INDONESIA

Adventures in Java & Bali...(continued!)

BALI!

SHORTCUTS
This week's weather in Bali.
The action--if you can stand it--is in Kuta.
Ubud is the ultimate.
Monkeys and Balinese Hinduism.
"Mangy, worm-eaten hellhounds of Ubud."

My old NYC friend, Tuey, met me in Bali on New Year's Eve day. He had stepped off the plane in Denpasar, got stopped at immigration, and ended up in one of those little side rooms for the same reason I did. (Lesson learned: Don't ignore what the guidebooks say about needing a passport valid for six months from time of entry to Indonesia!) Unfortunately he came in to meet me $100 short and some immigration officer was feeling good.

After swapping stories we found we both had apprehensions about Bali. It was overrun with tourists, and especially so during the Christmas and New Year's holidays. For me, after being among Javanese for six days, running into travelling types and hanging out with locals, to be suddenly flung into the category of "white tourist" and to be constant prey to much more pushy, aggressive vendors-- was totally overwhelming. But after getting all our frustrations out, we planned to enjoy our stay in Bali no matter what.

We left our beach hotel in Sanur and went over to Kuta--which is really swarming-- yet has better accommodation prices (you can do pretty well for $10-$15 per night), and we found a good place close enough to the action but far enough away. Beaches in Kuta are wider than in Sanur and the sand is white and wonderful--if you can stand all the riff-raff of vendors and tourists.

Went out dancing on New Year's Eve, walking and walking through crowded streets of tourists and locals wearing party hats and blowing horns in our faces and shaking hands and wishing Happy New Year. If you're not into crowds it's a nightmare...but we did find good all-night dancing at the Taj Mahal, which is WAY off the beaten track, more of a locals club so you won't find a lot of other visitors going there. That's what we like. Of course there are dozens of other clubs up and down the main drag, so enter them if you dare.

The best thing about Bali is Ubud, definitely. We spent about 4 days there and would've stayed longer except we were beach and sun-hungry. Ubud is about an hour north from the beaches, up in the country and mountains a bit. We were much happier there. The vendors in Kuta are just beyond belief. A walk in the streets iss stressful and irritating with guys selling watches and silver rings every few steps, and they walk with you for half a block despite protests, and young girls put their arms over your shoulders and try to get you to get your hair braided. The shopkeepers sit in front and call out to you to come in and buy. "I give you good price...have a look, Miss!" If you go to a restaurant, chances are they're reaching through the bushes with glowing yo-yos and goofy puppet birds and persistent smiles on their faces.

Anyway, Ubud, unlike Kuta, is a wonderful little town with beautiful handicraft shops, local culture and good restaurants. We've got a Balinese-style bungalow-- a tile porch with tiny, hand-carved double doors facing a lush garden. A family runs the place and built it all themselves. (Warsa's 2 bungalows, about $5each per night.) There's also a Hindu ceremonial stage in the garden we faced, as well as large stone family shrine area. Mustika, one of the sons, explained that the ceremonial bed (built into one corner of the stage) is used for pre-cremation rituals. The body is placed on the bed and treated with medicines and perfumes and a coffin is built over it prior to being taken to the cremation ceremony. Weddings are also held on this stage--any festivity, really. And twice a year there's a big family religious celebration in the shrine area.

The surrounding area of Ubud is a combination of tiered rice paddies (a sophisticated system of irrigation which originated there several thousand years ago), tropical countryside, and occasional communities of woodworkers, local artists, and craftspeople.

We rented bikes one day (cheap rental next to Warsa's 2) and pedaled for hours through village scenes. Ended up at Goa Gajah (the Elephant Cave), a popular tourist spot but an ancient temple area built in the 11th century. The cave entrance is in the form of a demon's mouth. Before entering you go down to wash with the holy water gushing from stone statues in an ancient pool. Inside the cave there are stone images (well, phalluses) representing the three main Hindu gods, Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, and a priest chanting and praying with bundles of candles in both hands.

Unfortunately, anything you do at Goa Gajah costs money--there are old women everywhere offering to demonstrate certain things if you give them money. If you take their picture it'll definitely cost you.

We also went out one night to see the Kecak trance/monkey dance--Awesome. I'd been fascinated with it ever since I saw it in a movie a few years ago. It's the one where a hundred men sit in a circle formation and tell the story of the Ramayana, a well-known myth throughout SE Asia, through singing and chanting and swaying their arms and bodies, to the accompaniment of nothing but their own voices, the rising and falling "kay-chek, kay-chek" chant. We also saw the traditional Balinese Legong dance--beautifully painted Balinese girls in gorgeous gold and silk costumes with elaborate headdresses.

Our evening hangout was usually Casa Luna, a popular restaurant in town that shows movies every night. There's not much else to do in Ubud at night and we were generally in bed by 11.

A visit to the monkey forest made my trip (I've got a thing for monkeys).

Tuey's got photos of monkeys perched on my shoulders dribbling banana down my arms. The monkeys are found in a protected area of about 10 km where 3 large groups of about 155 monkeys live. They're used to tourists feeding them bananas and peanuts, so they'll come up to you. They can touch you but you're not supposed to touch them--they get angry and defensive. Anyway, it was good fun and so nice to see them in a place they can be free, and are treated with so much respect by the Indonesian people. Monkeys have always been associated with holy places (there's a Hindu temple there too), and are heavily represented in the Ramayana myth. The Monkey Forest we visited is said to be important to the local people and lives up to the three main tenets (harmonious relationships) of Balinese Hindu philosophy:

1. God blessed life, created nature and its contents.
2. Nature offers subsistence, nourishment, nee and activities to human beings.
3. Human beings have an obligation to establish traditional village structure, to build a temple to worship, to hold various ceremonies, to make daily offerings, to preserve nature, to discuss and solve problems together.

We wondered if this wasn't nice in theory but if the onslaught of tourists to this island didn't take away from some of that. However, we noticed that people there really do adhere to a simple way of life, and their religious foundation is really strong. I've been asked by so many Indonesian people, throughout my travels here, if I believe in God, and they are quick to add that it doesn't matter what religious philosophy you adhere to, or if you adhere to many different ones--Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, whatever--it's all the same God, and all religions have something to offer. The important thing is to believe in some underlying connecting spirit of the universe.

Walking home in Ubud one night (we had found a cafe with live music) we were "greeted" by the infamous "mangy, worm-eaten hellhounds" (as per the Let's Go guidebook). Ubud is further quoted as being the "crusty, lame, hairless dog capital of the world"--and everything the book says is true. These pathetic creatures are probably of the same lineage as the crusty lame hellhounds of Bangkok. Anyway, just about every house has one so as you walk down the streets of Ubud at night they howl and bark and snarl until you're out of their territory, but of course you keep moving into new territory so where one lets off another is waiting for you. The book advises carrying a rock just in case, so while Tuey stooped to throw stones, I walked fearlessly with a boulder.

If all be told, Bali is beautiful and I have incredible memories of it, but I left my heart in Java (is that a song? har-har). Java, or at least the places I encountered, seemed to me unspoiled by tourism, especially the people. On a final note, what keeps pressing on my mind is how alive I felt while travelling in Indonesia... or is that travelling in general? We felt we learned a lot about simplicity--living in the moment--that's what people do there. They don't get stressed out, and they don't assess their lives in terms of how much they've accomplished. On returning to Japan, and "this life", I often long to recapture just an ounce of that wisdom.

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