Weekend at Gemma's Part 2

We visited GWK Cultural Park today. This attraction is being built in a quarry, which their website says was abandoned and unproductive, but stone was being quarried while we were there. Eventually the complex will house a museum and an enormous statue of Vishnu riding Garuda, but for now there are three parts of the statue in three different areas of the park. More information can be found at http://gwk-culturalpark.com/en/about-gwk/

After a quick lunch at the park, we were off to the beach. Dreamland beach is nice, but the surf was a bit rough and full of pieces of seagrass. There were not alot of shells here and the sand is made up of fairly large spherical grains. It cost 50,000 to rent two lounge chairs and an umbrella, and another 50,000 to rent a boogie board, although we were able to get the board for local price of only 25,000. The beach was fairly crowded and there were several women wandering around trying to sell sarongs and massages.

From there we went back to the house for quick showers and then to Ulu Watu to take in the sunset kecak (ke-chak) and fire dance. The "music" for this performance is made by a chorus of 40-100 men (depending on where you go) arranged in a circle. The dancers act out the story in the center of the circle, and various men in the chorus act as narrators. You can look out over the ocean and watch the sun go down and the fishing boats head out for their night's work.

The dance concludes with Hanoman, the monkey king, triumphing over the evil forces that have tried to imprison him in a ring of fire. He dances barefoot through the fire and vanquishes the evil spirits . . . for now.