Part Seven: Today’s first stop was picking up Tom Brady from the Grand Hyatt. We had made up to share a tour for the today and we would pick him up. Once we got everyone together, we were off to our first stop on the East Bali tour. Stop one was the Kerta Gosha Justice Palace, which was a bit over an hour away from the Nusa Dua and the hotel area. The palace very similar to a lot of the locations we had seen already. There were some nice walking paths, a large area of water with some structure in the middle as well. This location happened to have a “museum” as well, which took about 5-10 minutes to walk through the three rooms. After walking through the area, we spent some time walking around the market area across the street. This was not a tourist market, and had some more local wares for sale.
Justice Palace:Justice Palace II: The second stop was the Tenganan Village, which was around 35-40 minutes (IRRC) from the justice palace. This village I believe was to be what the people used to live like, but it didn’t seem much different than other places. Every door entrance was selling some kind of sarong or other souvenir to all the tourists. There were also a lot of roosters running around, some in very bright colors, while other were in some kind of a cage. We did see a sign promoting cock fighting, and some guy seemed to even offer us a show, but we passed on it. We did come across some cactus like plants that were covered in eggshells, with no real reason or explanation as to why that was.
Eggshell Tree:Pink Chicken:Interesting Village Signage:Village Cordless Phone: Stop three was the Tirtagangga water garden and another long drive to get there. As with the theme of the stops, this had lots of water features, walking paths, some structures and nice landscaping. They had a nice stepping path through one of the water areas that was pretty cool to walk through. They even had an area that you could go swimming in, for an additional fee. After walking around and hanging out for a bit, we were heading back to the car and our next stop.
Water Stepping Stones:Stepping Stones:Not Sure What This Means: Stop four was the Ujung water palace. This was another drive and had similar features as the previous water garden. While a lot of the locations had very similar themes, it did not feel like we were seeing the same thing over and over again. This water palace had an enormous lake type area, much bigger than the others we had seen and a large walking bridge running right through the center. There were stairs going up the side, which provided a great view of the area.
View from The Top: The last stop was about and hour and half away, but back towards our hotel, so it was not too stressful thinking about the drive. We were to be stopping at a salt making village, but it turned out to be more of a single hut that was making the salt. There was a guy that had buckets draped over his shoulders, he would fill it up in the ocean and then sprinkle it on the sand. They would then take the sand, press out the water through a filter, than let it sit in the sun until it became salt. IT was pretty interesting to see, but something you can see in ten minutes.
Salt Making: Once done with the salt, we were back on the road to the hotel. The drive went by rather quickly and we were sitting in the lounge sharing a few drinks before Tom Brady had to head back to his hotel. Overall, we had a nice time and found out a lot about Mr. Brady’s whirlwind tour through Asia and the Middle Eat (look out for his TR). Tomorrow is our last day here and we plan to spend most of the day just hanging around the hotel. We are looking forward to getting some time in Singapore and ever closer to or Emirates flights.