Waking
up to a minor case of Bali Belly, the day was already off to a rough start.
Unfortunately our friend Greg was departing us and had to catch an early taxi
back to Denpesar airport, so we said our goodbyes and planned to take it easy
for the rest of the morning. We hoped to be feeling better because we wanted to
moto around the area with Wayan in the afternoon. By 12:00pm, we both were
feeling up to it, and we were gone.
Our
first stop, about 45 minutes away was a royal water park named Taman
Tirtagangga, meaning “Water of the Ganges”. It was built in 1948 by the last
Raja of Karangasem, Anak Agung Anglurah ketut Karangasem (say that 5 times
fast) and was modeled after Versailles Palace in France.
The park is fed by
natural springs channeled out of the many statues and fountains and people swim
in the pools during the day.
Siobhan
quickly made some friends that continued to follow her the entire time as long
as she was in eyesight.
As we left the palace, we stopped at a fruit stand and Siobhan fell in love with her new favorite fruit, Mangosteen!
After
Tirtagangga, we followed Wayan to the same former King’s palace, Puri Agung
Karangasem. It was built at the end of the 19th century by his
father, Anak Agung Agung Gede Jelantik, the first stedeholder in Bali for the
Dutch Regime.
The
Palace is broken into three sections. The first, called the Bencingah, a
compound of rooms reserved for the King’s special invited guests.
The
second section, called “Maskerdam” is an inner court where more prominent
guests would be received by the King himself.
Balai
Kambang or Gili is the island located in the middle of the pond. It was used
for a meeting place for the royal family, and is stilled used by the family
descendants for traditional dining, dance and music. The King had 10 wives,
leaving 16 sons, 19 daughters and 90 grandchildren. That dude did work!
Needing
a break, Wayan took us to a nearby town where we could grab some lunch and
could pick up a few things for his children. We stopped at a Satay stall and
ordered some delicious chicken satay, and what we believed to be young goat
soup.
Im afraid I didn’t recognize any of the chunks in the broth but it
definitely wasn’t the meat. I don’t care to think about it anymore, so onward…
We
finished up and prayed we wouldn’t have any issue digesting the tastey, but
worrisome ingredients. We rode a few more minutes down the road and stopped at
an indo version of a Super Wal-Mart, selling everything from groceries,
clothing, and electronics. We bought some clothes for Wayans sons and we were
back on the road. Sorry, we didn’t take a photo of the place for you at home.
We
kept driving, working our way around towards the coast and eventually stopped
at Taman Ujung , another equally impressive water palace built by the same king
in 1926. According to his grandson, these water palaces are “a living testimony
to his zest for harmonizing nature and art. His joy for blending traditional
motifs with modern material for balancing European geometrics with a Balinese
sense of place and symbolic form”.
These
sights were so incredible that our words really cant describe them. We’ll let
the pictures do the talking.
After
Ujung, we were on our way back to Amed, this time taking the coastal road, up
through the mountains, and arrived back at our placed whipped from a long day
of riding and sight seeing. Hope you enjoy the photos.
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