Sunday, 17 February 2013 – Bali, Indonesia
I posted a couple of pictures this morning from the beach at Sanur, a touristic (which means in Bali lots of pizza places and either young Germans and Australians or old Germans and Australians) town about 20 minutes north of the Silver Whisper's berth at the Port of Benoa.
We met the pilot boat and sailed into the harbor right after dawn this morning. The initial view sailing into Bali knocks your socks off. There's the active Mount Agung volcano to the north, the mountains of Lombok across the similarly named strait to the east, and the mangroves of the Denpasar area all around. It appeared that the deep water ship channel was marked with little poles or something similar, but on closer look it was done with colorfully dressed excess population. OK, these are fishermen, but imagine your careers compared to these guys getting up each morning to stand in ferry ship harbor water up to your neck. But at least they dress nicely, red clothes to the left and green to the right I figure. (Yes, it's "backwards" from the Red on the Left Returning EVERYWHERE but in the USA.
One of our fellow Silver Whisper passengers is an artist. She sets up her easel and water colors a pretty nice painting at many ports. I seem to remember that she ran some "arts and crafts" sessions on the Los Angeles to Tahiti cruise segment. Now she seems to be acting like a regular guest onboard. That is, kind of grumpy. Maybe I just needed more coffee, too.
We passed the ferry terminal as we sailed in and observed what appears to be the next CNN headline in the making, and then we backed alongside the pier to the traditional (and interminable) "Garuda Dance". The music has a definite beat and you can dance to it, and they do so for quite a while as the guests leave the ship for tours or to fend off the herds of trinket sellers and taxi drivers. These guys surround the designated cab dispatcher who negotiates a price—in Bali quite reasonable after you convert Rupiah (not Ringgit, which is the Malaysian currency, sorry, to Dollars, the exchange rate being 10,000 IDR to the US Dollar)—essentially for hours not distance. We bought 3 hours for $50 and asked the chosen driver, don't ask how he was picked from the throng of them, to take us to a nice public beach. The drive was interesting since Bali is an island of art work. Every culvert has a statue, and the unique practice of Bali Hindu (the rest of Indonesia is Muslim) has every person do something artful. Of course, we had already seen the taxi driver thronging and garuda dancing even before we left the pier.
Sanur is the beach area adjacent to the Hyatt Bali, an upscale property that would charge us upwards of $90 per person to use their beach chairs and provide a towel. The adjacent public beach had enterprising individuals who provided equally nice chairs and towels (to supplement the ones provided by the ship) for $5 per person, and of course the litoral is literally open to all.
We returned to the ship as our reliable driver—we had not paid him yet—hailed us as we approached the parking area. We took a swim in the ship's pool to wash off the Indian Ocean remnants and had a nice lunch onboard. We sail north at 6pm this afternoon for two days at sea to cross the Equator again and then reach the State of Sabah, one of the two Malaysian states on the Island of Borneo. Maybe I can use my Ringgits there.
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