Bali is a destination like no other

Bali – It’s been said, but it’s worth repeating: Bali is a destination like no other. A tiny island in the Indonesian archipelago, a Hindu enclave in a Muslim nation, Bali has fantastic beaches, an enduring culture and great food.

Whether you’re an experienced or a novice Asia traveler, you’ll find Bali a bewildering array of color and sound.

The days when Bali was off the beaten path are long gone. Just a few hours by plane from northern Australia, it has been an Aussie playground for years. The wild popularity of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir “Eat Pray Love” and the film adaptation that opened Aug. 13 are likely to make it a U.S. playground as well.

In some ways, there are two Balis.

The 20-somethings flock to the beaches near Denpasar, Bali’s capital. The best-known beaches are Kuta and Seminyak, the latter being the more upscale. Kuta feels a bit like Rocky Point or Cancun at spring break. Lots of young people, lots of booze, lots of surf. U.S. chain restaurants and hotels are present in great numbers. You can grab a McDonald’s burger or KFC bucket or eat at the Hard Rock.

Art, culture

We headed inland to Ubud, a small town surrounded by rice fields in the countryside about 25 miles north of Denpasar’s international airport. Ubud is considered Bali’s cultural and artistic capital. Its streets are lined with galleries and restaurants, and music fills the air.

It was a great choice. Our hotel, the Sri Bungalows, was in the middle of a rice paddy on Monkey Forest Road, one of the main streets. It cuts through a sacred monkey forest and is lined with hotels, galleries and restaurants. Some travelers have reported monkeys slipping into rooms and stealing food or shiny objects, but we didn’t have any problems.

The setting was serene – each morning the sun rose over the paddy, and in the evening we watched the farmer harvest his rice and wrangle his ducks.

One of the wonderful things about traveling around Ubud is the number of religious festivals. There are Hindu temples on every street and in most family compounds. Every 210 days, people hold a festival to honor their temple’s “birthday.” With so many temples, there are lots of birthdays and lots of festivals to attend.

Travelers who have visited Buddhist nations in Southeast Asia might find the temples on Bali a little underwhelming. They are not as grand or ornate as temples in Thailand or Laos but they are just as important, so it’s important to show respect. Appropriate dress consists of proper Balinese attire: sarongs. Larger temples will have sarongs available for rent; smaller, less visited ones do not. You will have to rely on the kindness of strangers or your tour guide to make sure you do not offend local sensibilities.

A resourceful guide

We hired a local guide and driver, which was a great decision. He took us around the island, found festivals and ceremonies (including a wedding and a funeral) and gave us a view of the island that self-guided travelers wouldn’t get.

Our guide, Sang Made Merta , charged 600,000 rupiah per day (about $65). It was a little above the norm, but worth it. Sang’s English is perfect, and he understands the needs of photographers. If you want to spend less, the streets of Ubud, especially Monkey Forest Road, are lined with men holding signs that say “Transport” and offering taxi or guide services. They can be hired for $40-$50 per day (depending on your bargaining skills), but their English may be lacking.

From Ubud we traveled across much of southern Bali. We told Sang what we wanted to do, and he made it happen.

One day I wanted to photograph rice farmers and Sang found some, harvesting rice in their paddies. (Rice is grown year round in Bali, so if they aren’t harvesting or planting on one part of the island, chances are good that they are busy in the next valley over or just down the road.)

There’s something captivating about Bali rice fields. They are iridescently green. The volcanic soil, nearly constant rain and light combine to create an intensity you don’t see in many places. Farmers use ducks to help grow rice. Their guano is used as fertilizer, their webbed feet help till the fields and they eat the pests. Many farmers keep large flocks. Every morning they turn the ducks out and then round them up in the evening.

Another day we told Sang we wanted to visit a market, but not one of the many tourist markets. We set off well before dawn for the small town of Payangan to visit the “wet” market. (A “wet” market is one that sells fresh foods; a “dry” market has dry goods and clothes.) In a courtyard behind the market building, people were selling fresh piglets and fowl (fresh as in still alive), local fruits and vegetables and some clothes. Inside, using kerosene torches for light, old women sold shallots and spices. There was not another tourist in sight.

A cremation

When we made plans to visit Bali, one of our goals was to attend a cremation. Balinese cremations are very formal and cost thousands of dollars, but they are not somber events. They are a celebration of the deceased’s life, and a great street party. They are rarer than religious festivals and ceremonies, because not every family is wealthy enough to afford a full cremation event.

Cokorde Gede Raka, a member of Ubud’s royal family, died a few weeks before our arrival and was cremated while we were in Ubud. (Indonesia is a multiparty democracy. Royal families in Bali have no official power but a lot of influence in local civil affairs. The royals in Ubud are especially well-regarded and influential.)

Thousands of Balinese and tourists lined the street. The cortege was led by about 50 men carrying a huge hollow bull built on a bamboo frame and wrapped in black velvet. This was followed by a funeral tower bearing the body, then priests, musicians and members of the royal family wound through the streets accompanied by a Balinese orchestra and lots of merrymaking. The closest comparison I could make would be to a New Orleans jazz funeral, only with gamelan music and fire instead of jazz and po’boys.

At the cemetery, an orchestra played while the body was moved from the tower to the hollow bull, offerings were placed into the bull with the body, and the whole thing was set ablaze. Soft-drink and souvenir vendors worked the crowd while people stared, transfixed, as the flames consumed the deceased.

Because cremations in Bali are so expensive but vital to giving the decease a proper farewell (followers believe without cremation, the deceased’s route to reincarnation is cut off), they usually are scheduled collectively. A village or community will have one cremation every four or five years, and all the people who died during that period will be cremated at the same time.

In between the time of their death and cremation, people are buried in cemeteries. They are exhumed (or a part of the body is exhumed) for the cremation.

It’s not unusual to have 40 or 50 people cremated at the same time, in a ceremony similar to the one we attended, only much bigger. The exact date of the mass cremations is something of a moving target, but they generally happen across the island in the same year. The last ones were in 2009, so the next ones should be in 2014.