Seminyak

Seminyak is a mixed tourist / residential area on the west coast of Bali just north of Kuta and Legian. Originally a separate township, this is now just another suburb of Kuta. This area is very popular with resident expatriates and land and accommodation prices are amongst the highest in Bali. Plenty of luxury spas and hotels abound. Owing to its high density of high end shopping, combined with the clustering of many fine eating establishments, it has rapidly become one of the most well known tourist areas on the island.
Other well know areas popular with tourists include Ubud, Sanur, Nusa Dua, Jimbaran , and the Bukit Peninsula.
In addition to a few commercial strips with popular and lively restaurants, bars, and good crafts/furniture shops, there are a few notable establishments: Ku De Ta, which is a fancy (but reasonable) restaurant with a cult following based on its beach side/semi-resort atmosphere, and Oberoi, which is an expensive hotel ($400-800/night) with a worldwide reputation. La Lucciola is a restaurant located in the north of Seminyak on the beach and has been in existence for over a decade.
Jalan Raya Seminyak (more often referred to as Jalan Legian) bisects the district and acts as its main road artery.

Seeing Kuta

Kuta is a town in southern Bali, Indonesia. A former fishing village, it was one of the first towns on Bali to see substantial tourist development, and as a beach resort remains one of Indonesia's major tourist destinations. It is known internationally for its long sandy beach, varied accommodation, many restaurants and bars, and substantial Australian population. It is located near Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport.

Kuta is now the center of an extensive tourist-oriented urban area that merges into the neighboring towns. Legian, to the north, is the commercial hub of Kuta and the site of many restaurants and entertainment spots. Most of the area's big beachfront hotels are in the southern section of Tuban.
Legian and Seminyak are northern extensions of Kuta along Jl. Legian and Jl. Basangkasa. They are somewhat quieter suburbs with cottage-style accommodations, where many of the expat crowd live. Also to the north are Petitenget, Berawa, Canggu, and Seseh - new and quieter continuations of Kuta's beach. They are easy to reach through Abian Timbul or Denpasar and Kerobokan. Several large hotels are located in this area: the Oberoi Bali, Hard Rock Hotel Bali, the Intan Bali Village, the Legian in Petitenget, the Dewata Beach and the Bali Sani Suites in Berawa.
To the south, Kuta Beach extends beyond the airport into Jimbaran.
The Balinese Provincial Government have taken the view that the preservation of the Balinese culture, natural resources and wildlife are of primary importance in the development of the island. To this end they have limited tourist development to the peninsula on the extreme southern aspect of the island; Kuta beach is on the western side of this peninsula and Sanur is on the east. To the north of the peninsula no new tourist development is supposedly permitted.

Consulate in Bali

Australian Consulate General Bali (Incl. Canada , New Zealand )
Jl. Kapten Tantular, No. 32, Renon, Denpasar, Bali. Telephone: 241 118. Fax: 221 195 (DFAT), 241 120 (DIAC)

Royal Danish & Norwegian Honorary
Mimpi Resort Hotel Jimbaran, Ph. 0361-701070 ext.32, Fax. 0361-701 073/4

Honarary Consulate of The Szech Republic
Jl.Pengembak 17 Sanur, Denpasar Ph. 0361 286 465, Fax 0361-286408

Consulate Agency France
Jl. Merta Sari Gang II No.8 Sanur, Denpasar, Ph.0361-285485, Fax.0361-284046

Honorary Consulate of The Federal Republic of Germany
Jl. Pantai karang 17 Sanur, PO Box 3100 Denpasar 80228, Ph.0361-288 535, Fax0361-288826

Honorary Consulate of The Republic of Hungary
Jl.By Pass Ngurah Rai no.219 Sanur, Ph. 0361-287701, Fax 0361-735232

Consulate Italy
Lotus Enterprise Building Jl.By Pass Ngurah Rai Jimbaran, Nusa Dua, Ph/Fax.0361-701005

Honorary Consulate of Mexico, Puri Astina Putra Building
Jl.Moh Yamin 1 A Renon – Denpasar Po Box 3150 Denpasar, Ph 0361-223266, Fax 0361- 244 568

Honorary Consulate of The Netherland
Jl. Raya Kuta 127 Kuta 80361, Po Box 3337 Denpasar 81001 , Ph. 0361-761506, fax. 0361-752777/757.586

Honorary Consulate of Spain
Komplek Istana Kuta Galeria Blok Vallet 2 no 11, Jl.Patih Jelantik, Kuta Bali, Ph. 0361-769286, Fax.0361-769 186

Honorary Consulate of USA
Jl.Hayam Wuruk 310 Denpasar 80235, Ph.0361-233605. Fax. 0361-222426

Consulate General of Japan
Jl. Raya Puputan No.170 Renon Po Box 3432 Denpasar, Ph. 0361-227 628, Fax.0361-265 066

British Honorary Consulate
Jl.Tirta Nadi No 20 Sanur, Ph. 0361-270601, Fax.0361-287 804

Swiss and Austria Consulate
Jl.Patih Jelantik Kompleks Istana Kuta Galeria Blok Valet 2 No 12 Kuta, Ph 0361-751 735, fax. 0361-754-457

Honorary Consulate Brazil
JL.Legian 186, Badung; Ph. 0361-751 005

Honorary Consulate Thailand
Jl.Raya Puputan Renon No 81 Denpasar- Bali, Ph. 0361-263310, Fax 0361-238044

India Cultural Centre (Embassy of India, Jakarta )
Jl.Raya Puputan Renon No 42-44 Denpasar- Bali , Ph. 0361-241987, Fax. 0361-241980

Honorary Consulate of Sweden & Finland
C/O Hotel Segera Village , Jl.Segara Ayu Sanur, Ph. 0361-282 223, Fax. 282 211

Honorary Consulate of Malaysia
Jl.Pantai Kuta, Legian, Ph.0361-752 520, Fax 0361-766 373

Honorary Consulate of Chile
Jl. Pengembak gang I No 3 Sanur- Bali Ph. 0361-75681/281503, Fax.0361-756783, Hp. 081 139 4045

Galungan

Galungan is a Balinese holiday that occurs every 210 days and lasts for 10 days. Kuningan is the last day of the holiday. Galungan means "When the Dharma is winning." During this holiday the Balinese gods visit the Earth and leave on Kuningan.

Occurring once in every 210 days in the pawukon (Balinese cycle of days), Galungan marks the beginning of the most important recurring religious ceremony that is celebrated by all Balinese. During the Galungan period the deified ancestors of the family descend to their former homes. They must be suitably entertained and welcomed, and prayers and offerings must be made for them. Those families who have ancestors that have not yet been cremated, but are still buried in the village cemetery, must make offerings at the graves.

Although Galungan falls on a Wednesday, most Balinese will begin their Galungan 'holiday' the day before, where the family is seen to be busily preparing offerings and cooking for the next day. While the women of the household have been busy for days before creating beautifully woven 'banten' (offerings made from young coconut fronds), the men of our village usually wake up well before dawn to join with their neighbours to slaughter a pig unlucky enough to be chosen to help celebrate this occasion. Then the finely diced pork is mashed to a pulp with a grinding stone, and moulded onto sate sticks that have been already prepared by whittling small sticks of bamboo. Chickens may also be chosen from the collection of free-range chickens that roam around the house compound. Delicate combinations of various vegetables, herbs and spices are also prepared by the men to make up a selection of 'lawar' dishes. While much of this cooking is for use in the offerings to be made at the family temple, by mid-morning, once all the cooking is done, it is time for the first of a series of satisfying feasts from what has been prepared. While the women continue to be kept busy with the preparations of the many offerings to be made at the family temple on the day of Galungan, the men also have another job to do this day, once the cooking is finished. A long bamboo pole, or 'penjor', is made to decorate the entrance to the family compound. By late Tuesday afternoon all over Bali the visitor can see these decorative poles creating a very festive atmosphere in the street.

On Wednesday, the day of Galungan, one will find that most Balinese will try to return to their own ancestral home at some stage during the day, even if they work in another part of the island. This is a very special day for families, where offerings are made to God and to the family ancestors who have come back to rest at this time in their family temple. As well as the family temple, visits are made to the village temple with offerings as well, and to the homes of other families who may have helped the family in some way over the past six months.

The day after Galungan is a time for a holiday, visiting friends, maybe taking the opportunity to head for the mountains for a picnic. Everyone is still seen to be in their 'Sunday best' as they take to the streets to enjoy the festive spirit that Galungan brings to Bali.

The date for Galungan and other special Balinese days is shown on the Balinese Calendar.

Kecak

Kecak (pronounced: "KEH-chahk", alternate spellings: Ketjak, Ketjack, and Ketiak), a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where monkeys help Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

In the 1930s Wayan Limbak worked with German painter Walter Spies to create the Kecak from movements and themes in the traditional sanghyang exorcism ritual and the portions of the Ramayana. This collaboration between artists worked to create a dance that was both authentic to Balinese traditions but also palatable to Western tourist's narrow tastes at the time. Wayan Limbak popularized the dance by travelling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.

Bali Kite Festival

The Bali Kite Festival is an annual international kite festival held in July in Padang Galak area, Sanur Beach, Bali. Traditional giant kites (4 meters in width and almost 10 meters in length) are made and flown competitively by teams from the villages (banjar) of Denpasar. The event is a seasonal religious festival intended to send a message to the Hindu Gods to create abundant crops and harvests.

Bebean (fish-shaped), Janggan (bird-shaped) and Pecukan (leaf-shaped) are three traditional kites flown during this kite festival. The kites are flown by teams of 10 or more adult kitefliers. The Bebean is the largest kite, and looks like a broad-mouthed, split-tailed fish. The Janggan form has a broad flowing cloth tail that can reach more than 100 meters in length. The Pecukan requires the most skill to fly, as its unstable form often tumbles towards the ground. Red, white and black are traditional colours used in the kite's designs. Each type of traditional kite has its own competition, with heats of 10 teams vying for the best launch and longest flight. Sometimes the kites come down over the adjacent rice paddies, and the team members have to dash through the paddy to rescue the kite before it lands in the water.

A competition is also held for 'New Creation' kites which may include detailed three dimensional figures representing the Hindu Gods or sponsorship kites. Traditional and new creation kites are constructed from bamboo and cotton cloth.

In the dry season of June through August, the winds blow continually from east to west in most of Indonesia. Balinese children and adults fly kites in the vacant rice paddies during this period.

A gamelan orchestra plays music throughout the festival. The festival attracts many tourists and international kitefliers, along with many local spectators.

Nyepi

Nyepi is a Balinese "Day of Silence" that falls on Bali's Lunar New Year (March 7, 2008). It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation.

Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are: no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali’s usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes. The only people to be seen outdoors are the Pecalang, traditional security men who patrol the streets to ensure the prohibitions are being followed.


Although Nyepi is primarily a Hindu holiday, non-Hindu residents of Bali observe the day of silence as well, out of respect for their fellow citizens. Even tourists are not exempt; although free to do as they wish inside their hotels, no one is allowed onto the beaches or streets, and the only airport in Bali remains closed for the entire day. The only exceptions granted are for emergency vehicles carrying those with life-threatening conditions and women about to give birth.

On the day after Nyepi, known as Ngembak Geni, social activity picks up again quickly, as families and friends gather to ask forgiveness from one another, and to perform certain religious rituals together.

First, The Melasti Ritual is performed at the 3-4 previous day. It is dedicated to Sanghyang Widhi/Vishnu-Devas-Bataras and is performed at the beach to respect them as the owner of The Land and Sea.
Second, The Bhuta Yajna Ritual is performed in order to vanquish the negative elements and create balance with God, Mankind, and Nature.
Third, The Nyepi Rituals is performed with the following conditions:
Amati Geni: No fire/light
Amati Karya: No working
Amati Lelunganan: No traveling
Amati Lelanguan: Fasting
Fourth, The Yoga/Brata Ritual starts at 6:00 AM March 19 and continues to 6:00 AM March 20 (24 hours, dates provided are for 2007).
Fifth, The Ngebak Agni/Labuh Brata Ritual is performed for all Hindu's to forgive each other and to welcome the new days to come.
Sixth and finally, The Dharma Shanti Rituals is performed as the Nyepi Day or "Day of Silence."

Balinese Art's

Balinese art is art of Hindu-Javanese origin that grew from the work of artisans of the Majapahit Kingdom, with their expansion to Bali in the late 13th century. Since then, Ubud and its neighboring villages have been the center of Balinese art. Ubud and Batuan are known for their paintings, Mas for their woodcarvings, Celuk for gold and silver smiths, and Batubulan for their stone carvings.
Prior to 1920s, Balinese traditional paintings were restricted to what is now known as the Kamasan or Wayang style. It is a visual narrative of Hindu-Javanese epics: the Ramayana and Mahabharata. These two-dimensional drawings are traditionally drawn on cloth or bark paper (Ulantaga paper) with natural dyes. The coloring is limited to available natural dyes: red, ochre, black, etc. In addition, the rendering of the figures and ornamentations must follow strictly prescribed rules, since they are mostly produced for religious articles and temple hangings. These paintings are produced collaboratively, and therefore mostly anonymously.

In the 1920s, with the arrival of many western artists, Bali became an artist enclave (as Tahiti was for Paul Gauguin) for avant-garde artists such as Walter Spies (German), Rudolf Bonnet (Dutch), Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur (Belgian), Arie Smit (Dutch) and Donald Friend (Australian) in more recent years. Bali has also attracted world famous anthropologists, from Stutterheim (Dutch) to Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (American).

On his first visit to Bali in 1930, the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias noted that local paintings served primarily religious or ceremonial functions. They were used as decorative cloths to be hung in temples and important houses, or as calendars to determine children's horoscopes. Yet within a few years, he found the art form had undergone a "liberating revolution." Where they had once been severely restricted by subject (mainly episodes from Hindu mythology) and style, Balinese artists began to produce scenes from rural life. What's more, these painters developed increasing individuality.

This groundbreaking period of creativity reached a peak in the late 1930s. A stream of famous visitors, including Charlie Chaplin and the anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, encouraged the talented locals to create highly original works. During their stay in Bali in mid 1930s, Bateson and Mead collected over 2000 paintings, predominantly from the village of Batuan.

Among western artists, Spies and Bonnet are often credited for the modernization of traditional Balinese paintings. They provided painting media and introduced western painting concepts, such as western perspectives and techniques concerning picture and color composition and human anatomy. More importantly, they acted as agents of change by encouraging individual freedom of expression, and promoted departures from the confining traditional Balinese painting traditions. The result was an explosion of individual expression that lead to the birth of the neo-traditional Balinese painting. The Ubud painters particularly embraced it with courage and enthusiasm. This modernization took the forms of: (1) the shifting of the choice of subject matter from the narration of religious epics to the depiction of daily Bali life and drama; (2) the change of the patron of these artists from the religious temples and royal houses to western tourists/collectors; (3) shifting the picture composition from multiple to single focus. The latter is most evident in the works of Ubud artists.

Despite the adoption of modern western painting traditions by many Balinese and Indonesian painters, the neo-traditional Balinese painting tradition is still thriving and continues by descedents/students of the artists of the pre-war modernist era (1928-1942). The schools of neo-traditional Balinese painting include: Ubud, Batuan, Sanur, Young Artist and Keliki schools of painting.

Bali Barat National Park

Bali Barat National Park is located on the north western side of Bali, Indonesia. The park covers around 770 km², which is approximately 10% of Bali’s total land area. To the north, it includes 1,000 m long beach, reef and islets. A seaport at Gilimanuk is west of the park and a village named Goris is to the east. The Bali Barat National Park can be reached by roads from Gilimanuk and Singaraja, or by using ferries from Ketapang, Java.

There are several habitats in Bali Barat National Park, a savanna, mangroves, montane and mixed-monsoon forests, and coral islands. The center of the park is dominated by remnants of four volcanic mountains from Pleistocene era, with gunung Patas (1,412 m) as its highest elevation.

Some 160 species can be found inside the park, including the Banteng, Barn Swallow, Black-naped Oriole, Black Racket-tailed Treepie, Crested Serpent-eagle, Crested Treeswift, Dollarbird, Hawksbill Turtle, Indian Muntjac, Java Sparrow, Javan Lutung, Large Flying Fox, Leopard Cat, Lesser Adjutant, Long-tailed Shrike, Milky Stork, Pacific Swallow, Red-rumped Swallow, Rusa Deer, Sacred Kingfisher, Savanna Nightjar, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Water Monitor, Wild Boar, Yellow-vented Bulbul and the critically endangered Bali Starling.

There are also several endangered flora species in this national park, such as: Pterospermum diversifolium, Antidesma bunius, Langerstroemia speciosa, Steleochocarpus burahol, Santalum album, Aleuritas moluccana, Sterculia foetida, Schleichera oleosa, Dipterocarpus hasseltii, Garcinia dulcis, Alstonia scolaris, Manilkara kauki, Dalbergia latifolia and Cassia fistula.