Bali 16th &17th October
Bali is a province of Indonesia, east of Java and west of Lombok, and is the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. The provincial capital, Denpasar, is the most populous city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second-largest, in Eastern Indonesia. It is Indonesia's main tourist destination, with a significant rise in tourism since the 1980s. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of its economy. Bali is the only Hindu-majority (87% of the population) province in Indonesia. Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species, especially fish and turtles. (Precis'd from Wikipedia)
My general impression of the parts of Bali that I saw was of the densely populated urban sprawl of Denpasar with its beach close to the airport and left me wondering why anyone from Europe or Australia would travel to it for a "standard" holiday when there were are so many better options closer to home. But, on the other hand, I didn't see much of Bali.
My general impression of the parts of Bali that I saw was of the densely populated urban sprawl of Denpasar with its beach close to the airport and left me wondering why anyone from Europe or Australia would travel to it for a "standard" holiday when there were are so many better options closer to home. But, on the other hand, I didn't see much of Bali.
We had lunch at the Gong Jatiluwih restaurant set amongst rice fields and then visited a Bali Starling reintroduction scheme. This bird has recurrently become extinct in the wild due to collecting for the cage bird industry.
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7 of the 8 people on our tour had arrived in Denpasar a day or two early and we hired a guide to take us birding for the day. We spent the morning around Tabanan, about a 1hour drive from our hotel. First we visited the Puru Luhur Batukaru hindu temple, located on the southern slope of Mount Batukaru, Bali's second-highest volcano. |