Today is the end of one of the cruise segments so lots of folks are leaving the ship. There were lots of folks in line with their luggage waiting to get off but they had a shorter line for those of us with excursions. Caused some tensions with the folks in the long line.
Jennifer and I decided to go on the “Balinese Arts & Crafts” excursion so we could enjoy some of the fabric craft. We ended up on separate busses going to the same places and we had fun when we got back showing off all the goodies we had purchased.
The excursion description: “Drive to Bona Village (approx. 1hr). Visit (approx.30min). Drive to Kemenuh Village (approx. 15min). Visit (approx.30min). Drive to Batuan Village (approx.30min). Visit (approx.30min). Drive to Celuk Village (approx. 15min). Visit (approx.30min). Drive to Tohpati Village (approx. 15min). Visit (approx.30min). Drive back to the port (approx.45min).”
We visited craft centers for batik, painting, silver(purchased a necklace), wood carving and bamboo furniture.
some odd & interesting information about Bali from the various tour guides on my excursions
- Kids are named by birth order- there are four names. A prefix is added to indicate if the child is a girl or boy
- If you have more than four children they get the birth order name with a suffex added.
- Every house has a temple and every village has 3 temples so there are more temples than houses in Bali
- Bali uses it’s own language as well as the Indonesian language
- Bali is 90 percent Hindu while the rest of Indonesia is Muslim. The Hinduism that is practiced in Bali isn’t quite the same as practiced in India- in particular Balinese will eat cows
- Indonesia has the fourth largest population- after India, China and US
- over half the income in Bali is from tourism
- About 10 years ago the government changed and there is now an emphasis on education. Almost every village has a free school now where before the schools were a distance apart and it was expensive to go to school
- Very few go to University- it’s expensive to live away from home and go to school. They only stay one or two years and likely study hospitality(to support all the tourists) or Mechanics(to service all the scooters)
