Our introduction to the place had us wondering if we had made a huge mistake. Off the plane at 9:30 at night, pay 50 dollars (500,000 rupiah.Wanna be a millionaire? just get 100 bucks out of the ATM) for a visa, find out one of our bags was lost (more, much more on that later) and a flatly terrifying two hour journey to our hotel. On the good side, our driver was there waiting with a sign with our name. Unfortunately, his English was too lacking to give us much information on much of anything. Leaving Denpasar on our way to Ubud amid a swarm of motorbikes (all of them under 250cc and single cylinder, thus not quite qualifying to me as real motorcycles), over narrow dark roads through some of the least promising landscape we've ever encountered. The roadside in the headlights looked like one gigantic slum nestled RIGHT up aginst the road for mile after mile. Constantly being passed by aforesaid motorbikes, our driver staying resolutely in the center of the road until the last moment to allow oncoming traffic to pass. Once our senses adjusted to the combat-like atmosphere we realized we were passing thousands of stone (alright, mostly cast concrete) statues of mythological creatures, shops full of glass cases with all manner of consumer goods, vodka bottles of bensin (gas), wood carvings, etc., high stone walls with closed gates and open workshops of all types. In the dark it all looked like Dogpatch squared.
The exotic part started as soon as we passed the gates to the hotel. Down a curving brick paved drive to a small parking area, the entire staff waited to meet us with the traditional "saloom" greeting (hands steepled together, in front of face, you've seen it in many asian movies). All four of them, all sweet looking young ladies maybe 17 years old. Quickly ushered into our quarters, not room, a bungalow of good size, all window and curtains on two sides. The bath down a set of steps, the shower area open to the sky. Once more, exotic as hell. Same with breakfast. Not one thing a westerner would recognize as part of a morning meal with the exception of excellent high octane coffee. Fried rice, noodles, wokked vegetables, breaded fish, barbecued chicken, sorry, forgot the white bread (not toast, a completely foreign concept) and jam. All for the two of us. Did I mention this was served on an open air patio distinctly labeled Lobby? Since the serving staff outnumbered us two to one and nobody looked old enough to leave high school and was all female I felt like daddy at the daughter's tea party.
Lunch in Ubud
View in Hotel
We picked up a few essentials,shirt, pants, the all-important wall-outlet-to-USB adaptor, some of that exotic fruit (I highly recomment mangosteen), poking into this shop and that. Some things started to make sense. Prices of all items were incredibly low compared to western. For sure, overheads had to be kept low. Therefore, no place for fancy displays or shop decorations. The right-of-ways were likely older than western civilization and property along them jealously protected. Probably a lot of real estate was grudgingly given up just for the road width provided. Even though traffic seemed chaotic, there were none of the accidents I would have expected were westerners driving this way. There was a different set of rules, unspoken, that I apparently wasn't privy to.
On the way back to the hotel, I was able to stop concentrating on our imminent demise and start looking at the scenery. Rice fields, fruit trees, vegetable gardens, villages, jungle vegetation everywhere behind the shops and more visible as shops faded on the outskirts. Everywhere, somebody was doing something productive with a leisurely air speaking of enjoying the moment. Now and then, a heartbreakingly pretty vista completely different that anything I'd ever seen outside of postcards. You've heard it before, pictures can't do it justice.
Dinner at the hotel. This time from a menu. Compared to lunch in town, horrendously expensive, nearly 20 bucks. Of course the menu was in Balinese only (at least it used English letters) so the we asked the waitress to read it to us. At least that way we had the pronunciations right, though we had a twenty question and pantomime thing going as to what the vegetable words represented. No matter, I don't know what to call what I had but it was delicious. We did finally get through to her that spices were OK. That livened things up considerably. No wonder breakfast and lunch had seemed bland!
Next day, Liz was wary of facing traffic and wanted to plan a couple of tours with the hotel manager, a lady from Java named Sari, incredibly 31 years old, married and the mother of a 9-year old boy, so we took a day off, just hanging around the hotel and watching life around here take its languid pace. Lucky us. The entire island came under a day long pounding rainfall. Just as glad to be out of it.
Morning, breakfast, tour. Just a short one. Not a big deal, just a couple of temples (famous ones, you don't have to go far to see any number of temples), Kintimani volcano and a memorable coffee stop. First was a quick stop just for a view of the famous terraced rice paddies. Now, many paddies are mildly terraced, it's the easiest way to do the job, given a properly placed water supply. Bali has these water supplies in abundance. The terraced paddies go right up thirty degree hills for hundreds of feet, Narrow strips of irrigation then a drop and another narrow strip, repeat as necessary. Gorgeous! Old as hell as well. We were handicapped by a driver with very limited English so the travelogue was missing. I have no idea where I was, not that it really mattered. We saw this theme repeatedly, though not quite so spectacularly. That this was a standard tourist stop was reinforced by the number and persistence of the roadside merchants. This theme was also repeated.
What can I say about these temples that hasn't already been said by dozens of travel writers. Let's just get all of them out of the way by saying that they bespoke incredible age, wonderful craftsmanship, imaginative visualization of the forces beyond human control as personified by various religions deities. Also, a great deal of serenity and a lot of pragmatism. These are after all, residences of generations of priests.
Now let's talk about that memorable coffee stop. You've of course heard of Luwak, aka "weaselshit" coffee. It isn't really a weasel, more of a cute sort of civet cat, not that dissimilar to a possum. Yes, they do eat the ripe coffee cherries and excrete the seeds. Then, enterprising individuals collect these droppings, wash and roast them and grind them into coffee. Excellent coffee. Let me say that again. Excellent coffee. With and after effect that wasn't exactly a caffeine buzz but more like half a beer on an empty stomach. While I wouldn't pay the stateside price, 6 bucks for a two-cup pot of it along with a sampler of three more locally grown varieties and two teas and locally grown chocolate is some kind of bargain. Oh, toss in a couple of hand-rolled cigarettes of excellent locally grown tobacco. Rolled at your table by a master of the art, making it indistingushable from a machine-made cigarette. Check that one off the Bucket List.
Then the volcano. I really don't know if I was seeing clouds or volcano smoke at the peak. Just put it down as gorgeous. Had a terribly overpriced buffet lunch (almost twenty dollars, including beer) with a view of the volcano and a lake that has to be an old caldera. Hair raising (getting a little less so) ride home, just in time for a cloudburst. Met with an interesting pair of Aussie women who were pretty much old Bali hands and considered it the ultimate inexpensive week's vacation. Spent the evening drinking beer and playing Uno. How's that for a wild night?
Another day, another offbeat if delicious breakfast, and off to see the Balinese dance. Too cool. I've forgotten to mention Balinese music. Odd rhythms played on sort-of xylophones, bells and drums. Liz swears many of the rhythms are being used in modern popular music. I have no ear, so will not disagree. The dance is actually a morality play, opera and ballet all rolled together. Thankfully we had a program describing the play. Even without the program, the playful, earthy bits would have jumped out at you. The costuming of course was gorgeous (I seem to be using that word a lot. Good reason, I'm trying to avoid exotic.) You could easily see that these dances were being fine-tuned for a few hundred generations by players travelling form village to village, the Eastern equivalent of wandering minstrels.
More temples. Each one has its own theme, its own beauty. The last, Tanah Lot, was definitely unique in that it was built on a rock just off the western shore. This temple was notable in that this is where the Indonesians come, by the thousands. Also unique was the mass of hucksters betwen the parking lot and the temple. Sigh. Just gotta get used to some things. Almost forgot the Monkey Forest. Yes, also a temple and sacred to the local macaque monkey. Inhabited by hundreds of them, obviously a ready made tourist trap. Whatthehell, it was fun, and the monkeys are extremely well behaved, so long as you keep your empty hands visible. They are also extremely polite about delicately taking the peanuts off your open hand. They also expect you to mind your manners and don't even think about petting them. Dignity, you know. There were also fruit bats. Some entrepeneur had a dozen or so tame ones. Pick one up, spread its wings, get your picture taken. The smooth leathery wings were fascinating, as was the size of these things. a 4 foot wingspan!
I mentioned missing luggage. Herewith I'd like to paraphrase the late, great Mark Twain in his letter to the gas company, available in a delightful volume of his letters, "A Pen Dipped in Hell". Ahem. The goddam airport goddam lost my goddam backpack. They have no goddam idea where it goddam is and I'm goddam sure it's goddam well lost for goddam ever. There's a lot of goddam stuff I'm goddam going to goddam miss and if it isn't goddam obvious by now I'm goddam mad! Thank you.
The big tragedy is, like an idiot, I had the netbook in it. All those pictures gone. Also I'm going to really miss my other set of REI clothing and that wonderful REI underwear. Yes, Ann, they were worth the price and would dry very quickly. I don't care if they make me look a cross between a tourist and a cheap mercenary, they are very comfortable and now the one set is all I've got.
Liz Here
"87.2 Hard Rock Radio Bali" with alternative and rap music accompanies us on long road trips. A silent focused young driver chauffeurs us to Raffles Holiday Resort. We meet Aussie girls who let us know we have overpaid for our $50 per night room that drop to $35 per night the last 2 nights.
Jean Dunstan in San Remo (Vic, Australia) advised us on where to stay in Bali. She said go to Ubud or Sanur but avoid Kuta. Since we like mountains over the beach I chose Ubud. We are close to a volcano.
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| Barong Dancer |
So sorry to hear about the netbook and pictures. Bummer. But I hope that doesn't spoil your enjoyment of all the new places you're seeing. Love hearing about Bali. Such a different perspective from Eat Pray Love.
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