Rain, Rain and more Rain!

Although we reached Bali at the very beginning of their dry season, we experienced a great deal more rain that even the Balinese expected this time of year. During the first week there was an occasional and brief shower each afternoon. During the final two weeks, it was much hotter (we heard many locals remark about the intense heat) and most afternoons included a torrential downpour or two, some lasting most of the afternoon and into the evening hours. We walked in the rain a great deal and saw the front of the villa flood many times, as you can see in the pictures. We truly felt as though we had entered a tropical rain forest during the second half of our trip.

Mysterious and Magical Monkeys

One of our favorite parts of each day in Ubud was our walk through the Monkey Forest to get into town. There is something almost magical about the feeling that the Balinese are “living with the monkeys”. They are everywhere and we wanted to devote one entire entry to Monkey Forest and it’s monkeys. You will see Mary feeding one of the monkeys, what you will not see is what happened directly after the picture was taken. The very same monkey, looking for more, scaled up the front of Mary and took the remaining portion right out of her hands! Yikes!

Visienne from Belgium

We made a friend who is staying in the villa below us. Visienne is a doctor from Belgium traveling around Bali alone. The three of us woke up early one morning to visit the “early” Ubud market, also considered the Javanese market. The village market was full of local Indonesians buying essentials and surprisingly… offerings. Throughout the day the Balinese set out offerings of food and flowers in a variety of simple, woven containers. We had thought that each person created their own offerings every day, but it turns out that they buy these offerings from the market in large quantities.
That evening Jubie and Visienne attended an Ashtanga yoga class at the Yoga Barn. The yoga barn is an open-air high ceiling villa that overlooks the lilly ponds. One of the most beautiful places for yoga. Interesting to note, there was not one Indonesian present. It appears they are "living meditation" without the need for a special class.

Ah yes- NATURE!

Returning home from town we witnessed another Bali national geographic moment in the form of a snake dining upon one of our friendly villa frogs. At first sight we were uncertain as to whether we should interfere, but we chose to let nature be and photographed the event instead.

Balinese Dance Classes

We had decided to take several traditional Balinese dance classes from our Shakti dance instructor, Barbara. Barbara has studied many years (and moved to Bali 20 years ago to study) under the direction of a still bright and spunky 90 year old teacher,
Barbara even showed us pictures of she and her teacher dancing last week. The traditional Balinese moves, we both agree, are complicated and complex. We get a chance to stretch even our eyeballs. The steps are often small and intrinsic, but full of intention and energetic focus.

Roaming Barong Groups

The day after Galungan day we saw many roaming barong groups of children performing in the streets, hoping for sweets and treats.

A New Generation to Celebrate!

Whahoo!!!! What exciting news we received this week. Benjamin Smith (weighing 8lbs 6 oz) was born on May 3rd to beautiful Amanda and beloved son/brother Jared. We even got to Skype the little fella. So we pay Galungan tribute to ancestors and new generations alike.

Galungan Celebration: Ubud

We were greeted like long, lost family by our sweet group of Indonesian caretakers at Puri Asri (even offered another welcome “home again” watermelon drink). With Jubie requiring rest (and restrooms) frequently, we took time to witness and participate in the Balinese celebration of Galungan days. The Galungan celebration is a ten day period wherein families must welcome and entertain, with prayers and offerings, their deceased ancestors. Preparations begin weeks before the actual day. We watched as “penjor” (long bamboo poles decorated and hung with offerings) were constructed and erected in front of every family compound and storefront. On Galungan day itself we joined the villagers at the Monkey Forest Temple for prayers and blessings. No businesses were open and the streets were quiet of tourists, but the local children were everywhere hanging out in large gangs laughing and teasing one another. We even tried to help Puri Asri with the penjor decoration, but we were never quite timely enough. During the afternoon rains (which happen every day despite that this is the beginning of Bali dry season) we took time to reflect on our adventures and pay tribute to our deceased ancestors.

Tenganan- The Ancient Traditional Village

As Mary and Jubie lay in bed the second night in Amed (we ran out of things to do around 7pm) they looked at each other and both agreed that they wanted to go home, well shall we say the most recent place that felt like a home, Puri Asri. So they called up their friends at Puri Asri and said they had run out of things to do at the beach- and Jubie and Mary were happily welcomed back!

The next morning Made arrived and off they went toward Ubud, with a stop to the traditional village,Tenganan, along the way. We again felt rather trapped as tourists here as it was set up (seemingly to us) as yet another way to sell stuff to the tourists. I suppose we should expect this, but somehow it is always disappointing. Nonetheless we enjoyed seeing the weaving, the making of the triple icot fabrics and the making of the lontar-leaf books and calendars. The lontar- leaf process is done with tiny etching and the etchings are colored with macademia nut. Many of the fabrics from the village are dyed in the old ways using nature. We heard that buffalo were allowed to roam freely in the village, but if they were there, we didn’t notice, it was pretty quiet overall. Mary and Jubie met the village musician who introduced them to some of the very old gamelan instruments which were tuned with a seven note scale as opposed to the more common pentatonic or five tone scales.

Mopeds and More!

After Jubie’s moped lesson and a nice ride in the countryside, we stopped in a Mama’s Warung for a little dinner. We had fresh fish and shared a large Bintang beer after which we both felt very relaxed. Jubie wanted to drive the moped, Mary agreed as she was doing very well throughout the day. After a few photos with the guys from Mama’s Warung, Jubie climbed onto the Moped, Mary got on the back, and Jubie gave it a little gas and as she was trying to get to the left side of the road, forgot where the brake was and off they both went, across the road and into a tree (at about the slowest speed one could imagine possible). You could imagine the shock of our new friends at Mama’s Warung as they witnessed the rather hilarious event! The moped was unscathed, however Jubie and Mary sustained a few abrasions in the incident. Mary drove home and encouraged Jubie to drive one more time the next morning, the old “get back on the horse that threw ya concept”. It worked and the next day Jubie had a much more successful drive- we are certain it was the Bintang!

The sights near the volcano mountain were quite amazing in the early evening mist. We stopped at what looked like someone’s house to buy petrol that is sold by the liter and is stored in plastic water bottles. It cost us 10,000 rupiah (or $1.10) to fill er up! No wonder they use mopeds. Everyone drives a moped. We saw drivers as young as 12 years old and we also saw entire families on one moped- Dad driving with baby in front of him, child behind him, Mom at the back. No one had helmets on- you wouldn’t see this in the USA!

Bali belly strikes

The next morning we had breakfast on the beach, and it was after breakfast that the dreaded “Bali belly” hit. Jubie had to return back to the hotel for a few hours of gut rest. Bali belly is actually a pretty hard core virus that tourists sometimes get, we think Jubie may just have the less severe “travelers belly”. Either way it means that “gut rest” is required after eating, and often activities are time limited due to fatigue. Unwilling to let this setback shut the day down completely, Mary rented a moped (yes, she is an experienced motor-cyclist) and taught Jubie how to ride her first motor-bike. What exciting liberty to have the wind in our faces and the open road ahead (the Indos do drive on the left)! We were able to explore the tiny villages along the coast-line, as well as the winding roads towards the mountains inland. In the villages, we observed the strange sight of elderly men stroking and cuddling their roosters. These roosters were then typically returned to individual wicker cages. Mary had been puzzled and scratching her head over this image for days. What we found upon questioning the locals, is that “cock-fighting” is the most popular gambling pastime. Even in the most gentle, creative and spiritual cultures there is an edge of violence.

We took a walk along the dark, rocky beach. We watched the fishing boats, that appeared as distant insects, cruise lazily on the horizon. We stopped into a beachside warung for the local Indonesian beer Bintang. As we were relaxing, we got our first taste of the “child beach peddlers”. As we walked into the beach there was a sign warning us not to buy from the children peddling on the beach. The sign let us know that this would teach them to be lazy. It also informed us that school is free in Indonesia and that they should be there. It seems that a young child (4-10 years) approaches with a bag from which they pull a tiny woven jewelry box and begins the sales pitch. Often they seem to know some English, enough to try and engage in conversation, like “where are you from”. They were undeterred by a “no, thank you”, “ti duk (Indonesian for no)”, dismissive look, or even a frank ignoring shift of our body. What did work was a stern bark “NO” from Miss Mary (not something that she is known for, but something she has learned from the dog whisperer and her many encounters with unknown canine), seems to work with peddler children too. However we must admit that although we hated being hounded by these children, we also felt very bad that they had to experience so much rejection from so many adults at such a young age.

Amed

After lunch we drove two more hours toward our beach town of Amed where we were to stay for four nights that turned quickly into two nights. Amed is a very small collection hotels and warungs. It is a popular diving and snorkeling site. The sand is black and difficult to walk upon and the coastline is quite rocky. Made had a friend with a hotel called the Amed Café, so we booked a rather lovely room for a very reasonable price and set about exploring Amed. Our room had a terrific balcony that had a couch and even a four-poster bed in it! It overlooked the road and one could hear the crashing of the waves from the porch. One could also hear the teenagers making music across the street, it seems that the teenage population has little to do in this coastline community. It was funny to hear these young Indonesian teens learning to play American songs on guitars and djembe drums.

Our friend the bat in motion

Lunch in the Rice Paddies

From the temple we then drove to the rice paddies where we ate lunch high upon a hill overlooking geometric fields of rice. The restaurant had a resident bat living on a perch near the front entrance. This bat was the largest bat we had ever encountered close up (not to say that we have closely encountered that many bats). The bat captivated tourists by stretching his huge waxy wings open revealing his oddly orange furry body. He even reached out and grabbed the camera of German tourist much to her surprise!