Monday, Mar 19th, Candidasa, Bali, Indonesia

Greetings!

We're glad the trip design lands in Bali last.  There are places with better food, stranger animals, older ruins, bigger jungles, and more challenging politics.  But few places have a more humane intersection of social, religious, cultural, artistic, and sensual experience.   

We headed out early this morning for the first of a series of days visiting parts of the island of Bali.  The awe of this place can be found in the villages, representing extended families which have fought for their identities, authority, and security for five hundred years.  And as we learn more about how they express themselves, and what traditions and customs have survived, we see the beauty of their lives.

Tenganan is a four-walled Bali Aga village of original, pre-Hindu inhabitants who we were privileged to visit.

We continued to a central moat-surrounded facility in Klung Kung, where a table and chairs beneath a wooden ceiling decorated with elaborate murals depicting punishment in hell and rewards on earth.

We ate lunch looking across rice fields to Mt. Agung, the most active volcano on Bali.  Fortunately, it was quiet today.

Quiet enough for us to ascend to Besakih, Bali's most important temple.  On the slopes of Bali's equivalent of Mount Olympus, this structure is reached by many long flights of 1,000 year old stairways passing many levels of lava stone terraces and pagodas which contain family compounds with courtyards and shrines.  This site incorporates the holy triad of temples venerating the Hindu trinity. 

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Monday, Mar 19th, Candidasa, Bali, Indonesia.