Bali

The first Dance of the show in Ubud.

March 29-April 12 Bali

More of the dance.

We arrived in Bali on a delayed flight and finally found a hotel/guest house at 10:30 pm after wandering the streets of Kuta Beach for an hour.  Fortunately Kuta Beach is a touristy party town so the night life was full force and there were other people out on the streets (and we have found Indonesia pretty safe all in all.)  We spent 2 days checking out the beach, wandering the maze of streets where all manner of guest houses, lunch shops, hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops are found.  It is the nature of the place but we’re alternately bemused or politely irritated by the constant calling out by shop keepers and even people on the beach “Hey you come in my shop and look, nice things I give you good price” or “you need taxi?” or “massage, you want nice massage; foot or neck?”  Sam really doesn’t like the ones directed at him; “Hey boy, where you from? Come look in my shop. Hey boy!”

Baby Monkey!

We can’t keep track of the number of times that we have told someone (often times the same person more than once if we walk by their shop numerous times) that no we don’t need a (you fill in the blank) watch/sarong/massage/taxi/ice cream/puppet/rent a surf board/necklace/bracelet/ ornate wood carving/drink or what have you. I ended up buying 4 sarongs in Ubud for a wedding and now everytime I’m approached by someone selling one I say “but I already have 4,” they say, “ but you not buy one from me yet. I give you better price.” One of my favorites however was when Steve was asked to buy a beach towel and he told the guy that they had beer brands on them and he didn’t drink beer and didn’t want to advertise for a beer company and the old guy gave him a look and said “”so what, you can still get a towel.  It gets hard when no isn’t good enough, and we end up having to look away and ignore someone.

A patron Bringing offerings to different sites.

  Our guest house was down a quiet, narrow side street and was two buildings set perpendicular to each other with a small garden and Balinese Hindu shrine and a swimming pool.  It was a nice place to do some homeschool and get out of the heat of the beach. The weather here is in the 90’s to 100’s and usually humid, and we only occasionally get a rain shower.
March 31-April 5 Ubud
We headed inland to the town of Ubud, which is known more as the cultural, artistic of Bali.  As I mentioned in a previous blog,Indonesia itself is the largest Islamic nation.  There are pockets of other cultures on the 17,000 odd islands that make up the nation.  Many of these islands in the earliest days were influenced by the Hindu but with the spread of Islam, in the 1300’s the Hindu’s who didn’t convert fled to and concentrated themselves on the island of Bali. There they have developed a distinctive Balinese Hinduism with a different style of temples than found in India, as well as music and dance. There are thousands of temples and many family compounds have a temple or at least a shrine.

Another mossy statue.

Swimming monkeys.

And another.

  The guest house where we stayed in Ubud is what is known as a family homestay.  The guest rooms are actually within the family compound and the family life goes on around you as one comes and goes to their own activities.  This family homestay, Sania’s House’ was a large compound with a large family temple, at least 20 guest rooms in multistory buildings (but as they were built going down a ravine, it didn’t give the effect of a skyscraper) and a small swimming pool.  We were on the 3rd floor of one of the buildings with one of the nicest rooms we’ve had. There was a good sized covered balcony where we they delivered our breakfast each morning and where we did homeschool and read during the day.  It was an incredible place.  We arrived in Ubud on March 31, Ben’s birthday. After settling in we wandered the town awhile taking in the some of the big souvenir market, and getting a feel for the layout of the town. Our search included a hunt for a bakery.
We eventually found a small bakery but they only sold pieces of cake but not an entire cake. So Ben picked out 5 pieces of different kinds of cake to celebrate his birthday.  That night after supper we went to a traditional Balinese Kecak dance.  It was a dance and chant and storytelling all wrapped up into one.  It was a retelling of part of the Ramayana story.  There were around 100 men in the “chorus” who chanted, spoke, did accompanying hand and arm motions and moved around in unison in  the telling of the story.  There were 3 or 4 of them who did actual monologues of the story and then there were about 10 dancers re-enacting the story.  It was quite a presentation.  It was held in a large covered area and the audience was on plastic seats set up on tiered wooden platforms.

A ceremony at a temple in Padangbai.

The main beach and ferry terminal in Padangbai.

 After that dance there was a brief trance dance where they lit a pile of coconut husks and then a man danced and stomped through them barefoot, apparently without burning his feet.  Afterwards we stopped at a little 7-11 and picked up ice cream and then had our cake and ice cream at the guest house.
     There are many temples scattered in the town itself.  Many have a dress code to enter, particularly for ceremonies.  Men need to be wearing a sarong and sash and often a head wrap called an udong (oodong).  Women need to wear a sarong with sash and a long sleeved blouse.  They also cannot enter if they are menstruating. 
     In the days following we visited the temples at the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, walked around rice paddies, wandered through the souvenir market, did homeschool, swam in the pool and just hung out and relaxed and watched the wedding preparations.  There was an elaborate decoration of bamboo, palm leaves and purple cloth constructed at the doorway to the family compound from the street.  The family temple was decorated with cloth, stacked tiers of fruit, and baskets of other things.

Us with Martini (our favorite cook) and Kevin (from Australia)

There was a constant procession of people coming and going and food preparation going on. (I’ve never seen so much peeled garlic in one place at one time) One day there was a group of people using what looked like playdoh in a variety of hues constructing a hug 2’-3’ decoration of heads, flower petals and distinctive Balinese shaped designs.  The wedding was our final day in Ubud and was a day long affair, with the bride and groom in traditional Balinese dress.  The marriage ceremony itself was held at her home with 300 people present. Later in the afternoon there was a ceremony at the family temple in the guesthouse with us being able to watch along with several other tourist and dozens of Balinese.  From our room you could not really tell there was a wedding going on and that there were a couple hundred extra people wandering around.  We had gone to the market and bought sarong so as to be more appropriately dressed.  It was interesting to watch and we even got to have some wedding supper.

Surfer, and shadow.

April 5-9 Padangbai
     Padangbai is a small coastal town and ferry port for ferries mainly going to the island of Lombok, but also other islands as well.  We were in a guest house that had a large communal balcony overlooking the ferry terminal and the small harbour with lots of small boats moored. This was also a rather laid back place for us as we rented snorkel equipment and snorkeled off of a couple of different beaches, hung out and did homeschool or watch the ferries come and go.  One afternoon we hired a man and his boat and he took us to a good snorkel spot offshore.

Catching some waves and sun.

     Right on the beach across from our guest house there was a small Hindu shrine that as well as a much bigger and more elaborate one on the hill beside the guest house.  At various times during our stay there we would see minivans loaded with Balinese in temple dress come to make offerings. Most mornings there would be people on motorscooters also go by with their rice and flower offerings in woven palm trays.

Crowds on the beach.

April 9-12 Kuta Beach
     We made our way back to Kuta Beach for our 2 last days in Bali.  For his birthday present Ben decided he wanted to learn to surf so for 2 days he rented a board and from watching others he taught himself so surf.  He got up on it several times and enjoyed himself.  We hung out on the beach watching him, dipping in the ocean, looking for shells and then going back to the hotel and cooling off in the pool.

Everyone loves the beach.