PENANG BAY, BALI, INDONESIA

We arrived a the day before in the evening so we could see Bali in the distance with Mt. Batur in the distance. There were little fishing boats coming towards the ship to look us over.

The next morning, we decided to go into the town of Padang Bay. We had been to Bali before for one week and another time as a stop on a cruise so had pretty well seen everything we wanted to see so we thought we would walk around the town. It was already very very hot in the morning. As we approached the pier we could see the welcome sign and all the peddlers waiting to inundate us. As the tender stopped at the pier, a gentleman told us to be careful for the people will swarm you with goods to sell and you have to just keep walking. We forgot how bad it could be from the last time we were here, but as soon as we left the pier, the kids, adults and drivers swarmed us shoving their goods at us as we tried to walk. We decided to go to a restaurant to get away from them. They were not allowed inside and so we talked with the proprietor as the peddlers filtered away.

Bali is still suffering from a downturn in tourism. The bar owner said that cruise ships have started to come by but are still few in number. The poverty is quite noticeable but the children and the people are very happy. They are gracious and very friendly. As we walked around the town, we would ask the locals questions and they were so polite in answering and in speaking fairly good English.

There were many stray dogs walking around the town. Roosters in cages were crowing and cats were everywhere. The Balinese people practice Balinese Hinduism. That means that they make offerings to their shrines from 3 to 6 times a day. These offerings are made up of rice and food laid out on a lovely woven dish. The offerings are everywhere, including on the pavement infront of a shop. I accidentally walked ontop of two that ended up stuck to my shoe because the rice is sticky. The cats love to eat from the offerings and therefore live in the temples where allot of the offerings are laid out. The Balinese's big holiday was going to be today, and on this day, there would be offerings made everywhere. The ladies whom we took photos of were making all these woven dishes to hold the offerings. They were going to sell these for extra money.

There are no refrigerators in Bali and therefore all the food has to be bought every day. As you can see from the photo, a lady was selling her two fresh small chickens for food. The roosters are sold for cock fights which are held almost every day but are illegal. The winner gets the dead cock to take home and eat for dinner.

The shops are tiny, but the owners are friendly and kind. We bought a mask from the lovely couple in the photo who were happy to pose for the picture. On the way from this shop we ran into three boys yelling and playing in the alley and through motions, I asked to take their photos. They loved it and asked me to show their photo on my camera and giggled when they saw it. Then one boy approached Doug and rubbed his Buddha belly and laughed and laughed. They were so cute.

The people never leave the island because they are happy with the way things are even though they make so little money. They are very close to their family and community.

Unfortunately, we missed seeing the beautiful dancers at the pier but you get a glimpse of the ordinary Balinese in an ordinary small town. We did not go to the tourist section where all the big hotels are so this small bay gave a view of the normal Balinese way of life. It is a good life from the smiles we can see on their faces.