5/30/10 (candi dasa)
Annie Lin
Candi Dasa – Tulamben – Candi Dasa
I think the giant gecko staying with us in Sengiggi followed us to Candi Dasa because I heard him or her all night. There are tiny geckos which don’t make any noise and you see them all around. But then there are these enormous ones with a really big head that makes a weird noise at night. The rumor is that if they bite you then it’s a trip to the hospital. Our driver in Lombok told us his brother got bitten by one and had to go to the hospital. When we asked a staff at our home stay in Candi Dasa about the vicious geckos he just laughed. I am not exactly comforted by his nonchalant attitude. We will have to survey more people to dispel the rumor.
Aside from the geckos our home stay has a really lush garden in the center with coconut and banana trees all around. When you walk outside the room you feel like you are in the middle of a fruit jungle. We are also steps away from the ocean with a relaxing verandah overlooking the bay.
After lounging around a bit in the morning we decided to rent a motorbike…our favorite mode of transportation around Bali. Usually before we take off on our bike we let our host know where we are going and ask for advice of things to see along the way. I think they are very cautious with foreigners on motorbikes because it’s always a big ordeal before we are allowed to take off. They make sure we put on our helmets and repeatedly tell us to take it slow. It’s very endearing. Good thing we didn’t tell them we have already gotten in a motorbike accident. They probably wouldn’t let us on a bike.
We made our way northeast and were hoping to stop at Tirtagangga to check out a Water Palace but then realized we passed it. Bali is pretty small and it’s never very far from one place to another. I think people always tell us it’s going to take longer than it really does. Instead we decided to stop at the palace on the way back and instead took a break at a home stay in Tirtagangga for lunch, which had a nice view of rice paddies. We just can’t get enough of rice paddies! We decided to make a run for Tulamben since it is supposed to have a nice view of Gunung Agung, the highest and holiest mountain in Bali. We passed some of the most beautiful rice paddies I had ever seen on the way to Tulamben. It wasn’t as high as some of the ones we had seen around Ubud but it was very green and where we stopped had a wide panoramic view of them. When we reached Tulamben we decided that Amed (beach city along the east coast) had a nicer view of the mountain so we headed back to catch a time-lapse video in the middle of a rice field.
It’s always funny to see people’s reaction to Jon on the bike. We probably make a pretty hilarious picture. Jon carries his tripod/dolly case on his back and it balances on my legs. I hold on for dear life to Jon with his camera backpack and my purse on my back. I am just tall enough to see over his shoulder, as I like to be a backseat driver and make sure he’s taking it slow. It makes the kids giggle with laughter when we wave to them. Some of the adults have a perplexed look on their face as they are trying to figure out what’s going on with us. At least we make a memorable impression on the locals.
After Jon finished his shot in Amed we started to head back to Tirtagangga since the sun was beginning to set. We found the Water Palace, which proved to be pretty amazing. It was built by a man who was infatuated with water fountains, ponds, basically anything to do with water. When you first walk in there are two big ponds full of coy fish. I had never seen coy fish that big. There were some people feeding entire slices of bread to the fish. They threw a slice of bread into the pond and all the fish would jump on top of each other to grab the bread. Talk about carb overload!
As the sun was setting we made our way back to our home stay. On days when we are on the motorbike it seems to wear us out. We enjoyed a cold Bintang (Indo local beer) on our front porch while deciding what to do about dinner. Candi Dasa is another sleepy town with not much tourists so the restaurants have people stand on the street trying to persuade guests to come in. It becomes a bit overwhelming deciding where to eat since everyone is pulling at you from every direction. We decided to just go to the first restaurant next to our hotel to avoid the drama. I would say we had an average meal but at the end they brought us a complimentary shot of arak with two flowers to put above our ears. We had arak in Sengiggi but it was a mixed with lime and soda water. The straight up arak was very strong and not something I really enjoyed.
Reader Comments (4)
Love the picture with the blowdarts, hopefully you didn't accidentally inhale :) ha ha!