The entrance at Alit's Bungalows on Sanur Beach

We would see many traditional dances while on Bali
In the 16th century a Dutch warsjip arrived at Bali. It took the captain 2 years to round up his
crew again to sail home... Understandable, right?!☺

Compared to Java, we found the music on Bali more pleasing and accessable, in terms of rhythm.

Work in progress

We found many women involved in hard physical labour: building a house (below) and producing stones and
rocks it seems, in the river (perhaps involved in the roadworks going on nearby).

While the temples with their rich decorations offer many photo opportunities, I found I liked photos like
these better than temple façades.

Men hard at work in the ricefields here, wading thru the water and the mud, backbreaking work no doubt.
Planting the seedlings carefully ("hold the root of the seedling against your index finger and third finger
with your thumb"), pushing the seedlings one by in the mud, one after another, after another..

Temples can be found left and right, they are everywhere: there are some 20.000 on this island and
can be found on marketsquares, rice paddies, backyards, isolated hilltops, crossroads, etc.
The temples sometimes look new, others look ancient. But they are all richly decorated.

Many women are involved in offering, mostly flowers and fruit, here for relatives?

Temples are obvious places for offering but the staff of our hotels also placed
daily fresh flowers and fruit as a sacrifice for our safety and security.

Offerings placed at the cottages on the hotel's garden for our safety and happiness

The women bear huge, beautifully arranged, pyramids of food, fruit and flowers on their heads.
Festivals are a great occasion for appeasing the gods. There are traditional dances and music, and the
gods are invited to come down to join in the festivities...
Offering plays a significant role in Balinese life as they appease the spirits and thus bring prosperity and good
health to the family. Every day little offering trays (canang sari) containing symbolic food, flowers, cigarettes
and money, are placed on shrines, in temples, outside houses and shops, and even at dangerous crossroads.

I updated his page with scanned photos from my 'analogue album' and noted in my comments how travel,
1981 versus 2025, has changed so much. We showed up at hotels without any bookings, their reviews
and locations noted in Dalton's "Indonesia Handbook", changed our cash (dollars & guilders) and Traveller
Cheques at luxury hotels where we also inquired and booked available excursions. Far from our 2025 online world!

Our source for information:

'Indonesia Handbook'by Bill Dalton.
The forerunner of so many travel guides, e.g. Lonely Planet.

Back to the many Balinese traditional dances..

Legong Keraton, a dance based on actual events... in the 12th &
13th centuries!

The 'Pura Besakih'

The 'Besakih' temple is located some 60 kilometers north of Denpasar, dates from the 11th century (pre-Hindu)
and is a very large complex. It is very picturesque and impressive.
The temple is located against a volcano, the Gunung Agung. This volcano erupted in 1963 for the last time:
a quarter of Bali was covered in lava, 1600 people died and 8600 lost their homes. This eruption took place
during the festival "Eka Dasa Rudra" which only once in a 100 years takes place and before 1963 the last
eruption dated from... 1350 AD !

'Faces of Indonesia'

These girls lost their innocence for tourists a long time ago: they demanded money after they noticed I had
taken a photograph of them! They stood around me, yelling "money, money", and I felt embarrassed and did
not know what to do: ignore them (but I could afford giving some) or pay them (but how much?). I reacted
against the pressure for payment by ignoring them and walking away, but I made a note to be extra cautious
while photographing children! They do make a pretty picture, don't they?

Class of schoolgirls cheering us on ☺

More dances

Kecak Dance, involving a Monkey King jumping an opponent. They have to stay in the ring of men who
make a continuous noise that sound like "tjakketjakketjak"

Sanghyang Jalan Dance, an actual fire dance!
Sanghyang is a trance-inducing exorcism dance and also performed in other Asian countries such as Cambodia.

Ubud Monkey Forest

About 1260 Balinese long-tailed macaque monkeys live in this sanctuary, divided into 10 groups.
It is a famous tourist attraction in Ubud. Every month, around 10,000–15,000 visitors come to Ubud Monkey
Forest. It has 186 species of plants and trees in 12.5 hectares of forest. The Ubud Monkey Forest has 3 temples.

Sanur Beach

While the area around our hotel had a wall, through a gate we had immediate access to the beach

We had a pleasant cottage for our stay on Sanur Beach a Alit's.

The backgarden of our hotel, a place outside with some shade.
Besides the Monkey Forest there was limited growth of trees on Bali (as far as we noted)

Front garden of our hotel in Sanur, richly decorated.
Besides the people on Bali seemingly enjoying life more and not so stern as on Java, we also
noticed more decorations and colour (largely due to the temples, gardens and offerings).

We flew a DC-10 on a Garuda domestic service to Jakarta (JKT). After 1 night we continued home.