Bali Online Information |A Word of Dances3

A Word of Dances

With or without Water

As its volcanoes cast life and death, east Bali is an area of contrasts. Fed by ashes and rivers, the hills to the south of Mt Batur and Mt Agung harbour endless green terraces. This is a densely populated area rich in culture, museums, and temples, which has supported the growth of the cities of Bangli, Klungkung, and Amlapura. The upper slopes are covered with orchards, forests, bamboo groves, and spiky plantations of salak - a fig-shaped fruit, covered with brown scales, which hide a sweet and astringent flesh craved by Indonesians.

East Bali is also endowed with a quiet coastline, which lacks the strong surf that makes navigation- and swimming - so difficult in the southwest of the island. Like elsewhere on the island, the coastal areas are the poorest. This is especially true to the north and east of the main mountains: Mt Batur, Mt Abang, Mt Agung, and Mt Seraya at the easternmost tip of Bali.

Rain clouds brought by the southwest monsoon are stopped by these peaks, leaving the eastern slopes surprisingly arid. There the volcanoes have cast death, and the burnt lava, black rocks and yellowish vegetation - except during the wet months of December to February – echo the landscapes of the rugged Sunda islands east of Bali . On the upper slopes live some of the poorest people of the island, surviving on a diet of cassava and suffering from multiple ailments due to insulation and malnutrition.

Besides boasting the most prominent volcanoes on Bali and its largest lake, the east harbours Bali 's biggest offshore island, Nusa Penida , flanked by the islets of Lembongan and Ceningan . The few people living on these arid limestone plateaus, beaten by dangerous waves, would be the poorest of Bali if it was not for the income brought by seaweed farming since the 1980s. A former penal colony of Klungkung, Nusa Penida is also the feared abode of Gede Macaling , the fanged deity who is the reputed source of illness and evil in Bali .

A Pinch of Salt

Fishing is the main resource of coastal communities. But the coast o f east Bali , with its lack of rain and abundant sunshine, is also home to traditional salt panning, which can be seen on the coast in Kusamba, Ujung, Amed, Kubu, and Tianyar

important purification ceremony

wonderful cultural legacy

astringent flesh craved

offers spectacular ocean

attracts few tourists