Day 16—Jan-02—Bali Part 3

Last night, we sailed around the island of Bali to the north side, and redocked.  So, Theresa and I got to see the other side of the island.  The good thing is, since the Capital is on the south side, and the big city(s), the traffic was a little less up here. 

Lontar (palm leaves).

Our tour began with a tour of a museum/library of “lontar”.  Lontar are like books made from palm leaves, etched with a knife, and ink rubbed into the scratch.  Then the pages are strung together with a string.  They sort of look like mini blinds.  Some of them date back to the 14^th Century.

Boxes and boxes of lontar "books".

Each box holds up to a dozen lontar "books".

Sort of like an outdoor "throne room".

Moving right next door, we visited the palace of the royal family of Bali up until the revolt in 1949.  The palace was built in 1604, and frankly looked a bit like one of the temples.  Most of the spaces were outdoors on sort of porches.

I sort of get the idea of leaving food for the "gods".
But, I have to say, the C Cell battery and toothbrush...not getting that!

Noooo!!!  Don't jump!!  (Actually, another did.)

We went to another temple, this time a Chinese temple, dedicated to Confucism and Daoism.  The best part of it was two pools of water with a bunch of turtles climbing around and in and out of it.  One climbed up to the corner, then feel over onto the ground with a “Twack!!”, landing on his back.  He kicked and kicked, and righted himself, and then scurried (faster than expected!) across the floor.  He was pretty funny. 

Ahh!  There we are!  At the Bali Sea.

We boarded the bus and went to…yup…another temple.  By this point, I am quite tired of temples, and they are all starting to look the same.  The main difference between this one and the others is rain.  It was dedicated to the “Goddess of Rice and Irrigation” (sort of an odd combo…), so I guess it only made sense that it should rain on us there!

Back on board, we had just enough time to get up to the buffet for lunch, then started a load of laundry.  Theresa really seems to like doing laundry on this cruise.  Maybe I’ll oblige her and let her do more when we get home?

Anyway, we made it to a trivia challenge in the late afternoon, this one on “Pop Icons”, where they showed a picture and we had to guess who it was.  The answers ranged from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, to Margaret Thatcher and Pope Benedict XVI, and Madonna and Mr. Clean, and the Jolly Green Giant.  My favorite was Paul Bunyan…mostly because no one outside of the US seemed to have any idea who he was.  So, when our team got all 20 out of 20, someone came over to ask us who he was! 

During dinner, the Captain came over the PA to tell us all that we were pushing out, and would basically back ½ mile out of the bay then turn around, and start the (almost) 1000 nautical miles to Singapore.  So, we are leaving Indonesia (kind of glad).