Bali Tour Guide

Interview with the Uluwatu Monkey: Me: What do you think of the sun set in this place. Monkey: the sun set is always beautiful to see. But don't expect to see it everyday. Mind you, though it beautiful just as people think, we don't really care about it. We just care about food. We like fruits, peanut, sweet potato, cucumber, mineral water, coke and anything tourist bring here. Me: Okay, sounds interesting. So, basically, you are here for the food? Monkey: Of course. We have a lot of food supply as long as tourist coming. Me: Pardon me, is that a sunblock in your hand? Monkey: Yes, it is. Me: That's for blocking the sun shine to get into you eyes, I presume. Monkey: Of course not, you idiot. Pardon my language because we used to use harsh language with other fellow monkeys. That shows our intimacy. Anyway, this sun block I got from snatching a tourist who came here just now. You see, this is how we get our delicious food. We steal people property, but we don't inten...

Touring to Kintamani , just after Tegalalang, you can visit the holy spring Sebatu temple. You will notice that in one of the spring pond, there are coins scatered on its bottom.At first, I wonder why people put there since in our culture, it is not common to throw coins to the pond. Then I found out that they put the coins because they think this is like a "wishing well". You throw coin, say your wish, and if you are lucky your wish maybe granted. (Try wishing Nintendo Wii, I wouldn't mind to have one.) But it is not a "wishing well". It is a holy spring pond. Legend says it was created by Lord Visnu to cure the wounded people during the war against Maya Denawa (an evil king). Some Bali drivers or tour guides create stories to make it more interesting for the tourists that if they throw coins they will get your wish granted.( This is for fun only.) So, if you visit this temple, please donate to the temple directly instead of throwing your coins into the pond.

I met Mr Garcia, from Mexico, who told me about his experience just when he got out of the plane when arriving in Bali. He and his wife was looking for his luggage but coould not see them at the airport. They look for their luggage around the airport for about half an hour but still could not find them. Finally, they see this group of people (porters) standing in circle. They were there all the time, but Mr. Garcia did not pay attention to them, until they saw that their bags were behind those porters. "Look, there is our bags." Mrs. Garcia said as they realised that their bags were hidden behind those porters. That's why they could not find their bags all this time. When they try to take their luggage, those porters said, "No, no, no" "We carry your bags." "No, it's okay, we can carry them ourselves." Mr. Garcia said. "No, no, no, we carry." The porters insisted to bring their bags outside into the parking area.. And when they ...

A friend of mine, Dar, a Bali tour guide, thought he could "summon" the monkeys at monkey forests any time he needed just by shouting loudly. Well, he is surely right about calling the monkey but he forgot something else. He was no Tarzan. And the monkeys didn't like people shouting at them disturbing their privacy. So, Dar was going to get a surprise he would never forget for all his mortal life. This is a story about my friend who took a client to a monkey forest somewhere north Denpasar, Bali on one afternoon. Dar's client was a very important client because he owned a travel agent in US. Therefore, my friend was on special mission to give the best service in order to impress this VIP client. "Make the client happy," his boss reminded,"we count on you." The client was happy touring around Bali, admiring the rice fields, beautiful temples and the friendliness of the Balinese. At midday Dar took the VIP client to the Kedaton monkey forest. They we...

As you step your feet in our island, you'll soon notice that we have different traffic "road rules" with those European or American countries. Some of the rules may appear strange to you. And here are some of the "rules" you will observe in the tiny streets in Bali. Beeping "rules". People seems to beep a lot more here. A driver beeps when asking other driver to give way to him, so he can drive through. A driver also beeps when saying hello to a friend he meets in the street or offers transport service to tourists. Hazard lamp "rule" for cross road. The hazard lamps are lit when going straight in a cross road. Maybe the logic is that when turning right or left, we have to light either right or left sign lamp. So, if going straight, both lamp; left and right, should be lit. "Rules" for crossing the road "Zebra crossing" for pedestrians. Cars will not stop at zebra crossing, even though you have stepped your feet on the zebr...

A house in Bali has no dining room. Why is that? Where do they eat? Those are the questions in your mind. Before we talk about it, we need to see how a Bali house is built. The house in Bali is built based on a concept of "mountain-ocean" line. The lay out of the building must follow the idea or believe that the direction toward the mountain is sacred but the direction toward the sea is less sacred. The mountain is considered sacred because it is the highest point or closest part to the heaven. Meaning that the higher the place, the more sacred it is. This is the reason why the sacred building, such as family temple, is located somewhere in the northern part of the house for people who live south of the mountains. Less sacred part, like kitchen and toilet, is in the direction toward the sea. For Balinese who live in south Bali, south of the mountains, the house will consist of: building for the parents and family temple which is located in the north. Special building for cer...

If you buy something in Bali in most shops and markets, you need to bargain. Bargaining can be difficult if you are not used to it. Some of the people that I talked to told me it is quite embarrassing to bargain, because they rarely, if not never, do it in their life. In Bali the sellers expect you to bargain when you want to buy something. If you don’t bargain, you might pay too much for something you buy. So, how do you bargain? When you walk accross a shop, let say a T shirts shop, the seller often shout loudly to you in their Balinese accent, "Come ya, just have a look. Not buying is okay." You walk in and see something you like and take it. You try it and the seller give a price. Tell the seller that the price is too expensive, shake your head, and give the T-shirt back to the seller. Then the seller will lower the price or ask you to name your price. Normally, people bargain fifty percent of what the price is offered. Let say, the price is 10 bucks, then you bargain 5 b...

In earlier post, I have written about Balinese like drinking coffee or tea in the morning, at noon, or even in the evening. More people drink coffee to tea or milk. And usually when we drink coffee we have something else with it, be it Bali cakes that you can buy at the local markets or just boiled sweet potatoes as you see in the pictures. Those potatoes as the their name suggest, taste sweet. There are several kinds of sweet potatoes grown in Bali. The most common one is the white sweet potatoes with pink skin. There are also orange potatoes and purple potatoes. What you see in my photo are the white and orange ones. Balinese drink coffee and have snack at their leisure time. During the heat of the day, they sit at a pavilion called Bale Bengong or Sikepat chatting with their friends and families. People can also have snacks and coffee at their rest in between works, for example, farmers resting in the midday before resuming planting rice at their rice field. In every occasion there ...

The answer you get of this question may vary if you ask different people. The priest may say, yes it is. But many Balinese, although they are Hindu, consume beef. And people in Bali breed cows for meat. You will not see cow wander in the streets, because they are just cattle. Some people don't eat beef because they think they should not eat beef because they think it is a sacred animal. They say they will have a headache if they do so. Well, may be because of the cholesterol or some thing like that. And another thing, we don't consume cow milk or any other milk in the past. We just recently do this, because it is been advertised a lot in the media, that milk is healthy for our body. But many of the older generations, many of our parents or grand parents don't fancy milk. They don't drink milk, they'd rather drink coffee than drinking milk. I can understand that, because milk taste awful sometimes. Oh, did I mention that our cow doesn't produce any milk? Their mi...

Almost every time I met tourist from UK, US or Australia, I asked them the question, "What do you like best about Bali?" And although I got various answers like: the weather, the food, or the Bintang beer (you definitely should try this), the surf, and the shopping, but most of the time the answer I got is " the Balinese people ". Why I asked? This time I got similar answers from them. Because the Balinese people are so friendly, always smiling and always happy. That's the answer I got. Maybe you have question in your mind, where ever you go in Bali you will always meet friendly and happy Balinese, how can it be? This is the next question that I got from them. I am going to try to answer this question from an "insider" point of view, as a Balinese myself. Hold on a sec! Here is a disclaimer: I am talking about the Balinese people in general. There are always exception, you'll meet some "not nice" Balinese, especially when we drive car or ...

Do you know Bali well enough that you've tried this food before? The food that I am talking about here is called lawar. It is made of mixture of spices and sliced and minced pork. But there is another special ingredient that is going to blow your mind; it is raw pig blood. Lawar is a special food for Balinese. People make lawar on special occasion like holy day or temple festival. (There is a Holy Day coming next week called Galungan, I will write about it in a few days). It can also be found at wedding feast, or tooth filling ceremony. You can buy lawar at food stall all over Bali, especially those selling suckling pig. Is it really raw blood? Before we go on to that discussion, let see what are the ingredients needed to make lawar. First, we need a complete combination of spices (called Basa genep ). The Basa Genep consists of onion, garlic, pepper, turmeric, chili, salt, ketumbar (I'll have to check the English translation later), fried onion, shrimp paste, and ginge...

Balinese don't have first name and second name. That's the truth. Instead, we have a kind of numbering system. (I feel funny talking about this). Well, the Balinese name consist of two parts, the first part is number or the part that tells us what number is s/he in the family. What I mean, is the child the first born or the second, the third or the fourth? The next part of our name is our real name. As for the numbering, there are four types: Putu, Wayan, Gede, Luh is for the first son or daughter. Made, Nengah, Kadek is for the second child. Komang, Nyoman is the third Ketut is for the last child If there is the fifth child, then s/he will be named like the first born. Ok, I know you are a bit confused. Let me give you an example. Let say, you meet a guy whose name is Putu Arnawa. You know that he is the first born in the family because of the word Putu. And Arnawa is the real name, to differenciate him with hundred thousands of Putus around Bali. So, it is easy, isn't it?...

What is it like? English with Balinese accent? If you've been in Bali or live in Bali, you know what I mean. There are some English sounds that we don't have or normally use in our every day language. What happen is that we usually substitute those English sounds with the closest sounds in Balinese similar to the English sound. So, what are those sounds? Well, we rarely, if not never, use these sounds in our language: "th" as in the or there is replaced with the sound "d" (we say "de" instead of "the"), or worse "ts" (tsing instead of think) "sh" as in shout is simply "s". "ch" as in chair us substituted by "tj" "v" as in variety is just "b" "f" as in felicity is "p" "z" as zen sometimes heard as "j". It is very true, then, English is a very difficult language to learn fo us. It is a struggle for most of Balinese to say the word ...

Do you talk to your cat or to your dog? What do you say to them? Do you say” Cat, I had a bad day at work today...” ? Balinese don’t really talk to their pets. I must say, most of us, don’t talk to animal in that fashion. The Balinese only say, “Sit, Go Out, or Eat, or Scram,” to their dogs or cats. But we have different attitude to cattle. There is even a holy day for them. This special day takes place every 210 days. The day is called Tumpek Kandang. On Tumpek Kandang day, the Balinese make offerings (I will talk more about offering in later post) to animal, especially their cattle, chicken, cows, or buffaloes. This is day when we say to the animal or hope for them to grow well or stay healthy. In a sense, this is not really talking to animal, rather it is a prayer to the God for the well being of animal. Nowadays, many Balinese has become aware so that they care for their pets and treat them as their friend. Many Balinese men like to have birds as pets. Yes, they talk t...

Here is a sign board somewhere in Lovina (North Bali) that you may think consist of funny PSA (public service ads). The intended meaning was actually "avoid using drugs or narcotics". And what do you see here?

Do you have any question about Bali? Well, here are some questions asked to me by tourist when I did the tour in Bali. Where is the most dangerous place to cross the streets in Bali? The zebra crossing. Most Balinese will not stop in the zebra crossing unless it is located in the traffic light, and the red light is on. So, don't try crossing the street because the zebra crossing is there, but look around, if the coast is clear you can cross the street. I see there are many yellow liquid in bottles for sale by the street. Are they some kind of beer? Nope. They are petrol. You can buy petrol in petrol station and resell it for profit in bottles. How many people are allowed on a motor bike? I don't know. Maybe five. Son at the front, next father, then little sister, and last mother with baby in her hand. I don't count the puppy the son holds. Why is there a black and white checkered cloth around statues or big trees? The statues are actually shrines, not merely statues. The cl...

When you walk in the streets of Bali , you probably will encounter people that greet you with, “Hello, Sir/Madam, where are you going?” This question may seem very strange, because you don’t know those persons, yet they ask a personal question. You are perplexed, you don’t what to say and think why these people want to know where you are going? What is their business asking the question? There is nothing wrong with this question and the people you meet. This is because in Bali when we meet friends, we usually say in Balinese” kija?” which means where. Or where you going? We don’t say “how are you today?” but rather “where are you going?”. I don’t know why we do this, but maybe to show that we are interested in other people or care about them (well, in a different way). That’s the case, we just want to show our friend that we care, because we don’t really expect an exact answer. We don’t expect people to say, “I am going to X.” or “I am going to go to Kuta because I want to meet someb...

I was on tour yesterday to a place called to Kintamani. It is where you can see beautiful 1717 meter high mount Batur as well as lake Batur that lies at its bottom. On the way to Kintamani, we stopped in a fruit stall because one of the tourist wanted to know a kind of fruit called durian. Do you know this fruit? This fruit has caused me to think and ask my self question I never can answer.  Durian is a fruit is a popular fruit in Bali or Indonesia. It is also popular other asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore or Hongkong. It "tastes" delicious. But you can not eat much durian since it can raise your body temperature. Well, you can't have fever having durian, just kind of unpleasant feeling. But still it is one of popular fruit in Bali. I think about ninety percent of the population like durian. So, that's why you will find its price is higher than any other local fruit. What's Durian look like? Well, it is about the size of melon and has spikes aroun...