Our last day in Bali is one of mixed emotion. We are sorry to be leaving but also happy to move on. The last 24 hours have been clouded with bad “taksi” rides and average restaurant service (see John’s review of La Luciolla) but nonetheless Bali has been as visually beautiful as its people are kind and gentle. I have not witnessed any Balinese angry, upset or displaying any form of temper while we have been on their island. Which poses the question: Why were such a beautiful and unassuming people targeted with a bomb that continues to affect their daily lives? Having spoken to some westerners who have been coming to Bali for over 10 years and have earned the right to call themselves Balinese, we discover that the bombings have allowed the Balinese to focus their energies back to their religious and spiritual lives. Re-focusing on their families, their religion, the rituals and the sensibilities that define them as a beautiful, warm and caring people. We have been lucky to see, meet and share time with some of them.

Gadeh our driver picks us up at the Bali Agung Village at about 12 o’clock. We are packed, checked out and ready to head to the airport. But before we do so we want to make a pilgrimage to the Father Temple, Uluwatu, which is about a 45 minute drive south on the island. We catch up on how Gadeh’s wife and two sons are and he tells us that they will be leaving this afternoon for the three hour drive north to his family’s temple in Sringrajah for a special get together.

We head south with the AC blazing. We walk into the temple, past the usual touts and hawkers and are given our requisite sarongs and sashes for the entrance. The temple itself is situated on a beautiful, sheer cliff and is very popular at sunset. We are happy to be here mid-day, despite the heat, avoiding the tourists.


Two views of Uluwatu Temple


Cliffs near Uluwatu, looking west over the Indian Ocean; temple monkey

We do our quick tour, stopping to gape at the views, chat with the aggressive monkeys and strike out for the airport. On our way we stop at a major Balinese Arts and Cultural centre called the Garuda Vishnu or GWK complex that is somewhat of a white elephant locally. Work started years ago and continues at a snails pace to this day. It is a bizarre complex of open plazas and little shade, to be presided over by a gigantic statue of Vishna on Garuda (the Eagle). This bronze statue, when and if it will be finished, will rival the Statue of Liberty in height and majesty. Again, when and if it is finished. At the moment, the faces of Vishnu and Garuda have been assembled and are on display, but there is little sign of ongoing activity.


Vishnu


Garuda; model of completed statue

We set our sights on the airport and drive down the hills surrounding Jimbaran Bay. Easy check-in, easy flight on Thai Airlines and we cross the equator for the 4th time in 2004. We touch down in the crazy city of Bangkok, singing songs from the King and I the whole way.

Bye-bye Bali. We will be back!

Best of Bali:
Best Club: Q, Seminyak
Best Resto: TeraZo, Ubud
Best Dive Site: Mimpang Island, Padang Bai
Best Hotel: Green Field Bungalows, Ubud; close 2nd: Bali Agung Village, Seminyak
Best Beer: Bintang

Reading: various issues of The New Yorker and The Economist; The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, by Mitch Albom

A day for sleeping in! Hooray!

We have a late start, and a wonderful breakfast compared to the rolls we’ve been grabbing as we head out for the long drives to dive sites.

We spend most of the morning choosing pictures for the last few days of our journal – the stories have been written, but the pictures have not been chosen. Then we head off to do something we dread – we go to the internet café to update the web and pick up our email. The internet is so slow here on Bali – everywhere they tell you they have “high speed”, and everywhere it is dialup – sharing small bandwidth among 12 or 15 other users. It is so bad that we have been avoiding the internet since last week. But we must do it, and so we head to a café that Sophie, our dive master of the last 2 days, tells us is faster.

2 hours later, our website updated and our email downloaded, it is time to head to the beach. It is a very short walk to the beach. When we get there, we head north, walk about 1 km to La Lucciola, which everyone has told us is the best restaurant on Bali, and where we are having our “farewell to Bali” dinner tonight. Having done the walk, we turn around and go south, and choose chaises in front of another restaurant, Ku Dé Ta, on which to sit – paying the appropriate fee, of course. The water is clean – very different from our only other time at the beach, on our 1st day here, when neither of us was willing to get in the water. The waves are unbelievably high – we won’t venture in very far. The only people who do go out past knee depth are attached at their ankles to surf boards, and they gladly take the risk and head out past the breaking waves, waiting for that perfect wave.



Seminyak beach

After showers, we head into the restaurant – it is beautiful – all open to the ocean, no walls under the Balinese thatch roof – in that way that only places where the coldest temperature they get is 26 degrees can do. The menu is strongly Italian-influenced, and for the first time in our experience here, there is nothing on it to indicate that we are Indonesia or even to hint that the chef has been influenced by Indonesian cooking. We order a drink, our entrees and mains, and a bottle of wine. The first thing to arrive is the bottle of wine. The next things to arrive are our entrées. Finally, our drinks arrive – we have almost finished our entrées (Greg had a hot entrée), but have held off on wine pending the arrival of the drinks. We slowly finish our entrées and our drinks, and there is a nice amount of breathing room before our mains arrive. Timing issues aside, everything is very good. We aren’t sure what we feel at the end of the meal, though – tonight’s meal does not in any way compare to a number of the meals (Indonesian food raised to the level of art in equally beautiful settings) we’ve had for a fraction of the price we paid tonight, which was about the same as we would pay in a good restaurant in Toronto.

Joan and Errol are at Santa Fe, and we meet them for a drink. And then we head off to home, for our last sleep in Bali. We will be sorry to leave – it is, once you adjust to it, spectacularly beautiful. The best is out in the country-side. The city, as John Baker says, has been spoiled by tourism. But if you want to, you can find the heart of the island, and you will be, as we feel we have been, rewarded for engaging in the search. And if nothing else, we feel that we could drive to Candi Dasa blindfolded – which is, to judge from appearances, the way all of the other drivers do it.

This will be remembered as one of the best dives we have had so far and one of those special, easy-going days that make Bali what it is. We are up again at the crack of dawn to be picked up at 7:00 am by the dive bus. It is a smaller van this morning – the one we took yesterday was swamped out in the deluge after dropping us off last evening. In for repairs. Our trek this morning takes us again to the eastern ends of Bali. It is a familiar drive for us. We have already covered the same roads four times in the last 48 hours. This morning it is only the two of us, our driver and Sophie Lejeune, the owner of SkubaSkool, who is also our dive master. We speak of family and books and travel and trans-fatty cookies over our two hour drive to our dive destination.

We arrive at the very peaceful bay village of Padang Bai for our boat and dive. It is 9 o’clock and already hot. The locals are taking the shade as much as possible. Our gear is unloaded, we pick up our simple lunch of Nasi Goreng and fruit and board our outrigger for the 25 minute trip out to our dive sites at Biaha and Mimpang Islands. We will also be diving with dive master Jurgen and his German diver Wolfgang. We find it intriguing that even the local fishing boats sport political banners for next Monday’s election.


Outriggers and Bay views; the red banners on the boat at left are political banners

I am trying to figure out how we are going to enter the water with our equipment from the outrigger when Sofie announces that we will be entering via a backward roll. We have never done this before but are up for the challenge. John and I don’t talk about the potential of hitting our heads on the bamboo outrigger or not being able to see where you are going. All accomplished with no damage done. Our first dive is a beautiful and peaceful dive down a “wall” covered with so much life that you can’t decide where to look next. More live coral and fish than what was evident on the Great Barrier Reef. Sorry Barrier Reef fans but this caps your reef by miles. So colourful and alive with so many creatures and marine life we have never seen before. Spectacular and beautiful. Not only is the underwater scenery beautiful but up top there is some pretty gorgeous stuff too. Even here, on the steep green slopes above the cliffs, the land is terraced for rice paddies. This is what I had envisioned Bali to look like:


Bali HIGH!

Sofie had told us that we will be going into a cave this dive and it looms around the corner. We head in and meet Jurgen and Wolfgang heading out. Sofie had also mentioned that we would probably see some white-tipped reef sharks in the cave. She promised that these sharks are totally uninterested in us, and that, growing to a maximum length of 1.5 metres, we are bigger than they are, so they are as afraid of us as we are of them. As we enter, there they are, about six or seven of them, swimming and prowling just as sharks do. I’m not sure what John is thinking but I just freeze and stop breathing for a second. Sofie is far ahead of me now and I am second in tow with John following up the rear and I don’t want to be left to the sharks so I continue into the cave. I look back and see John doing the same thing I have just done. It is times like this where I wonder what John is thinking and it is tough not being able to verbalize how we are feeling or if we are scarred shitless. You feel helpless as you sometimes watch your partner quickly move into panic mode.

The cave is, well, a cave with many fish and lobster inhabitants. I look back and see the eerie blue/green opening in the cave with John and a school of trigger fish silhouetted in the opening. Sofie has, at this time, her flashlight beamed on what looks like transparent sea weed, moving the light behind and through it showing us what’s inside. We learn after the dive that this is a shark egg sack, and these are miniscule shark eggs. Shining the light through the sack, we can see that the eggs are at a development stage where they clearly look like tiny sharks – but are the size of minnows. Our tanks are at 50 bar and it is time to head back up to the surface. On our way out of the cave one of the sharks swims right towards me. This time I calmly slow down and breeze by him like he is any other fish in the sea.


Mimpang Island

Lunch over and our out-of-water surface interval achieved, we head to a new location for our second dive. Sofie promises a dive that will be just like swimming in an aquarium and she makes good on her promise. We are overwhelmed at the amount of fish that are surrounding and swimming with us. John and I are still trying to achieve complete neutral buoyancy during our dives – this makes the dive much more pleasurable as you are not fighting to keep level during your dive, and thus you use less air, which means you can stay down longer. We achieve some success during this, our 10th dive. We drift lazily along with the current, simply hovering beside and over the coral, watching the incredible neon colours of the fish and corals go by. We wish we could photograph this entire landscape but that would mean more equipment for us to carry around the world with us. I think to myself how easy it would be to do this all day.

On the way out of Padang Bai, our car is chosen at random by the police at a checkpoint to pull over. We ask Sophie what is going on and she tells us that it is the "end of the month pay raise". We ask what she means, and immediately the door opens and our driver tells us that he needs 20,000 rupiah, not a lot of money (just over Cdn $3), but on an island where the average income is about 300,000/month, it is a lot. Sophie says that if you are willing to invest the time, you can get away without paying, but for $3, why spend 1 hour arguing about what you did or did not do wrong.

We are home by about 3:30 and buy our SkubaSkool t-shirts as mementoes, and head to the hotel for naps. We are both exhausted after two days of driving n’ diving. We have plans to meet Errol and Joan, two ex-pat Australians who we met through Bev and Janet from our hotel, at “The Bush”, a local Aussie watering hole for some beers and dinner. Our heads are nodding at around 9 and we say goodbye to these guys and head home to the usual chorus of “Yes, Boss, Taxi?” and “Transport?” and are asleep by 11.

Tomorrow is our last day in Bali.

We are picked up at 7:00 this morning at our hotel by Sophie, a charming young Frenchwoman who owns a dive shop just up the street call Skubaskool. We are off to Tulamben, on the northeast coast, to dive. But before the dive, there is the drive: from here to Candi Dasa, we redo yesterday’s journey. We stop in Candi Dasa to pick up our tanks, and Fabrizio, from northeast of Venice and I run off in a desperate search for coffee. Then we continue on our merry way. By 10:30 we are on the beach at Tulamben.


The beautiful Sophie Lejeune, our Dive Master; terraced rice paddies

Along the way, we see the same banners for the various political parties that we have seen before. Today, however, in every village and town we pass through, we also see numerous flat-bed trucks parked in the streets with men of all ages getting on board. Hundreds, in each town, all dressed in red shirts printed with the bull logo of Megawati’s party. We are told by our driver that they are all going to a rally for President Megawati, who will be there in person. The town is on the north shore – a drive of many hours in each direction.


Cow in old Chinese cemetery; chickens for sale

Tulamben is the site of the USS Liberty, sunk by the Japanese during the 2nd World War. She is not more than 20 metres offshore, perfect for novice divers, because a great deal of her lies above 20 metres in depth.

We walk in – our 1st dive where we didn’t jump off a boat. Although I go through that initial moment of panic, I have done this often enough to recognize that the 1st dive of the day always starts with a brief moment of panic. I get through it, and we go on to a glorious dive – beautiful corals and multitudes of fish. Many of the fish are as friendly as dogs – they swim along beside us, eyeball to eyeball. The wreck is not as obvious to us as a ship as we had expected. It is not just a huge ship sunk and resting on its side in the ocean. We see the coral and life on what appears to be a reef but think there is something else lurking just around the corner.

This is our first tropical dive outside the Great Barrier Reef, and we realize as we swim how damaged the Great Barrier Reef is – we do not see any dead corals today, there is a multitude of life everywhere we look. It is amazing diving – visibility is probably in the 30 metre range, and the colours are vibrant – neon blue, yellow, pink, fuchsia.

After a brief stop for lunch, we are back in for our 2nd dive. It has clouded over, and the tide has changed, so the colours are not as bright and the visibility is reduced. But I feel elated to be here, diving off this wreck, hoping that I have not created bad karma for myself by diving at what I am certain is a graveyard. We have a better look at the wreck and get a better sense of the layout of the ship and its final resting spot.

We head back to Seminyak and the heavens open. The amount of rain is significantly less than yesterday, but the lightning show is spectacular. It is late afternoon, and we pass truckloads of people heading home from seeing Megawati, all of them drenched from the rains. When we get to Seminyak, we are dropped at the dive shop, walk 3 or 4 doors down to what we have been told is the best warung for Indonesian food on the street. We are absolutely soaked by the time we get there. We have a feast, delicious tempeh (hot! for me, medium for Greg), tofu, and garlic spinach. We have a couple of beer each, and the entire bill is about $10 Canadian. By the time we are done, the rain has finally stopped, and we walk home, exhausted, exhilarated and happy.

Gadeh, who drove us to Ubud last week, and then back via Tanah Lot, arrives at 8:30 to pick us up. We are off for a day of touring Bali.

About 8:50 we arrive to see the Sari Wisata Budaya performance of the Barong & Kris Dance. The theme is the never-ending fight between good and evil, this time personified by a Rangda (boo!) and a Barong (yay!). It is presented in 5 acts, and has a particularly Shakespearean sequence involving the servants killing and then abusing the dead body of the monkey – as gruesome as it sounds, it was very funny in the same way as the night porter sequence in Macbeth is very funny.

In Act 5, 4 young men dance in a trance with their krises, and they attempt to stab themselves. However, the power of the Barong is so strong that their krises could do them no harm.



The Barong and Kris Dance

After the performance, we set off for Besakih, a town mid-way up Mount Agung and home of the Mother Temple, the holiest site on Bali and home of the high priest of Balinese Hinduism. There are 18 temples in the complex (not including private family temples – we felt like we were in Santa Croce in Firenze) and as we begin our spiritual and physical climb to the top, the rain starts to fall. We are offered umbrellas all the way up (at a price, of course) and sarongs at 10,000 rupiah if we do not have our own for these holy grounds. We, of course, do.

The temple was in the process of being decorated for a major religious feast that begins this weekend, much to our luck. Everywhere, women are carrying offerings – mainly flowers and food – on their heads. The decorations already in place were quite stunning, and we were able to watch (from outside – only believers are allowed into the temples proper, but being Bali, the demarcation between inside and outside is not very rigorously observed, so the temples for the most part do not have walls or roofs) the high priests, in their beautifully embroidered crowns, perform a service.



Around the Mother Temple

We hired a guide to show us around the temple – more to put money in his pocket than for any other reason. Although there are many tourists around in Kuta-Legian-Seminyak, we know from talking to people outside this main tourist area that the tourism fall-off since the bombing in the fall of 2002 has been harder away from the main tourist area. Indonesia has a policy of putting industrial development on other islands, and preserving Bali as a pristine island with tourism as virtually its sole industry. This has meant that the downturn in tourism in Bali since the bombing has reduced the island’s GDP significantly, and everywhere we go outside the main tourist area there is clear evidence of the recession.

At the exit from the Temples, we see a striking sight – Ganesh, the god of education, who has an elephant’s head, dressed for the holiday.


Ganesh in holiday garb

We end up glad of our guide, having learned a great deal about the temple, Balinese Hinduism, Bali generally, and having practiced our French for an hour, because we discovered that our guide, Mahdeh (the name given to the 2nd child born into the family) spoke quite good French and was interested in practicing it. Not that we’re the best people to practice French with, but the 3 of us were quite pleased with ourselves after our hour together.

Gadeh drives us down the mountain to Candi Dasa, a beautiful town on the south-east coast of the island, for lunch in a restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean. We watch the freighters go by, savouring our curries.

It is pouring rain about 4 km out in the ocean. and indeed it has been rainy all day, but at lunch the skies open wide. Unlike other rainstorms we’ve experienced here, this one does not abate. We drive back through flooded roads, feeling quite sorry for the scooter riders. The people planting the rice paddies we drive by and the only ones who don’t look put out by the rain – they are used to being wet.

We took a shortcut this morning down a road under construction, and had to go over a bailey bridge at one point where the new bridge wasn’t complete. When we get there on the way back it is pandemonium – the earthen road down to the bailey bridge is pure mud, and on the other side a truck has jackknifed and blocked traffic in both directions. We quickly realize that it will not move until the mud has dried – which won’t be today – there aren’t a lot of tow trucks on Bali. We backtrack, and take the old main road through village after village. At one point, we are behind what seems to be everyone in a village walking the village shrine to the village temple for purification.

Everywhere we see banners – red, white, green and yellow – for the various parties in the upcoming national elections. Red – the colour of Megawati’s party – dominates everywhere we go. Despite the torrent, the banners flutter in the wind – and we say a prayer that the best person wins on Monday. We have come to really like the people of Bali, and to feel very sorry for them – the bombing has not been good for them, and the government does not appear to know how to do anything to improve the situation.

Today is a day very similar to yesterday. Go back, read yesterday. Change these few details:

Restaurant: Antique, a beautiful Asian fusion restaurant with wonderful food.
Time: An earlier start: 7:30 p.m.
Who (at dinner): Gavin, from Toronto/Vancouver via Australia; Jim from Illinois
Who (later): Gavin, Jim, 4 Aussies – 3 males and 1 female; 1 Aussie living in Jakarta; 2 Canadians living in Jakarta; 1 Mississippian living in Jakarta
Time home: the dawn is breaking

And the street is just as busy with pedestrians and taxis as it had been a few hours earlier the night before.

Happy Birthday to Pam, John’s sister, on March 28!


Today starts early – it starts at dinner last night, to be precise.

The mise-en-scene: We returned yesterday to Seminyak, to the hotel we stayed in last weekend when we arrived in Bali. Our hotel is just off Jalan Dhyana Pura, also known as Drink Street or Club Street. Our last time here was over Nyepi, the Balinese New Year, when almost everything, and most certainly the clubs and restaurants, shuts down for 3 days. The first day that everything was back to normal we headed to Ubud – rustic, tranquil and beautiful, and did I mention tranquil: you could shoot a cannon down the main street of Ubud at 9:30 p.m., and not hit anything or anyone – even the ever-present dogs have disappeared.

The story: About 9:30 p.m., we head out for dinner. For the first time since leaving Australia, we are in the mood for something familiar. We stop in a restaurant called Santa Fe, and start with nachos, then Greg has pizza while I have chicken fajitas. Afterwards, we stop at Q, a club, for “a beer”. The price seems shocking – at 15,000 rupiah each for the local beer, it is double the price in the restaurants; this is, of course, until we do the conversion and realize that at about $2.25 Canadian, it is still a bargain. We arrived just after 11, and we were customers 4 and 5. At 11:45, there are still only about 8 people, other than staff, in the place. About then, a voice says “hello” – it is Gavin, the Canadian we sat beside in the internet café on Tuesday. We learn that he is on his way back to Canada, via Vancouver to Toronto where his family lives, after spending the better part of a year in Australia. We compare notes about Australia and Canada for an hour, and as he wanders off I realize that the place is hopping – probably a couple of hundred people. And as many, or even more, at Kudos, the bar right across the street.

The mix of people is probably about 80% Balinese & Javanese, with the remainder a mix of Australian, German, Dutch and Canadian; we have noticed what feels like a conspicuous absence of American accents all over Bali, and it is true again this evening. The atmosphere is relaxed – everyone is chatting with everyone. (Indonesians are compelled to attend school for at least 10 years, and English is a core part of their curriculum.) There is a continual flow of people back and forth across the street – over there for a drink, back here for the next.

About 4 a.m. we realize with a bit of surprise that it is 4 a.m., that that “a beer” was many beers ago, and that we are more than a little “tired and emotional”. We head home, and the street is jammed. The back and forth between Q and Kudos is still strong. We look down the street and it is a sea of taxis in both directions – it looks like Broadway after the theatres let out at 11 p.m. There are so many pedestrians that the taxis can barely move. We walk to the hotel much faster than we could have driven.

The rest of the day is spent sleeping in a variety of venues – in bed, in chaises both sunny and shady by the pool, and standing and walking as we perform various chores that don’t require any intellectual capability.

Ubud has a monkey (specifically Balinese macaques) forest. We had gotten different opinions on whether it was worth a visit. Eric, in Sydney, was of the view that there was no point: “dirty, nasty, vile creatures”; Bev from Adelaide thought it wasn’t worth the visit: “aggressive, grabby, they’ll go through your pockets and steal anything in them and bare their fangs and snarl at you if you try to get it back”; Jody in Toronto thought it could not be missed. Greg decided he could stay at the hotel and catch some rays and swim a few lengths of the pool while I went. After all, it was not even a 5 minute walk from our door, and admission was about $1.25. Jody’s advice included buying bananas at the gate to feed the monkeys.

For another $1.25, I buy a bag of bananas, and as a free-gift-with-purchase, I get a bag of dried sweet potato chunks. Barely inside the gate is a troupe of monkeys whose sole purpose in life is to prevent you from getting any further into the park while you still have food. But don’t make the mistake I made! Monkey Forest Lesson No. 1: don’t give them sweet potato first: if they see that you are giving them what is clearly inferior food, they will do the fang and snarl thing, and move aggressively towards you.

Quickly the bananas disappear, and a lot of fighting goes on between those who got banana and those who didn’t, and even between those who already got a banana (but were bigger) and those who also got a banana (but were smaller). Once the bananas are gone, the monkeys are quite happy to take the sweet potato.

I walk along, and without food any longer, the monkey are totally oblivious to me. They play with each other, and in the course of playing run right up to the humans, without quite touching. I am busy taking photos, and because it is very shady under the trees, I am using the flash. This is when I learn Monkey Forest Lesson No. 2: don’t take a photo of a monkey looking right at the camera with a flash. I happen to do exactly this, and this particular monkey, who was about 4 metres away at the time, starts screaming and running at me, fangs bared. I am not about to let my pride get in the way of a swift retreat, and while I am getting out of harm’s way, I notice that his demeanour is causing everyone else in the general vicinity to run in the other direction as well.


At right: the photo that caused Monkey Forest Lesson No. 2

Greg looks at me quizzically when I get back to the hotel after being gone a total of 25 minutes. But it was 25 well-spent minutes (not to mention the $2.50), having learned a couple of life-enhancing lessons.

We are returning to Seminyak today, and Gadeh, our driver, arrives at the hotel about 1 hour ahead of schedule. We decide to make the trip an excursion, in order to take in one of Bali’s major temples, Tanah Lot. After parking the minivan, Gadeh points the way for us. We recognize that we are now going to experience one of the major joys of Bali – the walk through the shopping street. Greg is almost ready to call it quits before we start – he is getting quite fed up with the “Hello – where you from?” routine that seems to be the inevitable prologue to “you come inside!” or “you need transport?” But I insist, and it is worth the walk. The temple is spectacularly beautiful, and like all perfect beauty, unattainable (at least at high tide).

From left: the temple entrance; 2 views of Tanah Lot

News flash from home: Sophia caught her first mouse, and to celebrate she caught 2 more. She is feeling very proud of herself right now.

Over morning breakfast:
The hotel is building two new bungalows next door to us and the buildings are erected but the finishing and terracing are all to be done. This is not a typical construction site with jack-hammers or bull dozers. There are about 6-8 men on the site, mostly brick layers at this point. Everything is being done by hand. Each brick trimmed by hand, cement and mortar being mixed by hand, the ground levelled by hand. The really menial work is left to two women, each carrying 3 slabs of white travertine, to be used on the floors and walls of the bungalows, on their heads back and forth for 4 days.

This morning we see the local women come to start to sanctify the new shrine being built with the bungalows. Every building in Bali appears to have a main shrine and smaller ones on the actual buildings. They are maintained by the women of the village and new offerings of food, flowers and incense are brought 3-4 times a day. There is also a water purification process that is part of this daily cycle. We wonder how these duties are assigned – which women perform these rituals. I learn from hotel neighbours Beverly and Andre that sometimes men are involved too, but it appears to me that the men have a secondary role in all of this.

There are perhaps 12 to 15 women who come to make offerings at the shrine. Some have specific duties; some arrive with a specific blessing, place it and leave. Others have more responsible tasks of praying and blessing. More women, both young and old, appear with more offerings for the new buildings. All are laden with huge woven baskets hoisted high, overflowing with smaller, hand-woven reed basket offerings of rice, flowers, sometimes sweets, always incense. The shrine is wrapped in white and gold textured cloth as are the other shrines around Bali. We are not sure of the significance of this. In many cases, the statues in Bali are modestly wrapped with a standard black and white plaid cloth, black symbolizing evil and white good.

Two priests arrive, one older, one younger. They are given a brief tour of the two buildings and the shrine to be blessed and the ceremony begins. We hear the women’s voices, mingled with the wind, beginning to chant. There is a small bell being rung as part of the ceremony. The smell of sweet incense wafts towards our room. The workers continue their hammering, spading and brick laying unabated. The blessings continue for over 3 hours and as the two priests leave, we wish them well.

So mystical and reverential for us but part of everyday life here in Bali.

We awake to a simple but beautifully presented breakfast of fresh fruit, freshly squeezed orange and papaya juice and eggs, toast and banana pancakes. We eat alfresco, with views of the morning rice field in front of us.

John heads up to the internet café—there are lots in Ubud, and unfortunately all have dial-up connections. After a little delay in getting up and running, he is set to go. I “head” out in search of a hair cut. This is a fairly easy task as there are “salons” every 30 metres or so, all offering massage, pedicures, massage or massage. Anita from Java seems to be running the show here and after a chorus of “hello, massage?” from the other girls in the shop, I step in and point to my head and shape my fingers into scissors, the international signal for haircut. They are having a sale today so everything is 10% off. We agree on a price of 25,000 rp. The normal is 35,000 rp. After a good cut, a lovely hair wash and a mini-massage, I guilt myself out and tell them that the normal price of 35,000 rp is fine with me and gladly pay them. It is, after all, only $6 CDN. John’s hour long internet session is was a mere 6,000 rp or $1. CDN!

We head back to our hotel and John opts for some pool time, and I decide to head up to the Ubud Market. Lots of touts touting their wares and I tire quickly of the sun and their haggling. I head across the street, following the strains of the typical Balinese temple music and find myself at the Palace watching traditional dancing classes. These kids are obviously here after school and are so darn cute.



I watch the little ones for a while and then move across the court yard to the older girls and their teacher. They certainly mean business and we will see the fruits of their labours later this evening.




Across the street are the boys and their dance master is a lot more rigid with his teaching. He is carrying a large stick that he keeps time on the floor with and occasionally uses to prop up or correct one of the boys. It is very obvious that the girls are a lot more dedicated (and talented) than the boys are. But there are a few that stand out from the others.



We head out this evening to attend the Balinese Frog dance presentation at one of the temples up the street from us but find the temple in complete darkness. Ahhh, Bali. Sometimes there is a ceremony, sometimes not. We quickly decide to head for dinner and a leisurely stroll home afterwards. Not two blocks away we stumble upon another temple, the Padang Tegal, presenting the Kecak and Fire Dance. We purchase our tickets for the 1.5 hour performance and arrive at our seats about ten minutes in. We are seated in a big u shape facing one of the temple doors, which serves to frame the performance beautifully. The small crescent moon and a tag-along star are just rising over the Padang. It is very magical.


The conquest of good over evil

These dances involve much story telling and interpretation and space doesn’t allow me to describe everything. The first was about the fight between good and evil involving fights between the Golden Deer and the King of the Monkeys. Our favourite was the middle dance which is called the Sanghyang Dedari Dance and involves a ritual cleansing by driving evil spirits away from the village. It is a trance ceremony where two underage girl dancers who are virgins and considered holy are inhabited by a divine spirit and dance until they drop. They move simultaneously and with their eyes closed the entire time. Each time they drop to the ground, two female members of the village stand them up again and they continue. When this is over, they are removed from the trance by the pemangku, or priest, who prays beside them and blesses them with holy water. The 3rd dance involved a horse that dances on a bonfire.


The horse dance

A full day of dance. Very interesting indeed.


Our Balinese sunset

The street today is full of people – dramatically different to anything we’ve seen since we arrived. Nyepi is definitely over. We walk along and find an internet café to do web and email. We know what happens if we don’t update the web often enough. A voice says “is that a Canadian accent” and the guy sitting beside us turns out to be from Vancouver.

We head back to the hotel to check out, and about noon we head off to Ubud, mid-island and on the mountainside. It takes about an hour to drive up here, and it is like driving from Toronto to Burlington – you never really leave built-up area. A few people have told us that when they were in Bali they rented cars and really enjoyed exploring the island on their own. After today’s drive, we have no desire whatsoever to do this.

We check in to our hotel – a recommendation from our friends Jody and Dan – to discover that it is beautiful. Our room is on the edge of a rice paddy, with a beautiful veranda. They bring us tea and coffee and we sit and enjoy the view.


From left: our view; our porch; the pool

We head off to begin exploring Ubud, and immediately there is a downpour. We take refuge in a temple, and after 5 minutes the skies clear and we go off. We pass many artisans’ shops – Ubud is famous for its artists. Everywhere there are temples, and although it is not a feast day, there are ritual offerings being made.


Temple offerings

We pass stores offering high quality forgeries of Italian designer goods – some cheeky enough to actually have the designer’s names as the name of the store. Another downpour, much heavier and more sustained, starts just after we are comfortably seated for a late lunch.

We wander along Monkey Forest St. We have been told that you cannot carry anything in to the reserve, not even in your pockets, because the monkeys will take your sunglasses, your camera, and will even go through your pockets and take your wallet – and that if you try to take them back they will bare their fangs and hiss. We are not prepared for this, we have our sunglasses and our camera, so today at least we take a pass on visiting the monkeys.

We head out for dinner and choose a restaurant based solely on its appearance – it would not be out of place in downtown Toronto. After entrees of tabouleh (Greg) and arugala and parmesan (me), we have Indonesian curries as our mains, and they are magnificent – we cannot get over how good they are, qualitatively different from any we’ve had before.
The bill, including our beer, the taxes and the service, comes to a staggering 145,000 rupiah, about $22 Canadian.

After dinner, we head out for a walk and it feels like Nyepi all over again – the streets are deserted. We gather that this is the norm in Ubud, at least on Tuesday nights.

Happy Birthday to Donna Lapointe (March 23)!

The hotel is deserted this morning – everyone is out early after the enforced stay-at-home of the day before. We are also of a mind to get out and do more exploring, and head out as soon as we finish breakfast. Although it is still the holiday, the 3rd day is a day to be out, visiting family. Many of the people we have talked to tell us that they will go today to visit relatives in distant parts of the island – it can take 3 or more hours to get to some of the more remote areas on this island of 3 million or so people.

We walk down to the beach – past more percalang, still on the job for the final day of the holiday. We walk north along the beach, past the vendors selling everything – watches, jewellery, clothing, chess games, kites, sodas, beach chairs, beach massage, pedicures – until we are away from the hustle. As we walk farther, we approach a resort that we know will be the Oberoi, the first big hotel built in this area.

Just after the Oberoi we turn toward land, and walk along the street that goes out to the main road – our intention is to walk a big square, ending up back at our hotel. We understand that this street is nicknamed Eat Street, and we pass many restaurants, most still closed for the last day of the holiday. At the main street, we turn south and walk past shop after shop, almost all still closed.

Around Bali

We finally get to the street our hotel is on, which we have now figured out is nicknamed either Club Street or Drink Street, and turn onto it. We are hot and hungry, but again we find that most of the restaurants are still closed. (We had already discovered that there are many internet cafés along this street, but they were closed for Nyepi on Saturday morning, and are all still closed today.) We know, having passed it earlier this morning, that the restaurant right at the beach, Gado Gado, is in fact open, and so we make our way to the beach, to sit on their deck and enjoy the view as we dine. We have a wonderful meal, and with everything in, it runs to 260,000 rupiah, about $40 Canadian. We linger on the deck, savouring the view, long after we have finished our meal.

After swims and visits with Bev and Janet, who are leaving this evening, we head out at about 8:30 to find some dinner. Little is open, but we pass a café full of people and so decide to give it a try. The menu is limited – the only item they will make tonight is nasi goreng, a noodle dish. We order beer to go with it, and have quite a pleasant meal. The price is certainly right – 2 nasi goreng and 2 big beer, for 58,000 rupiah, about $9 Canadian.

The Day of Silence – Happy Nyepi!
And Happy Fall – or Spring, Depending on Your Location!

We were warned via email from Steve (a friend of Eric’s, who recommended the hotel that we are staying at) who lives in Jakarta, that we would be here for Nyepi. So we sort of knew what we were in for. But we don’t really know what to expect today – we have been told that the hotel will offer minimal services today, but as we go up for breakfast, it seems fully staffed. As we look around, though, we realize that many familiar faces are not here. We learn that everyone who is working at the hotel today is either Javanese or Sumatran, and so not celebrating Nyepi – Bali is predominantly Hindu, while the rest of Indonesia is predominantly Muslim.

In our room is a notice from the hotel management advising us that we will not be allowed to leave the hotel premises today, and that if we do, we will be escorted back to the hotel by the percalang. And so the restaurant is full – people have nowhere to go even though they have finished eating.


Around our hotel

We grab chaises by the pool – there are not enough to go around. The day is hot and humid, and we are in the pool more than we are out of it. The bar is open – the only noticeable difference is that there is no music coming from the speakers. There is a brief, but heavy, downpour, early in the afternoon, and musical chaises ensue. We guard ours closely, and spend the afternoon as we spent the morning.

Dinner tonight is a special buffet, and is served only until 6. We retire to our room for a nap, and make our way to the restaurant about 4:45, which still feels too early, despite having skipped lunch. We start talking to the 2 women at the next table, Bev and Janet, who are Aussies from Adelaide and Melbourne. We compare notes on Australia, and then they start downloading advice on Bali – Bev has been here many, many times.

After dinner we hit the pool, and as the sun goes down we realize that the hotel will not be turning on any lights this evening. We knew that the Balinese are not to use electricity or fire today, but we had understood that hotels and hospitals were exempted. Apparently, the exemption is only for interior lights. So the evening darkens into total darkness. We feel alone until 2 people join us, and we realize that they are Bev and Janet.

At about 9 we are asked to leave the pool, so that everyone can go home, and so we head to Bev and Janet’s room, to continue our Nyepi celebrations. We are very conscious that behind the bar by the pool is a big open hole that would not be fun to fall into, but the rest of the going proves tougher than expected – the steps and the paths that are easy to negotiate with light are treacherous in pitch black. We had thought everyone had left, but as we try to get from here to there without killing ourselves, flashlights suddenly blind us and it turns out that there are a number of security people around, presumably to prevent people like us from breaking our necks.

While we are welcoming the New Year it starts to pour. About 11 we head for home, and again the flashlights magically appear to help us. In the very short distance we have to travel, we get completely soaked. We drift off to sleep, unconsciously noting that the storm’s intensity has increased.

Heat and humidity greet us this morning as we pull open our wooden Balinese doors and step out. We head up to the main pavilion for breakfast and see staff preparing for the start of the holiday. Small hand woven reed baskets of food offerings and flower petals are being prepared and placed at the two shrines that are on hotel property. These are laced with burning incense and the air is filled with a sweet smell. More of these little offerings are made during the day, culminating with prayers later on. We finish our breakfast and head into the streets to do some exploring. At every door stop or entrance to a building are these baskets of offerings and beautiful hand woven hanging reed banners.


Offerings

Just outside our hotel we are stopped by an intrepid young salesman trying to get us to attend the opening of a new hotel in Jimbaran Bay. Every ten feet we are offered a taxi or are honked at for a taxi. A firm but polite no is all that is needed.

We peruse some shops (many shops and restaurants we pass on our walk are already closed for the holiday) and end up at a sarong shop and buy seven! All for the incredible price of $12 CDN. Our friend Eric in Sydney gave us two sarongs as gifts on our last night in AU and these will add to our collection.

We head back to the hotel, sweaty and hot, having walked for about 3 hours. We plan to rest and head out again after lunch, but the pool is so alluring that we spend the afternoon relaxing.

As part of today’s cleansing celebrations, there would ordinarily be noisy parades designed to scare evil spirits away for another year. These parades feature huge carved sculptures of various gods and spirits, called ogoh-ogoh, with everyone banging a drum or somehow making noise. They have been banned this year for fear that, with the upcoming Indonesian general election, they will end in riots. After dinner we do head out anyway, hoping that although the parades are cancelled there will be some celebrations to observe. We are lucky – just as we get to the main road miniature ogoh-ogoh’s are gearing up outside the temple. We watch and listen, fascinated, and take some photos – everyone happily poses! We join the procession with the other foreigners, following the tail end – for about 50 metres, where it heads into the grounds of another temple and quickly dies. We hang around waiting for something else to happen, and when it becomes clear nothing will, we head back to our hotel for a swim and a beer.


Ogoh-Ogoh

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Getting to Denpasar was very easy. A cheap cab ride to the airport, easy check in (thanks to Raffles Class on Singapore Airlines), some quick duty free shopping for Absolut and Clinique and we’re away. I haven’t even mentioned the great lunch and drinks they provide in the Raffles lounge.

Our flight is a mere 2.5 hours from Singapore to Denpasar and other than having to face the unexpected $25.00 US each for visas (only required as of Feb. 1) coming into Denpasar, we are home free. We even have the luxury of having a driver meet us at the airport (as part of our hotel package) to drive us to the hotel. We clear customs and walk out into the arrivals hall to a sea of signs welcoming Mr. This or Ms. That and Family So and So until, scanning the crowd, I see “Welcome, Mr. Mountain” emblazoned on a sign card. We are whisked away by our escort “Made” and his trusty driver and told that we have a 30 minute drive to the hotel, “depending on traffic”.

We have landed on the eve of a major Balinese holiday weekend called Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu New Year. This occurs on the darkest night of the new moon, and is a time of balancing good and evil. From dawn on Sunday to sunrise the following morning, the entire island will “play dead” in observance of the holiday. All harbours will close, as will the airport, vehicular traffic will cease, and everyone will remain in the confines of their homes/hotels.

The festival actually goes for 3 days – the day of silence is only 1 of those days – and many ritual purifications take place even before it starts. As we drive from the airport we see sarung-clad “percalang”, Bali’s religious police, redirecting traffic away from temples where celebrations are taking place.


Percalang

We arrive fairly on time, after detours around celebrants of Melasti, who have been performing ritual purification of religious paraphernalia such as Balinese cloth umbrellas, statues (and there are a lot!), spears and other sacred objects kept in homes or temples. We are a little overwhelmed and unsure which direction we are heading, watching and hearing the cacophony around us. We check-in to our Balinese oasis, strangely cut into the back alleys and roads of Seminyak, and settle into our simple room. The grounds appear to be beautiful and a shimmering pool beckons us to have a swim. We grab a beer and I dangle my feet while John jumps in. The staff is quietly gracious and always there, beaming smiles and all. We appear to be the only ones here this evening. It is gloriously quiet except for tree frogs and some other undecipherable small animal noise.

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