Bali Tour

We spent our 2nd day touring Bali. Made picked us up around 12pm and our first stop would be the Uluwatu temple which took us around an hour to get to.

We paid our entry fee, tied on our sarongs and walked about the temple grounds. We were allowed into the temple area itself as it was closed off to tourists. We were able to see some deers and monkeys during the initial half of the tour. Made did warn us to keep our belongings tightly locked up in our backpack as the monkeys have become more aggressive in recent past. We did see one monkey pull the slipper off a young lady’s foot and hold onto it until it got a treat in return. The young lady was clearly in a state of panic but Made managed to find a local in the area who helped to bribe the monkey to release the slipper. We also saw another monkey pull someone’s sunglasses off their head and drop it on top of the roof of one of the buildings. I took as many pictures as I could without incident and was glad my phone didn’t get snatched.

It was really hot and humid despite the cloud cover. So glad we have towels on hand as Junior and I were dripping profusely. 😀

The inner courtyard of the temple where only locals were allowed in. We were able to silently observe a worship ritual in progress.

After an hour, we headed to the coffee tour site where we got some civet cat coffee. Got the tour which we said could be sped up as we did this before.

The various stages from when the cat “vacates its bowels” of the coffee bean, to cleaning, drying and finally roasting.

Other fruits grown on the plantation

After that, we made our way to the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Statue.

Excerpt from Wikipedia – Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue (also known as GWK statue) is a 122-metre tall statue located in Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park and was designed to be Indonesia’s tallest statue, and is inspired by an event that finds its roots in Hinduism about Garuda’s search for Amrita, the elixir of life. It took twenty-eight years (started in 1997) – construction halted quickly after groundbreaking, then resumed in 2013 and was completed on 31 July 2018.

We were dropped off in the parking lot and took a shuttle over to the main entrance.

Once at the main entrance, we bought our tickets and we were told that the shuttle taking people up to the status was not running that day (even though we clearly saw shuttles running). It took us 30 minutes to get up there and its not easy when walking with kids.

A mini version of the statue

The halfway point

Almost there …

It was an absolute battle to walk up the road leading to the status even though it had a gentle slope. We made it eventually after loud complaining from Junior. Obligatory photo taken and we booked it back down to the waiting shuttle.