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What's New in Ubud Market?

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I still remember when I first went to Ubud marrket in early 2000. This was before it was renovated. Now everything has changed. In the past, once you get into the market you would see the sellers were everywhere, they would lie down their merchandise in the ground. As I walked around the market, you walk down path where you need to walk carefully at certain point so you don't step into any merchandise for selling. Most of the sellers just lie down their sellers in the open. Can you imagine what happen to them if it was raining? They would probably packed up their merchendise. I enjoy watching those merchandise for display everywhere. It was colorful. They were mostly souvenirs. You could see wood carving, wind chimes, table decoration, fans, wall decoration, painting, ash tray, bottle opener (which usually very obscene, but it is a different kind of sense of humor).They were all differet in colours and it is a real treat for the eye, and walking in the forest of souvenir mak

Learning Balinese Dance

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Maybe you come to Bali for not just holiday, but you want to learn about the local culture. One way to do it is learning Balinese dance. There are many studio where the Balinese kids learning to dance. They are scattered all over Bali. One that I would like to present here is Sudi Dancing School in Blahbatuh. Every afternoon boys and girls from 4 to 15 years old come to the house of Mr. Sudi. Mr. Sudi and his wife, Made, were both dancers. They call their home Sudi Dancing School. But it is not like a formal school where you see many children studying in class room. This is very informal way of learning. The idea to start this school, according to Mr. Sudi, more than ten years ago, was to prepare the Balinese local children so they can perform dancing at the temple ceremony at their village. That's the main reason. In Bali, there are three kind of dances: dance that dedicated for God or sacred dance, next the social dance, and the last is public performance dance. As you can see

Introducing the Bali Mandara Toll Bridge

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This morning I went to Nusa Dua from Denpasar.  I drive via the toll bridge. That will save me about 45 minutes. Instead of going for one hour drive, I could cut it into 10 minutes. If you are in Bali, you may want to use this toll bridge to save time whenever you go on tour provided that your hotel is located in Nusa Dua or Jimbaran.  If you stay in Kuta, Legian or Seminyak, there is no need to use this toll it does not connect to that places. Going on the toll, you can see quite beatiful scenery of the Benoa harbor and the mangroves along the toll. In certain area of the sea, you can see fisherman boats, and people going fishing on small boats. Maybe there is no time to capture that with your camera, because you can not stop. But this scenery is great alternative to the traffic jam you may encounter when you drive through the normal route. Besides Nusa Dua, one end of the toll bridge is the Ngurah Rai statue which is close the airport. This means if  you're just arri

Be Hive for Sale in Local Market

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Do you know that Balinese eat cooked bee hives? Have you this in your country? Cooked bee hives can be very tasty that many Balinese like eating them. In one occasion on a tour, I have a chance to take my clients to a local market in Denpasar in Kreneng village. It is a quite interesting market, because you can learn more about how the Balinese live. In the market, you will see people selling daily needs, such as fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and cakes. Going further into the market you will find different things, perhaps, than what you can get in your market at home. In a Bali market, you can find many  people who sell many different things. For example, one most interesting is people selling bee hives. Be hives are sold in the fish or vegetable section.  When I asked the seller, how much it was a kilogram of bee hive (at the time of I wrote this post), she said, “it’s eighty thousand rupiah or about USD 8”. So, how do Balinese you eat bee hives? No, the Balinese don’t eat the