Has anyone taken a tour to see Batiks in Bali? Sew What Fabrics is offering a 10 day trip to Bali next year to see how Batiks are made. I was curious if anyone has been on one of these trips before?

no, but that would be fun

You can watch the fabic being made on Youtube. :D

Wishful thinking.

I'd love to go. I made several trips to Bali 30+ years ago when I lived in Indonesia. At that time, most of the batiks were made on the island of Java.

I've been to bali twice, but did not see batiks being made. I loved it there, and would happily go back again. Everybody is so friendly and everything is very cheap (I do remember buying some super cheap fabric), although keep in mind this is considering the prices in Australia and the cheap airfares since Bali is a lot closer to Australia than the U.S! I think it is a great idea, depending on what kind of a resort you stayed in. Although it might just be me who prioritises lounging around the pool at the resort :D

I'd love to go, but not enough cash, and I have health issues. If anyone goes, please post loads of pics

that would be so much fun would need lots of suitcases to bring it all home

Roberta has gone a couple times and brought back GORGEOUS batiks...she's in Sioux Falls if you look her up on the member list. Very friendly gal!

I have just been to Bali and had the same thought and went looking for fabrics. i have to say I was disappointed. We did go to Ubud which is the place to go for all the artsy stuff. Admittedly we were on a day trip but the brochure did say you can see batiks being made. At the 'factory' all they had was about 5 people of which 3 were hand painting silk and another 2 weaving which was interesting but i wanted to see bolts of fabric as in a real factory.
Then from there you went into a 2 storey place selling ready made items which were pricey but we bought a few things. The main reason I was disappointed was that there was only a small table with fabric rolled up in lengths which you could buy by the metre. The price wasnt bad, around $9 (australian) a metre but there was very little choice and I ended up buying 2 lots of fabric and both were 2 metres long. I was hoping for heaps of choice but maybe someone else knows exactly where to go so I can go next time and buy more.

As I posted previously, when I lived in Indonesia almost all the batiks were made on the island of Java, not on the island of Bali. These were all traditional batiks; I'm not sure where the manufacturing of the modern batiks takes place.

never have, but sounds like it would be a wonderful trip!

I went to Bali for a couple weeks as an add-on to a month in China. Yes it is interesting to see how batiks are made by hand. I\The island is really beautiful and not only the tourist beach areas. The inland parts of the island are unspoiled and really worth a trip thru to see how people really live.

I wouldn't go all that ways for just Bali though.

Mim

I spent 30 days in Thailand last November and it is a huge long way to fly for such a short trip. My tour guide does a trip to NE Thailand weaving villages and she gets into the real villages and has done these trips for 25 years. I got sarongs (2 meters of cotton batik)from Indonesia for about $2-$3 each and could probably have negotiated them done if I had more time.

check out www.thaifoodandtravel.com for great pics and interesting info on Thailand and the weaving trip (trip D)