Also, there must be several tens of thousands of statues on this small island. Some are religious, some are just decorative. All are mossy and decorated with flowers. There is gamelan music and dance and paining around every corner. People are freindly and serene. There is something truly beautiful about the island.
Only our hotel (an average level of luxury, in relative terms, even though we thought it was stunning) must have had over 50 statues; our shower alone contained three human sized stone-carved statues. The garden swimming pool had an intricatelly carved wooden gazebo, there were flowers everywhere, and there were fancy iron-cast decorations on all the doors. Even omeletts and toasts came with flowers!
Bali is also famous for its dance. Several of its dance styles are somewhat like an agile theatre performance, filled with sharp corner-turnings, intricate coordination of eyeball, finger, neck and shoulder movements, performed according to strict tradition; the players are forbidden to improvise the movements learned and perfected since early childhood. The dance is accompanied with the percussive gamelan music; it is repetitive but dynamic and for me it has an almost hypnotic quality. Or maybe it was the balmy evening and too much food...
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Silvija Seres, January 2004