meanwhile, the straight pole depicts the rivers that run from the mountain to the sea. And the fruit and vegetables tied to the pole symbolize earth’s bounty. These decorations are seen everywhere all over Bali.
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Today, Michael and I had an excursion to the beach. We were here 4 years ago to the same resort — Nusa Dua Beach Hotel and Spa. Opened in 1983 it became the first five star resort built in the southern enclave of Nusa Dua, which means two islands. The Nusa Dua resort area was built in the 1970s in the southern part of Bali, an area of large five star resorts - there are more than 20 resorts.
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| Gate to hotel |
The bus ride was about 30 minutes to our destination. However, it was very cramped inside as the seats were made for Indonesian people, who are not very large. Getting up the steps into the bus was an act of the game of twister in acrobatics, as the steps were extremely small, and you had to scoot sideways up the steps. These buses were certainly not made for Western people.
We get to the hotel and the first thing we have to do is go into a room for a presentation of all the available facilities at the hotel. Then we were told to pick up a voucher for lunch and of course there are people who ask all kinds of silly questions, keeping the rest of us from the beach. We wanted to go to the beach! So we got up in mass, got our vouchers and headed down to the beach – – which was a long walk. Now, for most people, the walk is not that bad, but right now, my ability to walk has been compromised as well as my balance. Anyway, we finally get down to the beach and we immediately get on our water shoes and head into the water. As we approach the water, we were watching the other folks attempt to get into the water, and discovered that the wet sand was like quicksand, and people were sinking down to above their ankles and had to be helped to shore. Well, we weren’t gonna be those people, and yet we were those people! We managed to get into the water without looking too uncoordinated. The water was refreshing delightful, and we bobbed around and fought the undertow.
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| The beach |
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| The chairs are the same as 4 years ago |
We decided to rate peoples entrance and exit to the water like you would rate people in the Olympics. There was one woman who got knocked down and crawled out on her hands and knees, and stood up on shore, and then fell down. She didn’t get a good rating. There was another woman who had to be helped out by two people. Well, Michael did a little survey to see if there was a better place to get out and not seeing a better place, we decided to get out where everybody else was getting out and it wasn’t pretty. Since I have a hard time with my balance, Michael was having to help hold me up, and then a wave came and smashed into us and we both went down. I started to get back up when the wave smashed into me again and I will tell you that I took a lot of sand down my suit. So I started to crawl out, and I got to the point where it was time to stand up, and I couldn’t do it on my own so a kindly vendor came by and Michael was on one side and the vendor was on the other side and they pulled me up. Don’t laugh at other people when you’re gonna wind up looking just like them. |
So I’m not going back in the water again, and we decided to try the pool. To enter the pool, you came across sand as you walked in gradually, and then you hit tile. There was someone conducting water aerobics, and I joined in for a little bit. So I went to the other side of the pool to get out and found there was more sand, and since my shoes had been clensed of sand, I didn’t want to go in the sand, so back to the stairs, and these stairs were quite high. There was a lot of loud music playing so we decided to try the other pool.
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| The first pool |
So we found some chaise lounges, put our stuff down and looked for a way to get into the pool. We found an entrance that had steps that were about 2 feet high. The water was real deep there so we hung onto the side and pulled ourselves hand over hand on the side to find shallower water. Well, we found a place where we could stand. It was noon so that means it was time for lunch on Michael’s stomach time. They have ladders to get out all around the pool, but they were very short handles and I could not get out. So I had to go hand over hand again back to the high steps to get out. This pisses me off. I do not like being handicapped.
We ordered lunch and waited and waited and waited and we waited so long that we had five minutes to eat before we had to trek back to get the bus. We came back to the ship, had showers and spent the rest of the afternoon resting up. We had a quick meeting with the Cruise Director, a quick dinner, and then back in our cabin where I am writing this tonight. Tomorrow is a sea day.
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| Just returned from the beach |