On the Wednesday, they sit down the conference for the day to observe a local holiday. Another odd thing about this event. As a result, we had another free day to check out the local scenery. I had mentioned my visit to the Uluwatu temple at the south end of the island, and Craig and Melinda were interested in checking it out.
We didn't wait until the end of the day, so there were no sunsets, but going during the day allowed us the see the ocean in it's full splendour.
The main temple, perched up on the cliffs.
After getting a bit of work done in the morning, we hired a driver and headed down to the temple. Where on my first visit the place was packed (I assume because it was sunset), this time it was pretty much deserted. Between the heat, and the draw of sunset, we could explore a little bit, without the crowds.
As you enter, the attendants remix you of the monkeys, which I didn't really take too seriously. We probably should have, as Melinda had her sunglasses taken right off her head, as she was taking some pictures, by one very bold monkey. Sadly, that was the end of the glasses, as the monkey preceded to chew on them, and break them.
While cute, the monkeys are quite aggressive, and can cause some damage.
We wandered the temple grounds for a couple of hours, taking pictures, admiring the view and enjoying the breeze coming off the ocean. It really is quite a beautiful place.
After exhausting our time at the temple, we had the drive take us back along the coast, and asked him to point out some other interesting places. He suggested that we go down to Padang Padang beach. To get down to the beach, you had to go down a number of flights of stairs, some of them cut through the rock itself. It was worth the trip down, as it opened up onto this tiny little beach, that was easily the nicest beach I was on in Bali.
The stairs down to the beach at times were very narrow, and cut right through the rock.
While small, this was probably the nicest beach I was on in Bali.
The small beach was pretty busy, and there was a pretty good break a ways off shore, allowing us to watch some surfing.
There were a number of houses along the top of the cliffs that had amazing views.
Sadly, none of us had thought to bring swim gear with us, so all we could do was enjoy the scenery for a little while, before making the long climb back up to the top. Our driver then took us to another place that he suggested, where we could see lots of "big statues". We were intrigued (as I say, the Balinese like their statues...) , and agreed to the next stop.
He took us to the Bali Cultural Center (or something similar), which was about half way between the beach and our hotel. We had driven by air a number of times, but didn't think much of it. True to the driver's word, the place had a number of really big statues.
There's no sense of scale, but this statue was a good 30 or 40 feet tall.
From what I could tell, the BCC was developed in an old quarry. As you can see, we're quite a ways below the normal surface level, and everything is cut in very straight lines. There were these huge statues scattered around; all in all, it was quite odd...
Another of the huge statues.
This one gives you a better sense of scale for the place.
I don't remember exactly how long we wandered around, but it was a while. After we were done, we had the driver thane us back to the hotel. I did a bit more work before we headed out for dinner in town, at one of the Indonesian restaurants along the main strip. The food was really good.
