On 17th April also the sleep was woken up around five o'clock in the morning. At this time in India it would be two and a half o'clock. Today also we started the day by drinking tea on the lawn in the rice fields. Since Putu was not to come today, we were more relaxed. Early in the morning I sat down with my laptop and tried to write down my travel experiences of the last three days. Around ten o'clock Madhu said that today we walk for a while on foot. So I, Vijay and Madhu started walking towards Pura Taman Ayun Temple.
Swastika and Ganesh at the main gate
The strange world of witches, demons and gods
Today we walked on the road which went through the middle of the village, not through the fields. We have seen that most of the houses have an idol of Ganesha installed just above the main entrance or there is a Swastika figure which is considered to be the symbol of Ganesha in India. See some temples on the way, outside which gatekeepers were built in the same way as the tradition is to be built in India.
The only difference was that in India, the gatekeepers are not given prominence, so they are not easily noticed, whereas in Bali, on both sides of the main entrance of the temple, human figures of the gatekeepers have been installed prominently, which have been painted in bright colors.
On the way to the Taman Ayun Temple, we suddenly saw a formidable female statue. This gigantic statue, about eight feet high, was mounted in the outer niche of the wall of a building. Our attention turned towards that building. It was an exhibition with seven to eight feet high statues of Balinese-style gods and goddesses and demons.
We were exhausted due to walking and did not dare to go inside. Now we had to return. So we asked Vijay to make a video of this exhibition. We will watch that video only. There was a ticket of twenty five thousand rupees to see this exhibition. When Vijay went to the exhibition house to make videos, Madhu and I sat outside the exhibition house.
We were stunned to see the unique world of witches, demons and deities in the video created by Vijay. There were statues depicting the episodes of Ramayana and Mahabharata, while there were also very beautiful statues of Shiva-Parvati, Shriram-Janaki etc. All the idols were in pure Balinese style. Their bodybuilding was different. Bright bright colors were painted on the idols. After viewing the exhibition we returned to our service apartment. The rest of the day was spent writing memoirs of the Bali trip.
From Bali Island to Java Island
On April 18, we were to depart from the island of Bali. Our flight was at 2.00 pm but we had called Putu only at 9.00 am. The distance of Denpasar airport from Mangvi i.e. the place where we were staying was about one and a half hours. From Denpasar we had to go to Yogyakarta which is located on the island of Java and is one of the major cities of Indonesia. It is also known as Jogjakarta and Jogja. The air distance from Bali to Yogyakarta is 502 kms. So it was a domestic flight of only 1 hour 10 minutes. As Bali time is one hour ahead of Yogyakarta. So when we left Bali at 2.00 pm and landed at Yogyakarta airport after traveling for 1 hour and 10 minutes, our clocks were 2.10.