Don & Kully's World Cruise on Viking Neptune

Today was our third and final day in Bali, and without question our best day. Rather than taking an organized Viking excursion, four of us got together and hired a driver/guide for the day. We negotiated the price and established a tentative itinerary prior to departing the cruise terminal. Our drivers name was Made Karta, he was amazing.

We left the cruise terminal at 8:30 am and headed across the harbor toll bridge toward the Jimbaran area just south of the airport. Our first stop was the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park. The park features a 122 meter (400 feet) tall statue of Garuda Wisnu Kencana. Garuda is inspired by and event in Hinduism where Garuda is searching for the elixir of life. It is the tallest statue in Indonesia. Both the statue and the grounds surrounding it were very impressive.

After our visit with the Garuda statue, we found our driver and headed off for our next site, but on our way decided to stop and sample some Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee is uniquely Indonesian, has a unique aroma and smooth flavor, but here’s the catch; Luwak coffee beans are produced from fermentation in the Asian Palm Civet, a cat like creature, that eats the coffee cherries that contain the coffee bean but can’t digest the coffee bean internal to the coffee cherry, and basically poops out the coffee bean. The bean is then harvested from the animal’s dung, boiled to remove bacteria, dried, roasted and sold as any other coffee bean; except it is supposedly the most expensive coffee in the world. We sampled some of the Luwak, and honestly, it tasted like any other cup of coffee. But it was a very interesting stop, we learned a lot about how they harvest, roast and process this very unique and unusual coffee.

After our unusual coffee break, we proceeded on to the Luhur Uluwatu Temple (Temple over the water) for some breathtaking views of the Indian Ocean and interesting encounters with some local monkeys. The temple sets on a high cliff overlooking the ocean, surrounded by a small forest that is home to roughly 400 monkeys. The monkeys are very accustomed to tourists and have figured out they can grab the tourists’ belongings — hats, glasses, cell phones, jewelry or anything shinny and loose that they can reach and hold ransom for a treat of some sort. The guides warned us before we arrived about the antics of the monkeys, so we were well prepared — we thought. Kully had her cell phone on a lanyard and a monkey snuck up behind her and was unsuccessful in his attempt to snatch her phone. However, our friend Patricia had a post style earring snatched out of ear by one of the little thieves. Thank goodness she wasn’t wearing a dangling type of earing as the monkey probably would have torn her ear trying to snatch it from her. The good news is one of the local guides recovered the jewelry and returned it to her.

After our invigorating temple visit, we decided to stop for a late lunch at a local seafood restaurant recommended by our driver. We had an amazing beach side lunch.

After lunch we drove to the artisan town of Denpasar to visit the Popiler Batik Fabric Factory. Here beautiful patterns are hand drawn on to white fabrics with a special wax and then dyed to create amazing patterns that are unique to this particular region of Indonesia. The same techniques are used on other islands, but the patterns are different, so experts in Batik Fabrick design can tell by the different patterns where the fabric comes from. As a matter of fact, two of us bought shirts at the factory today and wore them to dinner on the ship. An Indonesian server approached us, and said he recognized the patterns in our shirts as Indonesian and thanked us for buying products from his country.

What an amazing day! We were very impressed with Bali, it is a very beautiful island, but it is the people that ultimately make it such a special place. We had dinner with several friends tonight and we were comparing notes and telling stories about our time in Bali. What impressed all of us the most wasn’t the beautiful scenery, temples, beaches or food, but it was the people and their culture. At one point one of the gentlemen at our table made the observation that none of us were talking about the sites we had seen, instead we were talking about how impressed we were with the people and their culture. We all agreed that there is something unique about the Balinese Hindu’s, they literally live their faith, not in a fire and brim stone way, but in how they go about their day-to-day lives. I thought it was a little ironic, as a Christian we talk about showing our faith through our actions, but I don’t think we do nearly as well as the Balinese. None of us really know that much about the Hindu faith, but it was clear after only three days the people of Bali made a lasting impression on all of us. Their notion of balance in all things, ying and yang, may have some merit.

As I said at the beginning of the post our guide Made Karta was absolutely amazing. We would highly recommend him to anyone planning to visit Bali. He can be relied upon to provide an excellent tour to any of the sights you might want to visit while in Bali. Here is his contact information – – email: made_karta2005@yahoo.com cell phone — +6281 338 232 611 he said the best way to communicate with him is though the WhatsApp App (that seems redundant)

Out next port is Samarang, Java, Indonesia on 5 March.