For work we traveled all the way to Bali to attend the Bali Illustration Workshop! How cool is that!
It was a week full of drawing, meeting other awesome artists, eating strange foods, almost karaoke, monkeys stealing glasses right from your head, sundown at a watertemple, incredible wood/gold/silver and bone carvings, beers on hotel rooftop overlooking Bali, crossing the most scary and crowded roads I’ve ever seen, drinking coffee made from catpoo in a thunderstorm, corrupt policemen that stop your car to get some cigarettes, thousands of flies humming around your head as you eat your sate while overlooking a giant volcano, riceterraces and palmtrees, stray dogs, chickens, cows and even pigs, shady taxidrivers, colorful Barong dances, 33 degrees and sometimes heavy rain, but mostly being inspired by amazing artists from all over the world!
The Workshop lasted for 5 days and was really intense, attending classes from 9 ~ 5 and working on assignments. We learned so much and became so inspired by the instructors and all the awesome fellow artists we met there!! It was an amazing trip.
Plus some sketches from our awesome instructors
Unfortunately, we had only one (!) day to explore the island, so we hired a driver who took us to all the scenic and tourist spots. First we went to see a traditional Barong dance. It was very interesting, the colorful costumes, music and especially the movements of the dancers.
We then drove through Celuk Village, famous for its silver and gold handicrafts. It was funny to see the different shops, first statue shops, than gold and silver, followed by endless shops of woodcarving and finished by bone carving shops.
We drove all the way to Tampaksiring with its famous water temple. Here you can bathe in sacred springs!
The next stop was the Kintamani Volcano. This huge volcano is still active and you could see the lavaflow from its eruption in the ’60s.
The next stop was a coffee plantation! There we looked around the plantation, saw how coffee is made and had a chance to drink the famous (and expensive) Luwak coffee. This coffee is made from beans that are eaten and then pooped out by civet cats ;-) Really delicious! We called it “crappuccino” ;-)
crappuccino
It started raining very intensely with thunder and lightning, and it was soooo cosy to sit underneath a straw roof and drinking fresh, warm coffee!
After finishing our coffee, we drove to the rice terraces. Again, very impressive sight!
And then we headed back to our hotel to start packing. Wow! That all in one day??! Yes! I would have liked to have some more time though!! It was all really beautiful, but to be honest, I felt the whole island was so catered towards tourists, that I don’t feel like I have seen the “real” Bali… It seems everyone is trying to get as much money out of you and you only get to see the tourist spots, so even though I really enjoyed this trip, it felt like I was in a tourist bubble instead of a real place! I’d like to travel again to Indonesia, but then to the not so overly touristy places.
Enjoying a beer on the rooftop of our hotel!
Bye bye Bali!