Stunning Sunsets in Bali

My travel blogs are my movies. I share personal experiences and prefer not to share the usual stuff one finds when he googles.

Travelling is not just the matter of going somewhere other than your home and coming back as the same person. It is somehow a little more than that as it affects us in ways unexplainable. When one plans and travels on his own, he becomes a better, stronger, and more confident person — something I can personally resonate with. I keep on planning for 3-4 countries / destinations at any given point in time. When it came to Indonesia, I was never keen on visiting Bali. Bali has enchanted traveler’s and honeymoon couples. I always had an opinion that it’s an upgraded version of Goa. My opinion was going to change to a large extent. Bali is an island which has countless adventures packed into one small package. 

We started our trip from the southern side of Bali visiting Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park. The statue itself is so tall and huge that we saw it while our plane was landing in Denpasar. Whilst the title of this place is GWK cultural park, it didn’t seem that cultural. We paid IPD 125k each just to get in. Fortunately, there’s a big statue you can walk towards. There are a couple of smaller statues on the way as you walk between slabs of rock which they have cut through the hill to make the paths. When we went near the statue, it was impressively big (4^th largest in the world). We skipped the observation desk which comes at an additional fee. The good part is there were buggies available to take people around and so my parents were able to enjoy the park. I personally felt it was overpriced and in places the directions were not clear. A few hundred meters of walking in reverse direction can be a painful experience for senior citizens. The statues are good, the park is commercial, but still it’s a good outing.

Our next stop was Uluwatu temple which is one of the six key temples believed to be Bali's spiritual pillars. It is famous for its location, perched on top of a steep cliff. The temple is a small walk from the car parking lot. Sarong was mandatory before one enters the temple. I personally loved the location, and this is where I felt Bali has some content in it. The cliffs and the walkways are beautiful. I recollect similar location when I visited Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. In cliffs of Moher, one must sleep on the floor to look beneath. Over here there is no such need and one can enjoy the panoramic view standing. What I felt bad is people were busy taking too many photos/ reels for longtime and avoided the natural beauty which lied in front of their eyes. It’s a matter of debate, I know, but people spend so much time capturing memories thinking that they will bring them back and watch them ! Few photos are fine but with so much of digital waste been created do we even open those 100’s and 1000’s of pictures clicked later?

For the first time I saw something like Bali Instagram tour during my research on Klook. Bali Swing is an important part in this iternary. We went ahead with the instragram tour. I never go for such tours but I had not done a deep research on Bali as i said above (Bali had never really attracted me. The location of Bali Swing is beautiful, and my mother was keen when it came to Swing. Me and my dad enjoyed sipping our coffee. This place embodies the peer pressure created by Instagram/ Facebook that has taken over Bali, or atleast the part of the island. The swings are not as great as what they look like on photos.

Another part of the Instagram Park is Lempuyang temple wherein people wait for hours to get the famous mirrored pictured. The fact is there are just 500+ instagrammers waiting in a cue to get a fake picture at the gate, which has no water beneath, it's just an optical illusion one gets by paying some locals in the cue to take a picture with a mirror under your phone. We waited for 5 hours before our turn came (Our number was 265). Now, this is an interesting place wherein during the wait time one can observe interesting things. One will see couples practicing various poses, wife’s shouting on their husbands for not practicing sincerely, some people sleeping around before their turn comes up, some trying to bribe the photographer to jump the queue. People were practicing their 11 seconds perfect walk for an Instagram reel. I have never witnessed such a site wherein people from all ages waited for 5 hours to get a fake photo. My dad is witty. After his power nap was over we had fun observing what all people do to get that one perfect picture. I have requested my dad to write a small article on this chapter. I am sure he will the moment he gets time.

My Favorite place in Bali is Tanah Lot. I loved visiting the Tanah Lot temple from which one gets to see the finest sunsets. The sunset is so beautiful that one feels like going for that hand-in-hand 'romantic' walk over the cliff.  I recollect a quote from Crystal woods - “A sunset is the sun's fiery kiss to the night". I have been trying meditation but unable to do it for more than 5 mins.I still remember I was just looking at the beautiful Tanah Lot sunset for 20-25 mins continuously. Took a few pictures in the first 2-3 mins and then kept my phone away. 

Sunsets and sunrises always have some psychological effect on me. It makes me think, introspect, and unlearn a few things. I love the orange tinge which brightens the sky at Sunset. The rays seem friendly. I feel as if it’s a melodious symphony which keeps telling me that all that glitters will sooner or later get lost in the very same infinity in which we are looking at right now. It’s the time you spend with your loved one’s matter the most. People meet, destinies collide , what we don't realize is we were making memories for a lifetime to cherish.

A tickmarked quite a few places but the memories of Bali which will remain with me will be those beautiful sunsets, nature in its pristine form and a different type of peace one gets sitting in those temples and watching the Indian ocean. This is not a photoblog so can't post those beautiful pictures but next time if I visit Bali I will head straight for the beaches.