Today I was up early in the morning. The plan was to go out on dolphin safari in the sunrise, even if this is one of those activity that you should avoid according to the news papers. I saw a article just about this safari just a few days ago which stated that it was stressful and harassment of the animals and well, I do not disagree.
We were close to 50 different boats who went out in the sunrise and as soon as a poor dolphin came up to the surface, all fifty boats went full speed ahead to get as close as possible so the tourists should be able to get as good pictures as possible. Ethical correct? No way but at the same time I cant help that I kind a enjoyed to see the dolphins and to be fair, if they now are so harassed, how come they stick around the boats and come back day after day?
Next stop for the day was to visit another waterfall, I am a bit feed up of waterfalls so I saw this as more something just to put a check in front of but wow, I was so wrong. The waterfall Banyumala is not the biggest nor the most violent that I’ve seen under this trip but it is stil my favourite. It may be that you can actually go in and swim under it or that we were all alone when we saw it but either way, it was something that attracted me for sure.
The last stop of the day was “Tanah Lot”, a temple built on a lonely rock in the ocean. At low tide it is possible to wade through the water to it but only the monks are welcome. We tourist have to agree to halt on the beach and look at temple, dream away about how it may look on the actually rock. All around this area it is full commercial, it sells everything from sarongs to water bottles, pet some holy snakes and/or wash your face in holy water and no, I did not do any of it.
Now, back in Ubud it is easy to see how touristic this is, especially compared to Munduk and it has its negative sides of course but at the same time, it has some positive sides too.
