Dachs Thoughts

For our last sightseeing day we headed towards the southern tip of the island. Our first destination was a beautifully developed parkway and resort area, Nusa Dua, that accessed beaches and overlooks. We walked out onto Peninsula Island that had some nice paths and featured a reef with a Water Blow which gave some dramatic wave crashes.

Afterwards, we headed over and visited the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) statue and culture park. This hosts the tallest statue in Indonesia, which can be seen from many parts of the island. The statue features the divine bird Garuda that is the mount of Lord Vishnu. This is located in a large cultural park that is still under development. After riding up the hill and visiting the statue, we had lunch in one of the restaurants with a nice view of the surrounding countryside. Afterwards, we sat in on a traditional performance featuring some musicians and an actor performing a story. Some of our models got called up onto stage to participate in the performance.

After this, we went to the Pura Luhur Uluwatu Temple. We again had to put on sarongs or sashes before entering. This is a fairly large complex sitting high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. This is another location that is inhabited by monkeys and we were again warned that they are notorious for snatching things. This time it turned out to be warranted. They were kind of sneaky and sat around looking uninterested, then they would go for things. Humberto had his phone snatched, but the eventually managed to get it back after bribing the monkey with food. After walking around the temple grounds, we attended a Kecak Dance performance, where characters acted out a mythic story accompanied by a group of male chanters/dancers that was like a vocal orchestra. Very interesting. The play/dance ran through sunset, and we had a beautiful view from the stands of the sun setting over the ocean. After the performance, we headed home. Although my maps app showed it was only 7 miles away, again experiencing the crazy traffic in Bali, it took us more than 1 1/2 hours to get there.

All in all this was a very fun and interesting trip although after 10 days many of us were a bit exhausted. The following day, the penultimate of our trip, we pretty much spent the day relaxing and then near sunset we headed down to our nearby La Plancha beach for some final shots. After arriving back at home, we had a farewell dinner for our group that included a roast pig. The following day we all began our dispersal towards the airport for our long trips home.

After the first of our photo shoot days, our next sightseeing tour took us through central and northwest Bali. Our first destination was Ubud, sometimes referred to as the spiritual capital of Bali, but along the way we stopped by three local craft production sites. The first was a factory/shop where they produced Batik fabrics and garments, a handcrafted way of coloring and patterning fabrics. I bought a nice shirt as a souvenir. The other place we stopped at was a jewelry shop that had handcrafted gold and silver pieces. The last place we stopped was a shop where they produced beautiful hand carved wood pieces. I picked up one of these as a souvenir.

We finally got to Ubud where we visited the famous Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. We had been warned that they can try to steal things, but it was a very hot day and the monkeys we saw seemed fairly subdued. They seemed to be mostly indifferent to the people, as I’m sure they have tons of people looking at them every day. Although, the guides kept warning people not to look at them directly in the eyes. It was interesting to see their intelligence as they used tools, like stones, to smash up food items to eat. After the visit, we went to lunch at a place famous for crispy duck, and I had duck for the first time ever. The restaurant was nice and had a nice garden atmosphere.

After lunch, we headed north. Along the way we stopped in Tegalalang at a coffee shop, Uma Pakel, that featured ‘Agro Tourism and Swings’. On the coffee side they displayed the production of kopi luwak coffee, supposedly the most expensive coffee in the world where the beans are processed after being eaten by the Asian palm civit (luwak) and then separated from the animal’s waste products. I’m no coffee expert, but I figured I’d try a cup (it wasn’t expensive there), and it was ok, but didn’t jump out at me as the the greatest premium coffee in the world. The restaurant (like several in the area) sat on a cliff edge overlooking a valley, and they had installed swings, that our models tried out. It was a bit of a racket as they charged pretty steeply for each ride, and each photographer, and they also had long dresses you could borrow. One of the models described it as an Instagram factory. But it was a nice view.

Afterwards, we continued northwest and stopped in Kintamani, which is on the edge of the caldera of a volcano, and went to an overlook inside a restaurant where we had a beautiful view of the valley and the lake that was in the caldera, Lake Batur (Danau Batur). After that brief stop, we headed back south to a Hindu Balinese water temple, Tirta Empul. There were lots of beautifully carved statues and architecture. We were required to wear sarongs out of respect to the location. We spent some time there touring around and taking pictures. The only negative was that you were guided out of an exit that sent you into a maze of tourist souvenir stands. It reminded me a bit of the vampire stuff at Bran Castle, but they were much more aggressive. I made the mistake of stopping once, and ended up getting pressured to get a bunch of stuff. But it helps the local economy, so I can’t complain too much.

We finally made it back home after a long and interesting day and had a nice dinner at our villa. After dinner, Ayu, our local model performed a traditional Balinese dance for the group.

After gathering the group together and having a day to recuperate from our long travels, our first big excursion was to a UNESCO Heritage Site, the iconic Jatiluwih rice terraces located more-or-less in the center of the island, a couple of hours from where we were staying. This was our first experience of how insanely bad the traffic on Bali is, as it wasn’t that far geographically, but it took hours to get there. They are protecting this area as development has gobbled up much of this type of farming land in Bali. We took a nice hike down into the rice fields with our models and were able to make some nice pictures. Afterwards, we had lunch at a restaurant that overlooked to rice terraces.

After lunch, we drove not too far away to a relatively secluded Ye Hoo Waterfall (Air Terjun Yeh Hoo). It was a bit of a hike down the hill to get there, and it was quite beautiful. As we were secluded enough we were able to shoot some bikini and environmental shots with our models. We ended up with some classic images with bathing beauties in a nice waterfall.

One the way back towards our home, we took a different route to avoid some of the traffic and we traveled through some very traditional Balinese towns and were able to see the architecture and the local culture. At the last minute we made a change of plans, and rather than just heading home we went to capture some sunset shots at Pantai Nyanyi, a black sand beach on the southwest of Bali. I’ll blame my lack of sleep for my brain only semi-working, but even though I had brought a flash, I didn’t remember that and didn’t bring it down on the beach, so I primarily only got backlit shots. Nevertheless, it was nice to see the beautiful sunset and capture some interesting images. Afterwards, we headed for home.

In a year where I had been trying to pull-back a bit on traveling, in the last part of October 2023, I went on my longest trip ever and visited the south seas island of Bali in Indonesia. This trip to this rather exotic location was organized by my friend Humberto, an amazing photographer from Mexico who I have known from various UTadventure Yucatán tours, as well as from a wonderful tour through various historic Haciendas of Hidalgo México that he organized. I had never before traveled to southeast Asia, and I was surprised geographically and culturally by this island paradise.

From the time I left my house, it took about 31 hours of traveling to reach Bali. I flew from SFO through Taipei, Taiwan and then on to Bali. Bali is 15 hours ahead of my normal time zone, and I don’t think I ever really adjusted. One problem I had on the trip was insufficient sleep; but that’s typical for me on these long trips. One thing that surprised me was how close Indonesia (and Bali) are to the equator. In my mind it was much farther South. It is also quite close to Australia, and the Australians view it a bit like their equivalent of Hawaii. That’s why it’s good to travel, it helps you put some aspects of the world closer to reality. Indonesia consists of more than 17,000 islands and is a primarily Muslim country. But Bali is predominantly Hindu, and it is where most of the Hindus in Indonesia live. So that really colors the culture of the island.

I came in a few days before the official start of the tour, and when I arrived on the island I stayed at a hotel that was literally at the airport (I hadn’t quite realized that when I booked it). It turned out to be good as it was clean, comfortable and quiet and a good way to start the transition. A few days later we all started joining together in our base in Seminyak. We had two villas that were about a quarter mile apart. The whole group consisted of 11+/- people: we had 6 photographers, including myself, 3 of which I knew and 2 who were new to me, coming from the US and Mexico, and one of the photographers brought his wife; the trip was originally announced to have 3 models with some additional local models periodically added in — it turned out we had 4 wonderful models plus a local model for a number of shoots, coming from the US, Canada, Mexico, and Bali. I had previously worked with one of the models, Geraldine Haze from Mexico, but the others were new to me: Eleya and Spongegal from San Antonio, TX, Olivia Preston from Canada, and Balinese model Ayu.

The 10 day tour consisted of a mix of sightseeing trips to some cultural and geological highlights of the island interspersed with some focused opportunities to shoot with some of the models at several private villas. Some of the cultural / geographical highlights of the tour included:

• Jatiluwih — Rice Terraces (UNESCO Heritage Site)
• Yeh Hoo Waterfall
• Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud
• Overlook of Danau Batur, Volcano Crater lake
• Pura Tirta Empul Hindu Balinese Water Temple
• Nusa Dua Waterside Parkway
• Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) Statue/Culture Park
• Pura Luhur Uluwatu Temple

This was a wonderful trip, exposing unique aspects of culture and geography, as well as giving us numerous opportunities to shoot with some talented models. It left most of us exhausted at the end, but full of many memories.