Museum and Beach time

Day 13

We have had a lot of time in Ubud with 2 full days and an evening and another morning to explore.  It feels like a lot more time than is necessary for what the area seems to have to offer.  We opted to do our own tour today and hire a driver for a day rather than take a taxi. 

grounds at the Bali museum

We headed back down to Denpasar as our plan was to visit the Hard Rock café for a pin for Terry and to see some of the sights along the way.  Our first stop was at the Bali Museum.  It was fairly small with 4 small buildings to tour around.  There were a lot of ceremonial knives and coins on display.  And some lovely grounds with a few couples getting wedding pictures done.  We were trapped in a courtyard for a few minutes waiting for them to finish up.  And of course the people trying to sell some of their junk to the tourists. 

fabric stores all along, on both sides!

The big markets in downtown Denpasar were close by so we took some time to check them out.  We found a street where all they sell is fabric.  There must have been at least 50 stalls all selling some sort of fabric, everything from lace to cottons to the black and white checked pattern they use for all the sacred statues.  Across the river was the handicrafts market.  It was 4 floors and each floor had their own specialty.  One was clothing and sarongs, one was statues and woodwork.  But it was all still the same items we have seen everywhere across the country. 

We had a nice lunch at the Hard Rock café.  It’s right across the street from Kuta beach so we opted for a beach stroll after lunch.  I was so disappointed.  It was the most touristy beach I’ve seen anywhere.  It seems that the locals drag their chairs down and claim space on the beach.  And then rent the space to the tourists.  It leaves little free space to settle down just on the sand yourself.  And it is a bit of a steep incline to get down to the beach and the waves were really high.  The other beaches we visited were so much nicer than this one.  But Kuta is the big party place in Bali.  This is where the bombing was in 2001.  It is filled with the big International chains, as they also have a Bubba Gumps, Mcdonald’s, and a Jamie Oliver restaurant. 

behind me is wall to wall people.  But this is the
postcard shot that you see everywhere

After the beach we met the driver at the one shopping mall, the Beachwalk.  It was a fairly busy place and filled with your typical American and UK stores.  It could have been West Ed Mall by the beach for all we knew.  They had a Lego store that felt like it was an outlet store with all the old products that haven’t been around for awhile.  They even had a Bath and Body works.  I’ve noticed recently that a new language has popped up on the bottles and I assumed it was Arabic but am wondering if it is actually Balinese.  Which does bear some resemblance as it doesn’t use the latin alphabet but doesn’t seem to be used very often. 

the roof of the mall had a lovely garden area

As this is our last night in Indonesia we are going for the traditional farewell dinner.  We were supposed to go for a fun meal over the rice field on floating tables but our group was too big and sitting at 2 tables was a deal breaker for some people in our group.  But it was a lovely meal nonetheless.