Denpasar

We arrive in Denpasar late at night under the pouring rain. There are no buses to the city until 7 a.m. so we take a cab to our homestay. Right from the start we notice that there are no buildings in Denpasar and our driver tells us that it is forbiden in Bali to build a building more than 15m high. As we will see tomorrow, it gives a different look to this big city. We weren’t expecting that and we are really pleasantly surprised. When we reach our homestay, at the end of a small alley, there is no bell, no sign that we have arrived at the right place. The driver who wants to make sure we are welcomed in the homestay calls the manager. A woman comes to open. She is the manager’s wife and was not warned by her husband that we were coming tonight. In addition, her daughter was sick all evening, so she has many things on her mind. We manage to settle in nonetheless and just go out for a late dinner.

It rained all night but today a beautiful sun greets us in the morning. We have our first good look at the homestay. It’s charming! Côme and Julia head straight to the swimming pool while Doo sleeps in. Then we all go out for our first Balinese meal (yesterday night we ate some Italian food). It will be sticky mango rice for Côme and Julia and fried noodles for Doo. Everyone is enjoying their food. Then we decide to have a walk towards the beach. We didn’t think Denpasar would be as pleasant. There are small offerings everywhere in the streets, in front of every house, store, restaurant, and of course temple. In the offerings we see flowers, herbs, encents, biscuits, candies, rice and sometimes even coins and cigarettes.

In the shopping streets, there are massage salons and tatoo shops every 20 metres. You can have a Balinese massage for an hour for 7€. Côme discovers how tatoos are made watching someone getting tatooed. There are also many cafes and resaurants for tourists serving every type of food, local, western or asian. When we walk through residential streets, every house we see has an entrance with statues and a courtyard with a temple in the middle. Sometimes we are not even sure they are just houses. The vegetation is lush, it’s just beautiful! In the streets, the only honks we hear are taxi drivers “telling” us they are available.

We find a nice market where we buy “salak”. A strange looking fruit with a dragon scale skin. Côme enjoys it. We think it’s a bit bland but we enjoy watching women preparing the offerings. Then we finally hit the beach. It’s huge and there is barely anyone there. There’s a swing, warm water, nice waves and even someone with a pirate ship kite. Today, Côme’s school looks particularly nice and the French and math exercices are done on the sand.

In Denpasar, Côme:
Did not understand: why he loves mangos but does not like mango juice.
Learnt: that he could do his homework on the sand, writing numbers and the alphabet.
Loved: to jump the waves.

Julia:
Did not understand: why Balinese don’t get rid of three zeros in their rupees (1€ = 15 000 R)
Learnt: that dragon scale fruits were called salak and that they were better to eat than to look at.
Loved: finding Tiare flowers everywhere.

Doo:
Did not understand: why there were that many tatoo shops.
Learnt: how to say thank you (Tarimakasi)
Loved: to see offerings everywhere.