Today was our free day! Slate, Jon, Jiho, Angelina, Ming, Levin, Grace, and I decided to explore Uluwatu. The beaches were incredible! They were adorned with rocks and cliffs and the water was a mix of light and dark blues. Slate and I went to St. Thomas beach while the others went to a beach in Sanur first. I heard Sanur was very nice. The beach had calmer waters and was much quieter. After St. Thomas beach we went to Suluban, which is a cavernous beach. I have never seen anything like this before. We could creep amongst the caves and explore different sections of the beach. It was so nice to swim again and to explore Bali’s nature.
After our beach day, we went to the Uluwatu temple. The temple was on the cliffs and overlooked the ocean. It is an active temple and there were people practicing prayer when we got there. The temple area was inhabited by monkeys (and one of them got a little too curious and destroyed Slate’s hat). Next to the temple was the Kecak show. It was so amazing to go to the show after we had practiced the chanting during one of our rehearsals. There were 70 men chanting all together and dancers depicting the Indian epic Ramayana. The dance is called a Sanghyang which means a trance dance; I watched the men become more and more engaged throughout the show. I was surprised when the dancers interacted with the audience. After this show and the puppet show, I have noticed that there are a lot of humorous elements in Balinese traditions. There is a nice balance between portraying serious issues along with jovial scenes.
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