Bali Bali Daily
Bali Arts Festival
Without a doubt my favourite festival is the Bali Arts Festival and it will be held from June 14 to July 12, and will feature a plethora of local and international performers. This is a wonderful spectacle and a great introduction to Balinese artistic traditions and culture for those who are first-timers to the island. Even for the regulars, it is a festival not to be missed. The events take place throughout each day for an entire month. There will be handicraft exhibitions, cultural performances, music, classical palace dances and also historical exhibitions. What …
Date: June 8th, 2008 |
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Lion Air Direct to Singapore from Bali
Another new airline route has been added to the growing number of service from Denpasar to other places on the planet. This one is a direct flight to Singapore vice versa which would make it ideal for all expats doing a visa-run. The new service is also ideal for those travellers coming through Singapore that want to fly direct to Bali instead of going through Jakarta. Lion Air will commence this new route on Friday (6th June) and for starter price is it quite reasonable at $117. What is even better still is for …
Date: June 5th, 2008 |
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The Lombok Project
Lombok has always lagged behind Bali in regards to tourism. These days, Lombok is used as a stepping stone to the nearby Gili Islands. This doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do on the island. On the contrary, Lombok is an island of stunning palm-fringed, white sand beaches and the interior of the island has majestic panoramas overlooked by Gunung Rinjani. Add to that the mystical Sasak culture and you have a perfect island holiday. There are a multitude of five star resorts and a variety of other accommodation to suit all budgets. At …
Date: June 1st, 2008 |
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Shark Delicacies
For as long as I can remember on my travels I have never imbibed in seafood cuisine that contained shark meat of any kind. As a scuba diver and an environmentalist, I do have a very healthy respect for these beautiful creatures. There are those that don’t considering them the scourge of the oceans. This is not to say that I haven’t had my fair amount of run-ins with them and on one particular occasion, it was almost a fatal meeting with a large Tiger Shark. Even after that I still harbor a healthy …
Date: May 28th, 2008 |
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Silver in Ubud
As most tourists who have visited Bali and travelled to Ubud will know, there are a prolific amount of galleries and one of the most famous being the Neka Gallery, amongst others. A stroll around the side streets and gangs will provide you with the opportunity to visit other fine art galleries. When we think of art it is, more often than not, associated with paintings. But, in Ubud there are galleries that sell other artistic items such as wood carvings, jewellery, stone carvings and silver products. One such gallery for silver items is Studio Perak. This magnificent place also specialises in silver-smithing courses.
Date: May 25th, 2008 |
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Ecotourism in Bali
More and more people are becoming environmentally conscious and, as they travel, are also aware of their carbon footprint. But it is not only this that we have to take into consideration. Ecotourism is an excellent alternative to the mass tourism that exists now in Bali and therefore we should look to utilising the resources of the locals when we choose where to travel on the island, what to see and do so that the profits are fed back into the community and not into some big bosses back pocket. This can be done in several ways. Use locally owned tour operators, or better still, those independent drivers who one often sees on the streets offering day-trips around Bali. Another is to stay in the not-so-fancy hotels but instead staying in reasonable accommodation owned by the Balinese themselves.
Date: June 5th, 2008 |
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Sheppy’s Bar and Restaurant
I am always on the lookout for a good warung or restaurant that serves delicious cuisine wherever I travel in the archipelago and on my last sojourn to Bali, I discovered a great place. Sheppy’s restaurant is located on Jalan Melasti in Legian and I must have passed this place many times but never really noticed it. Across the road from the traditional markets, Sheppy’s is owned by an Australian and offers not only excellent food, but great service from a friendly staff. I particularly liked Sheppy’s because of its openness to the street making it a nice to place to people-watch, enjoy a meal or just a drink. The restaurant is very clean and one thing that really impressed me was the toilet. It was super-duper clean and not like you find in many places on the island of Bali. Candika and I ate at Sheppy’s many times after discovering the place and each time I was definitely not disappointed. The menu far is a good selection of Indonesia and western foods, all cooked to perfection and reasonably priced.
Date: June 3rd, 2008 |
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Han Snel’s Retrospective Exhibition: Ubud
Numerous foreign artists have made Bali their home and created their own themes and styles in painting the Balinese and their culture and religion. Bali became an artist enclave for avant-garde artists such as Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet, Arie Smit and the most famous being Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur who married Ni Pollock, a renowned legong dancer. The 1920’s saw an artistic flurry on the island and the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias noted that local paintings served primarily religious or ceremonial functions. Han Snel was another of these foreign artists to grace the shores of Bali. Han Snel was born in 1925 in Scheveningen, in the Netherlands. After his arrival in 1946 with the Dutch military forces he was immediately tasked with fighting Japanese troops and the newly born army of the Republic of Indonesia. As most visiting artists do, Snel immediately fell in love with the island. Like Mayeur, he married a local girl and subsequently applied for Indonesian citizenship and embraced Balinese Hinduism. In Ubud there is an exhibition of Han Snel’s paintings that most visitors who have a penchant for art will like to see.
Date: May 29th, 2008 |
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Bali Kite Festival
There are several main cultural events in Bali that draw the crowds. For instance, the Bali Arts Festival, the Writer’s Festival to mention a few, but it is the Bali Kite Festival that is appreciated by young and old, whether they be international tourists or domestic tourists. The annual international Kite Festival is held in July at Padang Galak area of Sanur Beach and attracts competitors worldwide. Actually, the event is a seasonal religious festival intended to send a message to the Hindu Gods to create abundant crops and harvests. These giant and colourful kites …
Date: May 27th, 2008 |
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Be Aware of Your Wares
Unfortunately, I was robbed last week and my wallet expertly removed from my person. And, this was in Australia!. When I reflected back on my misfortune having lost quite a bit of money, bank cards and the ilk, I realised that in all the years I have travelled throughout the archipelago of Indonesia I never had anything stolen from me. That doesn’t mean that I was untouchable. On the contrary, there have been some sticky situations. I nearly had my shoulder bag ripped from my shoulder by a passing and speeding motorbike rider in Sumatra, lost my passport (I thought it was stolen) in Yogyakarta but one of the locals who was walking behind me picked it up off the pavement returning it to me, and there was a case of bumping into a group of rather mean-looking bikers in Semarang late one night who I thought were going to mug me for sure but as it turned out, they just wanted a chat. In Bali, I did fall foul to a scrupulous money-changer but that was soon resolved by tourist police intervention.
Date: May 24th, 2008 |
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