Here's looking at you Ubud...

Tomorrow I will have one last leisurely breakfast at the hotel, hop on Grohl, and wing my way south toward the airport and ultimately (and not southerly) Hawaii.  So tonight I dance.  Well, I didn’t dance, but I watched people dance.  Yup at the end of my two weeks in the relaxation/artistic mecca of Indonesia I thought I might get me some culture.  Or something like that.

I did not set out on such a mission.  While I am all for museums and have an actual degree in theatre I don’t tend to run out to see a show.  So when I passed the usual ticket tout I just kept walking.  Then I passed the entrance as if it wasn't even there.  Sometime after I turned the corner to search out a cheap little warung for dinner I said to myself, “why not”, and turned around.  See people, I am capable of changing my mind.

Tonight’s bill included a Kecak dance and a fire dance.  While the fire dance may in actuality be a very old traditional dance the kecak is open to more interpretation.  It evolved in the ‘30’s at the suggestion of a couple American hoteliers who had opened up the very first beach resort in Kuta. So the dance was inspired by the first tourist wave. As tourism dried up a couple years later and didn’t get going again until about 30 years after that, the dance is not dependent on the tourists.  Whether you chose to give it credit as a legitimate piece of their original culture or not, it is an undeniably Balinese form.  The dance involves about 70 shirtless men age 20-78 sitting in a circle wearing black and white checked cloth and singing a cappella.  Like a tribal version of the Warblers.  Eventually 5 or 6 nymph types and a couple of hefty gentlemen enter the fray as specific characters from the Hindu stories that make up most of Bali’s religion and artistic subjects.  The rest of Bali’s artistic subjects are the landscape and the landscape of topless women.  Really.  Check out the museums here sometime. 

                Between the Kecak and the fire dance there was a shorter form dance that involved a female chorus, a few of the kecak singers, and a couple of very hardworking 7 year old girls doing pretty impressive maneuvers with fans while wearing Rockettes training headgear.  It was totally adorable.

                The final dance of the evening was the fire dance.  I have yet to decide if this is supposed to be a dance reserved for a revered talent or more of a jumping in to join the kecak chorus. You see, this dance involves a large pile of coconut husks, a liter of petrol, and a man in a straw horse costume.  Seriously.  While the flames burn high and bright HorseyMan dances around the fire.  What the story of this is I do not know.  [I am still very proud of myself for following about ¾ of the Kecak based solely on the art I saw in three of the 4 museums I visited.] Once the flames go down a bit he dances THROUGH the fire.  At this point the largely tourist crowd actually said “ooohhhhh” in unison in a way that no amount of coached background would ever pull off.  Once he has done the initial dance through the fire, he proceeds to dance and splash about in the embers of the fire casting sparks everywhere like a mad combination of Tinkerbell and Michael Jackson from the Billie Jean video.  The sparks are very pretty, but I assure you the smoke blowing all over the place as they sweep the bigger coconut pieces into piles for him to jump through is a bit of a mood killer.

Speaking of mood killers, I have found after careful observation this last two and a half weeks of vacation, that I tend to get cranky in the afternoon in particular.  This was the case today as well.  Do you know what a great killer of crankiness is?  A walk through a rice paddy.  Ubud is a real town which is hard to come by in Bali, so let’s give it credit where credit is due.  That being said, if you take just the right alley up just the right hill you find yourself in the middle of 1943.  That is to say, a stone paved path through a rice paddy where people are harvesting the rice by hand while wearing conical hats and workers bath in the river after a long day.  I know because I happened to come upon a bather while taking a shortcut.  I think we were both pretty glad he was in the dunk portion of his routine and not the inspect myself for bug bites part.

Throw in some ribs and a pretty decent art museum and that was my day.  Not bad Ubud.  Not bad.

Spanking the Monkey

Well, that got your attention, didn’t it?

When one is in a forest surrounded by monkeys it is best to keep calm.  And perhaps carry a towel.  In this way the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is spot on.  Monkeys look very cute and innocent.  They are not.  Do not be fooled.  Tiffany, I can feel you wavering, “but they have those cute little faces”.  That is when, BAM, there is a monkey on you as you scream in TERROR!  (I am really feeling the capital letters today, so dramatic.)  Like this silly tourist I saw today.  Who bought bananas for the monkeys.  Trust me, this did not end well for her. 

I’m sure you all know this as it is an incredibly well known fact, but monkeys have opposable thumbs.  That’s right, they have tiny little human hands.  They have them so that they can climb trees and pound coconuts.  Also, so they can cling to shrieking, hysterical tourists until said tourists throw far from them any object that the monkey may possibly want to possess and run away weeping.  I watched this happen today.  I may have been giggling to myself as I watched.  I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I am not a nice person.

That is why karma frequently likes to teach me lessons.  I did not bring the monkeys food.   I did not want to get jumped by a simian.  A desire I have stated in previous posts.  I kept all bags zipped and my camera lashed around my wrist.  I read the brochure.  I knew the rules.  Then a monkey decided that people were more fun to climb on than trees and suddenly there I was, the newest perch in the Monkey Forest.  I didn’t make a sound, I just stood there for a second while it decided what to do.  Then I heard it behind me – the giggling.  Not from a monkey, they don’t giggle.  They probably do know sign language for “who wants to climb the blonde girl next”, but the giggles I heard were from the staff sitting at a nearby table.  Everyone has their moment to look stupid and I assure you, with a gray macaque on my head, my time was this morning.  Satisfied for the moment that I had nothing worth grabbing, the monkey took its leave from my person.  It did continue to stalk me through the outer grounds of the temple at the forest’s center.  Vindictive little bastard.

But enough of the monkey talk. 

Today was supposed to be rapture day.  Wait, let’s try that again, RAPTURE DAY!  A day for one last rose ceremony from God to be followed by volatile reactions from the earth itself, just like on reality tv.  Spoiler Alert:  No such reactions happened here in Bali so I think you guys are probably safe.  As for the disappearances, well…the chances that I know even one of the 300,000 or 144,000, or 12 people who made the cut (and the number schemes do seem to vary wildly) are very slim.  My chosen people have far too much respect for living to have been nominated to that homecoming court full of goody-goodies. So let’s just take a moment to celebrate each other for all of our glorious little faults.  Friends who drink, swear, fornicate, masturbate, pontificate, judge, eat meat on Sunday, and all of the other stuff that we know we aren’t really supposed to do, I love each and every one of you just as you are.  Besides if we are all going to hell, won’t hell just look like LA?

Feeling Arty

Having the luxury of a few days in one place, I decided to take a break from commerce and travel requirements and do something unheard of in Bali – enjoy the arts.  Now there was a little sarcasm in that last bit as Ubud is known as the artistic center of the island.  It’s just that most tourists really only take the art factor so far as “wow that artistic batik dress will look great once I hem it a bit and get the vendor to lower their price by 50,000 rupiah”. 

I had a plan and it went fairly well except for a vanished art shop, a closed palace, and a case of the afternoon crankies that vetoed my last stop of the day.  I started off strong, looking once again for the Atlantis of local art stores.  Finding neither the store nor a mysterious pool of water large enough to contain it I sallied forth to the lady art museum.  Here is the thing about Balinese art – it’s all about the ladies.  Topless usually.  Pouty always.  Strikingly beautiful without question.  Painted by men.  In the main museum here in Ubud while women are the subject of about 80% of the artwork in goddess or mortal form, only “a handful” of the artists in the museum are women.  So this British chick decided to do something about it and founded her own museum for female artists.  There is even a room full of artwork by 8-11 year olds to encourage them to develop their talent.  Not bad.

I had another lady place to go – Threads of Life (a textile gallery celebrating the art of back straining labor/tedious drudgery known as weaving).  There was an exhibit here on ikat weaving that was actually pretty interesting but that was about all she wrote.  Unless you are into very overpriced textiles in which case right this way and bring your pocketbooks.

Then it was on to the men.  Lempad, the architect/artist/sculptor to the royals who lived to be 118, is revered here.  His house is now open to the public and is pretty interesting to see though spending more than a half hour here would be mightily indulgent.  Speaking of indulgent, another personal residence turned place of interest is the Museum Blanco.  Blanco is the self-styled Dali of Bali and to say he had a healthy ego would be putting it ever so mildly.  He painted  3 things and he painted them over and over – topless/naked women, inanimate objects, children.  Every once in a while he would do a variation on a theme – naked women obscured by inanimate objects.  My last stop in the Land of Men was Symon’s Studio.  Symon is an expat artist who has been bumming around Bali for about 20 years but whose work is still clearly influenced/derived from the western world.  Obama done Warhol style, some nice Marilyn Monroes, and foray into homoerotic painting and sculpture that had not the hint of subtlety.

In addition to a bunch of small galleries the formal part of my day involved a trip to the only true state run museum in Ubud, the Museum Puri Lukisan (the Palace of Paintings) which is sadly a little too like the Getty for its own good – beautiful grounds but a collection that is nowhere near as impressive as it should be.  It is also in the midst of a renovation which can be a muddy nasty place when it downpours, like it did all morning today.

Tomorrow I plan to conquer one more museum and a woodcarving village to the south.  Plunder for all upon my successful return.

What goes up...

Greetings to new blog follower Ken Ferrigni, a blast from my Florida past.  No mom he is not one of my mistakes nor is he likely ever to be as he is happily married to a fellow thespian.  Now that we have that out of the way, shall we?

As you may or may not have gathered from my previous posts, Bedugul is in the mountains.  Actually it is in the crater of an ancient volcano but you get the picture.  Driving to Bedugul was long and exhausting due to my pre-drive insomnia, faulty sense of direction, and hitting all the curvy twisty bits during the last hour of the drive.  Today, it was my turn to go down the mountain.  In a bit of a hurry.  Was I running from the law? A jilted lover? My hotel bill? Nope.  I was outrunning mother nature herself.  One day she may one up me and flip the switch on my biological clock but I will be damned if she will rain on my parade, or scooter ride down a mountain.  Clouds were low, thick and dark at 7am and the time to hesitate was through.  After getting Grohl out of the adjacent room he had been parked in for two days and loading him down with my market goodies it was time to roll. 

When you head down a mountain fresh from a quick breakfast and telling yourself the little flecks of moisture you keep feeling are just dew you tend to be a bit looser with your driving.  Not reckless, just not quite as tense.  Here is the thing about Balinese driving – it is like the bastard love child of ballet and jazz. [Modern Dance? (You may ask) NO! I hate modern dance, and Spencer as much as I adore you no amount of explanation will change that.  I will continue to smile and nod and REFUSE to understand.] So, bastard love child – there are definite tenants that underlie the movements but a more free form execution than you might see in a “civilized” society.  That being said, when viewed with a relaxed eye it can be quite beautiful. 

Now that we’ve taken  a whack at driving in Bali let’s talk religion.  I hit a couple of temples today and here are a few things I’ve noticed.  1) There are 3 kinds of Hindu temples here – a)Touristy ones, b)Decorative ones, and c)Actual places of worship.  2)The key to a good Hindu temple? You gotta get a gimmick.  It’s just like the strippers tell Rose Louise in Gypsy. There are about 2000 temples here (that is not a made up estimate) and they are all just trying to get a piece of the pie.   One of the temples today had a moat surrounding the grounds, the other had no grounds to speak of, just large lotus pools.  Yesterday, the only temple on actual water (it also happens to be on the back of the  50,000 rupiah note, meaning it totally has a better publicist). 

I’m in Ubud now (ew-boo-d).  All checked in to the most luxurious place I’ve been in Bali (hot water AND a flush toilet, someone pinch me).   I got a facial and one of those dead-skin-eating-fish pedicures. All in all, not a bad day.  And I didn’t even get rained on.

P.S. I think it is fair to say Facebook may be the place for photos from now on.  I will of course continue to try to upload here.

What care I for men when there are rocks and trees?

Jane Austen said that or something like it.  She was of course a noted spinster.  As am I.  I say own it. How did this spinster spend her day?  Going to a temple, wandering through parks and gardens, having conversations about old school music and children’s books with a middle-aged Australian man.  The usual.

If there is one thing Bali has going for it, that would be it’s lush vegetation.  Up here in the lakes district we are in the crater of an ancient volcano.  That being the case it is like living in a cloud.  The humidity is 70-90% daily.  That is a published fact.  It rains every day.  That is just common knowledge.  The mornings dawn bright and clear and by about 3 or 4pm the clouds have come to town to give everything a good watering.  I feel it is worth noting at this point that my rain gear is back in Kuta in my luggage. 

The temple has the distinction of being the only one in all of Bali that is on water.  Sure there are about 700 around the lakes and the coast, but only 1 can claim to be on the water.  Guess who saw it this morning?  Yup, me!  Taking the advice of a trek guide I ran into yesterday I went very early this morning.  I was in and out just as the first tour bus parked.  While it was just me walking the grounds it was very lovely and still.  I kind of missed the monkeys though. (By the way Ryan, consider your penis shaped souvenir in the bag.  The checked bag that is because it would be super embarassing to carry that through airport security.  And why is this listed in the temple section?  Well, remember what I said about vendors near temples?  You're welcome.)

For a taste of hullaballoo, I went back to the market.  I had done a bit of shopping yesterday but I had tons of shopping left (there are just so many of you who need souvenirs).  This morning I cleaned up.  And out.  My wallet.  It was a very productive trip.  I am down to my last 5 people to buy for.  I have never been good at bargaining but I have found silence and the willingness to walk away invaluable in these transactions.  Also, it is a great idea to go to market very early as the first sale of the day is thought to bring luck so the vendors are more bargain happy.

There is an amazing free park in town with an orchid garden (sadly not in bloom), a coffee plantation, and a bamboo forest.  It is also the only place in town for free wifi.  I go there alot.

The town’s other claim to fame is the Bali Botanical Gardens.  A massive, manicured garden glory with a begonia house, a cactus house, a wild orchid garden (some actually in bloom), and so much more.  It was here at the lake view that I ran into John the 50-something Australian who sat and chatted with me for an hour.  Why is this of note?  Was he strikingly handsome and oh so available?  No.  For years I have looked down on ex-patriots for their cliquish need to band together and I take that back now.  After 2 weeks of being in the Pacific Rim what I crave more than anything is a conversation carried out in English without the intent of a monetary transaction.  I had a bit of that yesterday at a rest stop with a middle aged Australian couple. Today I had enough to get me through to Hawaii. 

Ex-pats, don’t think you are off the hook.  I still think the term ex-pat is snobby and I do judge all who willingly call themselves that in public.  You’ve been warned.

P.S.  While blogspot wouldn't let me download photos, Facebook was totally okay with it. If you want to check in on some photos from today they are in the Bali album.  The first 5 were from a few days ago, but after that it's all new stuff.

More road

I am writing today’s post at 230pm which is decidedly earlier than usual because I wanted to post today and yesterday as soon as possible. Before Mom thinks something tragic has befallen me. 

Remember what I said about monkey’s yesterday and how I had my fill.  Well, I was wrong.  I stopped at a really nice temple this morning that was crawling with them.  Here is what I liked about this temple as opposed to Pura Tannah Lot – this temple was actually for the devout.  Tannah was surrounded by souvenir stalls and tour bus parking and while there were quite a few Asian faces, they were all tourist Asian faces.  This morning’s temple Pura Agung Pulaki had roadside parking, not a vendor in site and I was the only cracker in 15km radius.  The temple itself was beautiful and it was interesting to watch a service  and see how as different as things are here they are also much the same.  There may be monkeys stealing the offerings (they were little scamps), but there were also little kids having a hard time concentrating in church. They were speaking Hindu prayers, over the backup PA system because they were having AV problems.

After that I was in search of an ATM, a post office, and a backroad up a mountain.  I found all three, but not with as much success as I would have liked.  The ATM was pretty easy, though I did have to go to two in order to find one that took Visa.  The post office was right next door as promised.  It was also closed for the day.  The mountain road?

I had a pretty long drive today, made longer by the fact that I missed a turn and had to cover some ground twice.  I never claimed to be a perfect navigator and I never will.  That being said I have decided the lesson of the day is that I do not give myself enough credit for when I don’t screw up.  I was really starting to get frustrated at one point thinking I had missed another turn and was headed in the wrong direction when I caved and pulled over to consult the map.  I was not only going the right direction, I was a lot closer to the target location than I thought. Hurray for me.  Considering this was in part of the steep twisty turny bit of the drive even if I were going in the wrong direction there was no way I was turning around.  Onward and upward.  Excelsior. 

And that is about all for now.  I plan on hitting the market on the way back to my hotel but that is a story for another day.

xoxo

On the road again...

I got a start on my day pretty early as I have absolutely no basis for time vs. distance estimates and felt it could take all day to get to Permuteran, which was my intended stop.  I got there at 1130am, but starting there would miss all the excitement of the day so lets just begin at the beginning, shall we?

It seems that I managed to grab every physical possession that I came with from my room in Medewi but my nerve?  It must have been hiding under the bed.  I found myself on the road very early and just a little off balance. Even the monkey song wasn’t working.  I tried the Ukranian’s tip to “feel the energy flow through you to the ground”.  I tried my friend Rebekah’s trick of “feeling connected to everything”.  My friends are obviously very feely.  Or maybe it’s just that when driving in Bali you are inspired to skip logic and go straight for appealing to higher powers like Mother Nature or Sister Sky.  Any way you slice it I was just not feeling the love today. 

About half an hour into my journey of self-doubt and tension I came up with my magic idea – I could stop anytime I wanted.  I didn’t have to make it anywhere today.  I could stop in the very next town.  Little Golden Books and your “I think I can” mentality, take a hike.  I choose “I don’t have to.”  I don’t have to get to the coast.  I don’t have to see another temple.  I don’t have to do anything but return my scooter in 7 days and make it to the airport.  Take that Little Engine, Mr. Rogers, Mary Sunshine.  I’m an American and this is my world.  Suddenly, I was feeling a lot better.

That is to say until I got to Negara.  Negara is one of the first honest to God towns that I have driven through.  They have a stoplights, divided highways, Police Headquarters and shiny cruisers.  Which I pulled up next to at a stoplight.  Being a law abiding citizen and general goody-goody, the police make me incredibly nervous.  Being an American in Indonesia marks me as an easy target for extortion for police.  So, the 25 seconds (seriously, the stoplight had a countdown) that I was parked next to the Polisi was nerve wracking.  Especially since they called out hellos and the like.  Once the light changed and we were both on our way they followed me and my tension did not abate.  Then they pulled me over.  I felt done for.  However, these were apparently the nicest cops in Bali because while they did do a full pullover, block my bike, ask where I was going and so forth, they only appeared to have done it because my bag (though tethered to the back) had slipped off sideways from the bike.  Or perhaps they weren’t that altruistic but were stumped about my nationality.  Where are you from?  (Don’t say LA, everyone has heard of LA) Missouri.  Misss-ooo-li?  Nod and speak as little English as possible.  They told me I could go and to be careful then proceeded to follow me for the length of this surprisingly large town.  I was so very glad to be out of Negara.

The rest of the drive was a lot easier after that.  Once you get up to the northwest corner of the island you drive through their one national park, Bali Barat.  It is a beautiful drive.  The road cuts through at a bit higher elevation and more inland so there are real forests and not just tropical lushness all around.  You could see the western mountains inland.  Then there were the monkeys.  A large group of gorgeous wild monkeys were crossing the road.  I kid you not.  I was glad to see them.  It alleviated any need I had to go to the Monkey Forest where the monkeys are notoriously aggressive due to interactions with humans.  I dig you wild monkeys, I just don’t want you to jump me on my scooter.

Tonight I am in the lap of luxury – a hotel with a flush toilet.  The internet situation in this town isn’t great though so I will probably post this tomorrow.  On tomorrow’s adventure list?  Chasing down a local myth of an ATM and a post office RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!

Until then…

P.S. wifi still not strong enough for photos.  Sorry.