15-27 June: Gili T, Padang Bai to Sanur

15-27 June: Gili T to Padang Bai to Sanur

Gili T looked great from the water: Turquoise shallows, white sand, waving palms, bamboo and thatch buildings and huts. Aesthetically positioned hotels and businesses. It is the physical manifestation of an imaginary tropical get-away. Much to our delight (and relief) it was as laid back as promised. Yes there are still people trying to sell you stuff, but they are doing it on island time. This place has not suffered from traffic loss. Everyone is laughing and joking most all the time.

We checked out a few places and settled on Dive Indonesia, one of a number of dive/bungalow operations. All shops on the island are PADI 5 star, all charge the same fees: US$30 per dive with a retroactive 5% discount after the 5th dive. The break is in hotel rates for diving with them. There is also a one-time 30,000Rp reef tax. This goes towards the bio-electric reef constructs, as well as to pay the local fishermen to not dynamite fish the reefs.

The place oozes island charm in the daylight, and Bacchanal excess after dark.

There are multiple businesses that have little DVD/TV huts set up. Buy some food or drinks, sit and watch one of about 400 DVD titles for free. One place has what we called ‘The Big Sheet”. A king size flat sheet hung in front of six rows of padded mats with an LCD projection unit. They have 7:00 and 9:00 features. Just buy something to eat and/or drink. During the week we enjoyed Shrek 3, Oceans 13 (just three days post-release), Babel, Four Brothers, and quite a few others.

We dove twice a day. Our regular dive master/guides were Apu and his brother Tam. Being low season, it was just us almost every dive. All dives are boat dives, with a typical depth around 20 meters (60+ feet). Visibility was awesome, usually at least 50 to 75 feet. The areas that had been dynamite fished still showed quite a bit of scarring and dead coral (The fisherman takes sticks of dynamite and tosses them into the water. Concussion kills everything in range and the fish float to the surface to be scooped up by the fisherman). Recovery was obvious, and was proceeding quickly. New growth was abundant and flourishing. The dives were all drift, going with the current. Apu was an underwater eagle, spotting well-camouflaged critters dozens of meters away.

Both crawlies and swimmers abound: Cuttlefish, tropicals, sharks, rays, nudibranchs, lobster and non-herpes turtles. We see lots of turtles in Hawaii, many of which have large tumorous growths from turtle-herpes. Soft and hard corals are food and board to uncountable legions of sealife. JD would burn through a set of batteries before a dive was finished each and every time. Inevitably the neatest thing to see would show up after the final flashing red battery indicator went out. Oh well. The few hundred shots he did manage to take will just have to do.

Around 6pm the assorted restaurants would set up the daily fresh seafood trays. Little barracuda, grouper, bugs (lobster & prawn), and such, all caught right of the beach. Your choices are then grilled to your specs as you watch. A little dinner, movie and ice cream becomes an easy habit. We have yet to find food anywhere that measures up to Ubud, but we are not starving either.

Gili T has no motorized vehicles at all. Transport is by foot, bicycle and pony cart. It is also primarily a party island. They take their parties very seriously. A daily (nightly?) roving party is pre-scheduled in 7 different bars. It is all but impossible to find lodging that does not have a nearby party at least one night. The party starts about 10pm and goes, no shit, to 5am or later. Full techno/funk/trance bass beat thumping to the wee hours. Indonesia Dive was strategically located between Tir Na Nog (“The Irish Bar”) and Rudy’s Pub. Rudy’s was, according to the locals, the best party. Tir Na Nog was second. Rudy’s hosted Friday nights. The Irish bar had Tuesdays. These were the soothing island sounds we got to sleep by… Sleep being a relative descriptor, for three of our eight nights. This place must be completely insane during high season. A small price to pay considering how excellent everything else was, especially compared to Lombok proper. In deference to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the parties actual stop. This is around October. The island mosque, like all mosques, has loudspeakers to give the five daily calls to prayer. The only tough one is the sunrise call. It is important to find lodging away from the broadcast towers…

According to the locals, busy season starts in about three weeks. Italians first, followed by the Germans, then the Ozzies. “Augustus” can get so busy it is impossible to walk along the street. People will show up and there are no rooms left at all. Sleeping on the beach is risky, mostly because high tide comes all the way in. The locals are laid back and relaxed. They are actually enjoying the last of the calm before the season. 1,500 full time residents live on Gili T, with another 1,000 or so between Gili Meno and Gili Air. Quite a few commute between islands. Meno and Air are much less party/activity oriented.

All manner of recreational substances are boldly advertised for those who partake. Don’t think it’s all kids ripping it up either. There was a family group from St Louis: Parents, parent’s friends and the kids. (Kids being in their twenties or so) The patriarch, whom the locals called Mr. Beer, though he preferred the moniker “Uncle Beverage”, would be up shortly after KK and having his first beer of the day. With his beer he would have a morning smoke. The type our Ozzie mate Gil calls ‘Wacky Baccy”. The bartender would twist up a big fat spliff and Mr. Beer would relax, toss back a few cold ones and get his first buzz of the day on.

We had a treat for our goodbye dinner. We decided to go to the “resort” waterfront restaurant, candles, music, waves, etc. The Maitre D’ had actually been to North Dakota on a restaurant exchange program. He seemed to think we were some kind of entertainers and tried to get us to perform. KK is often mistaken for Bonnie Raitt… The meal itself was different. JD had ordered a honey-roasted breast of chicken with veggies. What he received was a mangled de-boned thigh of unknown origin, tougher than leather and pretty much inedible. KK had a delightful sweet and sour fish. It’s all worth a good chuckle.

We have a 7 am departure to catch the private ferry in Sengiggi. It is also Friday Night Party at Rudy’s. Who needs sleep anyway?

There is not a lot of sunrise activity on Gili T. KK was usually the only one up and about for her morning walks/yoga by the beach. She did get approached by a “Kuta Kowboy” the first morning we were there. Kuta Kowboys are the Bali/Lombok version of a gigolo. He had offered to take her on a nice boat ride to see the sunrise. She mentioned her husband would really enjoy that as well… He paled a bit, mumbled some apologies and took off. The sunrises are indeed spectacular, if you can be conscious at that hour (6:35am along the equatorial region…)

For our O’dark thirty departure it was up at 6, packed and off to the boat landing by 6:45. JD had checked out the Rudy’s party until about midnight. He figured if it was going to keep him up anyway, he might as well see what was going on. It looked to be everything advertised. Two English blokes we had been diving with and he enjoyed some local coffee before the event to keep their energy up. One of the blokes was still up and waved goodbye when we headed towards the boat.

Interesting sidebar: The English blokes were both carpenters. They would work 4 to 6 months per year, then holiday the rest. Why? If they crossed into the next income bracket, even by a few pounds, their tax rate would go to almost 60% from 40%. So unless they could guarantee themselves enough additional income, it would cost them more to keep working.

The Lonely Planet guides are fantastic resources. Facts are as researched as they can be, Considering the shear volume of information, fluidity of businesses and ever changing political nature of many countries LP does a fantastic job collecting and updating their info. As a whole their editorial policy is to always try and say something nice. They do have “hazards & warnings” sidebars, though never as a focus of information. When Lonely Planet says the port village of Bangsal is a pit with no reason to exist other than to provide a home for the bottom feeding scum of Lombok, we do take notice. Bangsal is a fly-speck on the shore of Lombok onto which almost all boats leaving the Gili’s unload. The denizens that haunt this off-load point are the crème de’ la crème of the scammers, cons, pickpockets and rip-off artists. LP recommends avoiding this port if at all possible.

Of course, our boat-bus-ferry trip has us dropped here first. Even at 7am the scammers try to tell you the bus has left, there is no Parma boat, Boat is cancelled, they will happily drive you, etc, etc, etc. We had been prepared for that. What we did not expect was the ¾ mile trek to the actual transfer bus. Thank goodness we had lightened up our backpack load in Bangkok.

The Parma boat was great. It had about 30 people, including a couple from Ballard (Seattle). JD noticed a pair of Keen sandals and an REI backpack and made the assumption of Portland or Seattle which made him seem “spooky” to the unknowing couple. They being surprised that he could intuit where they were from. There was breakfast and lunch, and a section of deck covered in beach sand. All in all a pleasant trip, for 100,000 RP less than the trip over. And no puke on KK’s feet. This alone making it worth twice what we paid.

A night in Padang Bai seemed like a good idea. We didn’t want to hold a grudge against the place just because the transport touts are a bunch of manipulative shits. It is a quiet little place once you are away from the dock. We found a “rice-loft” style bungalow to call home for an evening. Fans and mozzie net. It had character, and it also had a hole in the mozzie net… On JD’s side. Still not awful. The used bookshop in town gave us our best trade-in rates ever. Traded two, and got a different one in return. We had a bite at a waterfront place. The host/owner asked where we were from. When he heard America he got a huge grin, waggled his thumb and pinky and growled “Whaaazzuupppp!” Sometimes it is OK to be embarrassed by our pop culture. Though I’d still rather hear ‘whaaazzzuuup” than anything about Paris Hilton…

Some of the mandatory tools of modern travel are ATM and credit cards. All good banks are paranoid about unexpected charges, especially from foreign nations. That is why you should always make sure your card issuer’s know your specific itinerary. Twice even. Inevitably, they will freeze your card anyway, at least once. For JD it was in Oz. Handled with a quick overseas call on a calling card. KK’s card was frozen here in Indonesia. We knew it had to be from the dive-hotel charge. Bank of America sent her an e-mail saying her account was frozen, and it gave an online system to confirm charges. It wouldn’t let her in. We had to call. Did you know there in no way to make a collect overseas call from Bali? Nor could we use any of our three calling cards. We didn’t have the cell phone (it was in Bangkok) so we couldn’t buy a cheap SIM. We had no intentions of picking up the tab for a direct dial call with the twenty-minute voice mail maze either.

Since we have more than one bit of plastic we were still fine. It was more annoying than anything else. We moved along to Sanur (“Snore” for the more active travelers).

Sanur is unique amongst the tourist resorts of Bali. All buildings are restricted to less than three stories, Touts are not allowed to roam free and piss off the tourists. The beach has a wonderful paving-brick esplanade that runs its entire length (again without the pestering type touts). Clean white sand, and a reef break about 50 meters out that keeps the water just offshore calm and serene. It is the only city that is still controlled by the priests. When the first tourist hotel went up in the early 60’s, they immediately saw the possibilities, both good and bad, of the industry. They laid down the rules quickly, and have not veered from them since. This doesn’t mean there are no shop, restaurant or transport touts, it just means they have stricter, enforced regulations concerning where and how they can annoy you…

We found an amazing organic foods and juice place, making KK’s weekly fast day so much easier, as well as an Italian restraint to die for. There was also a gelato stand attached to the Italian restaurant… ‘Nuf said.

There was a family from Hawaii staying at the Segung Agung. They had lived in Key West for 9 years before they got tired of the hurricanes. Fix your property up, get it all blown down, fix it up again. It gets old after a while.

The few days in Sanur where a pleasant way to end our Indonesia trip. We hooked up with “Jonny Gusti” for transport to the airport. The transport touts are still numerous in Sanur. Jonny Gusti figured out a niche. Once he was able to confirm our Americaness, he went full patriotic: He had a cap from a US warship based in San Diego, a US flag on his hip pouch which he took off and kissed, and a collection of John Denver memorabilia. Whipping out a harmonica he played Amazing Grace and that West Virginia John Denver tune. (He played both extremely well.) It completely endeared KK, and even impressed JD. We still figured he could do the same for two or three countries at least, but hell, you do what you gotta do to get business here. At least he was trying.

We had time to see Ulu Watu, Dreamland and a short driving tour of South Bali. Our departure day coincides with one of the two primary holy days. This one is Good & Bad Spirit Day. Appease the good, drive away the bad. EVERYONE is in ceremonial garb, with extra elaborate offerings being carried about, attached to vehicles, hanging from walls, plus all the normal daily offering locations.

We had been watching tall bamboo penjor being assembled and planted for the past couple of days. They are 20 feet tall with banana leaf frills and fronds, dried flowers and a hanging palm frond basket at the top. They are a direct offering to Gunung Agung (Mother Mountain). They stay standing for 30 days, are dug up and burned (in a ceremony of course), and the ashes are buried. As we have mentioned, the Balinese take their ceremonies very seriously.

Ulu Watu is one of the oldest temples on the island. It is built into the western facing Cliffside of South Bali. We are able to wander most of the grounds, however, being a holy day we cannot enter the temple courtyard or the temple itself. It is a spiritually powerful location, with a combination of rugged earth, crashing waves and a huge ocean vista. The sunsets are allegedly the most amazing on earth. We can see the possibility of that being an accurate statement. Next time we will show up in the evening.

Dreamland is development gone astray. The original plan was an upscale condotel/home community with golf course, shopping, entertainment, etc. The reality was a takeover by the indescribably corrupt son of the prime minister who spent more time lining his and his cronies pockets with developer kickbacks and less time actually building anything. There is a small surfer’s cove that actually does have a regular clientele, just not from the demographic envisioned.

Indonesia needs your last 100,000 Rupia as a departure tax. Indonesians also have to pay the same. This makes international travel virtually impossible for the typical Indonesian citizen. We pay our 200,000 Rp and head to the international gates. Even here the shop touts aggressively try to get you into their shops. We are off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

Observations on Bali/Lombok:

Bali as an island is beautiful, lush, full of artisans and craftspeople, and has an impressive level of local spirituality.

There are an infinite number of crooks, scammers, cons and rip-off artists.

There are an equal number of people with a fierce pride and devotion to their island and way of life. (Yes some are from the above category)

A very large number of the island’s Hindu population (read: most of the island) are not real keen on Muslims right now.

The best rule of thumb: “Don’t Trust Anyone”

The economic desperation leads to aggressiveness, which turns off visitors, leading to more desperation…

After the political interference in 1963, resulting in a major volcanic eruption, the Balinese people are ever skeptical and wary of the government based in Jakarta.

The positive still outweighs the negative. We will be back, and intend to fill part of a shipping container with stuff.

Statistics:

Days in-country: 27
Photos taken: 1,860
Touts refused: 2,546,897
Touts used: 12
Wrong change: almost every time
Correct change: 16
Times “NO” said: 124,234,145,789.
Average Temp: 32 C (89 F)
Rainy Days: 0.5
Dives: 16 each

01-13 June: Bali, Indonesia

01-13 June Bali: Seminyak-Ubud-Tulamben

5:30 breakfast, then 6:00 taxi to BKK. Driver managed to get us there in 25 minutes, only 250 Baht. Somehow made a 48 K trip in 35 K. Thailand is taking the new (for them) international travel rules very seriously: Postings everywhere of no fluids larger than 100ml in a 1 liter baggy in checked bags. They search your carry on by hand. Then it gets screened in X-ray and hand searched again. Not to sound puckish, but here is a tidbit: A Muslim lady in full conservative traveling dress, lots of layers and shawl, has a rolling suitcase as her carry on. At the first hand check it is opened to reveal dozens of 1-liter baggies, each packed full of assorted liquid containers. The inspectors were a bit flabbergasted, for Thais anyway. The look of awe on their faces was extreme, and at least two supervisors were called over to take charge/responsibility. The lady was sure she had packed correctly, and was not happy she could not carry all of her liquids onto her plane. We cleared before her situation was handled, so I cannot report the outcome. I am confidant however, she did not get to carry all those baggies through.

Had I mentioned our baggage load is down to 42 kilo? We left almost 30 kilo of climbing gear, extra clothes, guidebooks, paper and media stored at the hotel in Bangkok. KK has no carry on, JD has the electronics pack. It’s a whole new world. We walk with a bounce in our step, and a tune in our hearts. Off key, but a tune nonetheless! We figured we only need a months worth of stuff.

We sat next to a younger-twenties surfer dude from California. He had just finished an 8 hour layover in BKK and was looking forward to catching the world-class waves of South Bali. His was the story in the last post (Minutia, trivia, etc) so I won’t repeat it here.

Historical and geopolitical tidbits:

Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation on earth with just under 300,000,000 people. China, India, and the USA round out the top three. Indonesia is over 90% devout Muslim. It consists of approximately 1,700 islands spread across three time-zones and both sides of the equator. 1,100 of them are inhabited full time. Due to deforestation and mining, they lost 24 islands last year. Just eroded into the sea…

Bali is a small island in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago, lying at 8 degrees south latitude. (Maybe half the size of New Jersey) It is a cultural and theological inverse of the rest of the entire country. Bali is 90% Hindu with a small Muslim minority. 3.2 million call it home. The architecture, customs, and ceremonies all revolve around the Hindu triumvirate: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Animism plays a role in daily life as well. A seemingly unique smidgen of Buddhism is also found in the mix, with certain occasions requiring merit to be made. Archeological finds have uncovered Hindu and Buddhist temples from the 11th century sharing the same grounds. (More on those shortly). Three large active volcanoes are here, with the most recent eruption coming from Gunung Agung (Mother Mountain), the largest of the three. 2,000 people lost their lives, a few villages were covered with mud and debris in 1963.

Lombok (Indonesian Bahasa for “chili”) is the next island east of Bali, a 4-hour +/- ferry ride on a classic Indonesian ferry. Tourists primarily visit the west coast, and the tiny Gili island group off the northwest coast. The eastern half of the island is not really westerner friendly. 3 million call it home, and it is 2/3 the size of Bali.

There were two bombings on Bali in the tourist center of Kuta (’02 and ’05), and religious riots on Lombok in 2000. Both events have put a long-term crimp in tourist traffic on the two islands. The bombings were not planned or executed by local Muslims, but rather another Indonesian Muslim group from off-island. Since this is an Australian playground (3 hours form Perth, 2 hours from Darwin, less than 5 from Sydney) the ’02 event was Ozzie focused. In ’05 the intent was “to hurt America”, however, as the locals would agree strongly, it only hurt Bali. Badly. As an aside, the local Muslims were not angry, or even overly putout about the bombings. The Lombok riots in 2000 were angry Muslims burning and destroying Chinese-Christian businesses and homes.

Depending on the information source, tourism dollars are down 40%-80%. From what we have noticed, I would guess closer to the latter. In a place were tourism is almost half the economy, this is a devastating hit. The typical tourism worker makes 450,000-1,350,000 Rupia (US$50-US$150) a month. Another 20% of the economy is rice farming, with the farmers making less than 450,000 Rp (US$50) per month. The ruling body in Jakarta tends towards strict Muslim law. Not quite Shar’ia, but they are trying…

As Americans we have not been subject to any noticeable prejudice or anger, but we have also been sticking to the well-traveled tourist circuit while here. We Yanks are definitely the minority in tourist numbers. Ozzies, Germans, and Belgians make up the vast majority of travelers we have run into. As we have written before, our money spends just fine, and no one has refused to take it because we hail from the Great Satan. We do however endeavor to observe and respect local customs whenever we are aware of them, and are not intentionally looking to put ourselves in harms way.

Enough heaviness, here is the entertaining stuff. Bali and Lombok have supplied a shitload of stories, insights, and bloggable goodies.

Arrival: Bali

Lets start at the airport… Immigration control is very straightforward: pay your visa fee, get a variety of official stamps, postings and stickers in your passport, and shuffle off to collect your bags. The baggage carousel is located about 10 feet (3 meters) from customs. Grab a cart, toss your bags on, and… an official looking working fellow (in our case two), complete with photo ID badges comes along a grabs your cart and wheels it the ten feet to the customs counter. We naively figured they were there to keep things moving through customs, after all who could possibly be allowed inside the Machiavellian boundaries of international customs control but official customs employees? After a casual peek through the gadgets bag the actual customs official waves us through. The “porters” then push our cart another 5 feet to the moneychangers’ window. They say “you change money now”. JD says “Have money, going to ticket counter”. They say “You give us money!” JD says “For what?” They say, with completely straight faces, “Tip for carrying bags!” JD lets loose with a deep belly laugh, the kind that adds months to your life and helps with digestion, and exclaims, “You pushed a cart 10 feet? Tip? I don’t think so”, shakes his head and takes the cart. Then we exited the terminal into the real Tout-Storm.

This was only a mild precursor to the entertainment and local flavor Bali and Lombok are going to provide…

Traffic and roads here make Thailand seem sedate. Some two-way roads are literally alleyways between massive stone walls. The traffic is as dense as Bangkok, without the orderly structure… The impressive thing is the enforced helmet law for motorbikes. We had streets like this in Alexandria, Egypt. But that was a 5,000-year-old city. These roads have been built in the last half-century. Our mission for the first few nights is the town of Seminyak. (Feel free to laugh, it does sound physiological) It is theoretically more laid back than the all-party-all-the-time city of Kuta further south. We pay a bit more for our room than we had wanted to, but we didn’t feel like schlepping after the travel day. The Hotel Kumala was located a few blocks from the beach on the southernmost boundary of Seminyak. Common compound layout. 2 pools, gardens, carvings and statues.

The basic unit of construction in Bali is The Walled Compound. Temples, residences, and even hotels all tend to follow the specific dictates of a multi-structure compound. There will always be guardian demons at the entrance, twists to enter the property (Evil Spirits cannot turn corners you know…), and a number of specific shrines and structures within the compound. The building layouts are oriented to the axis of the nearest mountain or ocean. Feng Shui meets Brahma with a touch of animism for flavor. The artisanship and thought put into a property is incredible. Holy men are consulted for prosperous dates for purchase, groundbreaking, and construction schedules. The primary structure MUST be completely framed with basic wrap within one day or the property (and the resident family/guests) will never be harmonious. If strong fences make good neighbors, 8-foot high concrete walls make for the neighbors of the gods.

Touts, vendors, taxi drivers and street people all look at westerners as walking ATM’s. You couldn’t be here if you didn’t have money, therefore it is their driving purpose to insure you leave as much of it as physically possible behind with them. As bizarre as it sounds, your only moments of peace and solitude occur while in your hotel room itself, on the toilette. Walking, sitting in restaurants, lying on the beach, basically breathing outside the walls of you secure compound will have you swarmed by people trying to separate you from your money. This “get all you can, any way you can” attitude seems prevalent throughout the two islands. Sure there can be language issues (South Balinese speak a higher quality of English with a better vocabulary than most American high school graduates, and they can do it with and English, Ozzie, Kiwi, German, Spanish or Italian accent), but “no, nyet, nien, mai, mai aw, nope, bugger off, nada”, etc all seem to mean “please continue to shove your [insert sale item here] in my face and say “good price for you!” and of course I will buy it” There is also the prevailing attitude of you can’t get what you don’t ask for. There was an incident in which a newspaper vendor managed to catch us for US$5.00 for the 50-cent local paper. When you are not ready for that level of sheer ballsyness the math can be slow to catch up and the post-consumer (consumed?) feeling of pissed-offedness can last for days. There are a lot of zeros to deal with in a 9,000 Rupia to the dollar conversion. These same vendors will also try to sell the local “free” advertising and information paper.

Seminyak was supposed to be a bit more sedate than the tourist dense town of Kuta. You couldn’t really walk anywhere with waving off dozens of honking taxis. They honk to let you know they are available. Any slight twitch of any body part gets their attention. They are just soooo excited to be your [chariot, pumpkin carriage, Ferrari, limo, etc] for the evening. Each taxi assumes that your rejection of the taxi right in front of him is the sure and deity provided signal you are waiting for his most clean smelling and shiny of taxis. It sometimes seems like a Chinese water torture of car horns. If a driver happens to not be near his horn, lets say while you are in a restaurant eating and he is sitting on a curb, he’ll yell “transport!?!” while miming a steering motion. While dodging cabs and cabbies, you also need to fend off a plethora of street vendors, while simultaneously trying to not fall through the sidewalk. There is a couple riding a tandem bike across Asia. They regularly get the “Transport!?” call while riding. We were actually in a taxi getting dropped off to a chorus of “Transport!”. Vendors have no qualms about looking deep into a restaurant or café and holding up whatever kitsch they are trying to sell and yelling “Good Price!” If you acknowledge them in any way, even to say “no”, they will begin a one-way haggling session. If you ignore them, they stand and stare. And stare. And stare. Think Eddie the dog on Frazer.

Nasi Goreng ,Indonesian Fried rice, is a main local staple, while almost all restaurants focus on Ozzy and British foods. (Pies, pasties, chips, wedges, pizza, and an egg on everything.) It wasn’t all bad: There was a great two-piece band playing a variety of covers at JP’s Warung which allowed for a decent date night get-away. Back in the room we had a TV with a few channels. Our favorite was the “home movie” channel. It would be blank, sometimes snowy, all day. Around 8ish a pirated DVD would begin. We got to watch Next (Nick Cage) and The Shooter (Marky Mark) in full hand-held digicam technology. Half the fun is reading the “English” subtitles to the English dialog. Rarely do the two have anything to do with each other.

We left Seminyak after two days, pretty much as planned. We journeyed to Ubud, the arts and cultural center of Bali. We started at the homestay of a local artist/activist, Nyoman Suradaya. A quite family compound with open studio spaces and a few guest rooms. KK took a batik course from Nyoman, and now has another art media to play with. Nyoman has a variety of birds and beasts in his compound. Birdsong is solid throughout daylight hours.

Ubud is much more laid back than south Bali. Still lots of touts and drivers, but less honking, more “Transport?!” You are still pestered by vendors everywhere but inside your room, though they are just a smidge less aggressive than down south. Here they leave you alone after the fourth or fifth “no”. Ubud is set in a beautiful lush jungle, with stylized architecture, real artisans and some amazing food places.

The Nomad restaurant is be found. We ate a meal there most days. Ubud is also home to the Sacred Monkey Forest. These cheeky monkeys know, with absolute certainty, who is in charge. Enter with any kind of foodstuffs at your own peril. An Ozzie bloke with a bunch of were the great tapas are to bananas was the target of a group mugging, two bandits to distract him, while a third went for the bunch. Fun to watch, largely because not a single one tossed any monkey-bombs at us!

We met Ammer, a pre-acupuncture student from Portland, at the Dragonfly café (free WiFi and a good mocha). She was taking an online Biology course. We contributed by dragging her away from studies to have some fun. A smooth talking driver convinced us it was better to be dropped off at a halfway point for a local hiking route. “6-8 hours for whole trail”. He was full of shit. The walk back took less than an hour and a half. KK enjoyed a silversmithing class at a local silver shop. The same driver assured her, and Ammer, that the factory that makes all the silverwork for the shop was a short drive and the pieces would be 70% less. For only 40,000 Rp he would drive them over. It wasn’t the silver factory, but rather a village that consisted of silver shops. (The children in Bali traditionally continue in the family business, be it farming, silverwork, carving, stonemasonry, etc. Families also tend to stay in one place over generations. This way you end up with “specialty” villages. Pretty neat actually.) It was the truly classic case of “I’ll take you to my cousins shop, he’ll make you good price” When they didn’t buy anything, because this was not who was supplying the shop with the merchandise KK liked, he demanded more money for transport because no commission was coming his way…

Gusti Gusti then became our driver of choice. A nice guy with excellent English, he is representative of the hard-working honest Balinese who is just trying to get by post-bombing. He approaches his business with pride and looks to give value for money. His style is the more pleasant, and smaller end of the two extremes that seem to permeate both Bali and Lombok business approaches (and from discussions with other travelers, the rest of Indonesia). The other extreme is what provides us with our more entertaining, yet frustrating, experiences. There seems to be no middle ground.

Gusti Gusti used to be self-employed. Owned his own car, was saving up for his children’s schooling, when the second bomb went off. He had to sell his car, and go to work for someone else. Both he and his wife work six to seven days a week, with important ceremony days off. We are his only “job” this week, for which he repeatedly expresses his gratitude. Even after we ask him not to take us to his Aunt, Uncle, brother, Father, Great Uncle’s twice removed shops.

We visited Goa Gaja (Elephant Caves), and in Tampaksaring: Gunung Kawi (Giant carved rock shrines), and Tirta Empul (Holy Springs), as well as some local rice terraces. Holy sites require sarongs and sashes on both men and women. JD picked up a tasteful batik number with a barung imprint (one of the good spirits…). Gusti showed him how to tie it in a higher caste fashion.

Goa Gaja is an 11th century temple complex that was rediscovered in 1923 after a particularly strong earthquake. It had two distinct components, one Hindu and the other Buddhist. There is no written or remembered history of the compound. The Hindu portion has a meditation cave with associated statuary (Ganesh and The Triumvirate- Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) and the holy waters still flow into the bathing pools. The Buddhist portion had been damaged significantly by any number of quakes over the centuries, with the classic stone Buddha heads separating form the cliffside and shattering on the floor of the complex. A “guide” picked us up as we had entered the complex, and we kept him because his English was very good. Similar to airport “porters” in many ways, they are not employees of the temples, and expect remuneration on a sliding scale at the end of a tour. In this instance we were glad to pay, as the guide was friendly, informative and so easy to understand.

As a side note: KK thinks it is likely that the locals think she is deaf, since JD re-states almost everything they say to her. Accents have always been a challenge for her to interpret, even in the States. Though if you have ever heard her sing you’d easily recognize her not inconsequential tonal challenges.

Gunung Kawi is another holy site with nine massive seven-meter tall stone candi (shrines) carved directly into the cliff face. They are thought to be tributes to an 11th century royal family, but no one is really certain. It is good exercise getting to and from the site, an uncountable number of well worn steps brings you in and out. No guide to fight off here, we timed it well…

The Holy Springs at Tirta Empul are still very much used in daily ceremonies. We had the good fortune to be there on a day of a multitude of youth groups performing offering dances and rituals. It was amazing to watch. The ceremonial garb and dances are not for the tourists. They are indeed an actual part of daily offering events here. Tirta Empul has a labyrinthine exit plan. You must travel through a twisting maze of vendors, stalls and touts to get to the parking lot. Duck your head, focus on the ground three feet ahead and repeat “nonononoonononononononononononono” for a few hundred steps. We affectionately call this “running the gauntlet”. This is a perfect time to bring up the following:

Bali is BIG on ceremonies and customary rituals: Births, weddings, babies first steps, teeth filing, cremation, village, temple, and extended family events- all require large village-wide ceremonial actions. This is not to be confused with the daily family offerings for the spirits of earth, water, fire and air. An average home will have the women of the household creating 60 or more individual pandan-leaf offering trays with bits of food, flowers, incense and sometimes money. These are distributed throughout the family compound in the family shrines, on the guardian statuary, on the ground, on the vehicles, in front of the business and anywhere else of importance. On ceremony days, large offerings, weighing up to 30 kilos (66 Lbs) are created and carried (on her head) to the village temple. Men also have “man-jobs”, building the large payang, slaughtering the livestock and making special ceremony dishes: Satay (meat on a stick), Lawar (meat-vege-coconut salad), and Buncis Pelecing (Beans in coconut milk). Children begin to help around the age of 6 or 7, girls with the women, boys with the men. Traditions and stories are passed on orally and genuine gender bonding is the result.

Both KK and JD learned how to make all of these dishes, as well as few others in a cooking class they took together. Yes, KK took a cooking class. Her idea… Kitchen finger be damned! She doesn’t feel the pressing need to take any more, one was certainly enough.

Literally everywhere you walk you end up dodging the little artistic biodegradable offerings trays. It is a bit of a feast for the feral dog and cat populations, as well as the pigeons. It’s all OK though, the spirits absorb the essence of the offering as soon as it is placed, so the “mortal husk” is the leftover bonus for the critters.

The Ubud Pasar (market) is geared to the tourist buses from the south. Locals shop really early (When KK is out for her morning walks). It is a lively place, with most vendors more than happy to start with a thousand percent mark-up and blow you off if you don’t want to pay it. Mangosteens, a delicious lychee type fruit, sells for about US$ 0.60 per kilo in Thailand. The first stand we came to here started at US$6 per kilo and came down to $4.50. The next one a few meters away started at US$10, and wouldn’t be bothered to drop to $7. We worked our way to a third stand with a smiling plump proprietress who was happy to sell for US$2. We also purchased just under a kilo of vanilla bean pods for about US$16. (about 400 bean pods total, in the states about $4-$6 each) The vanilla beans make KK’s pack smell gooood. Two beans found a home in a bottle of Stoli vodka. It too was gooood.

Rice is a primary staple in Indonesia (as it is in the rest of Asia). Bali has the soil and climate to grow a lot of rice. Rice terracing makes for the most efficient use of land and water. It is a system that has worked the same way for centuries. It works well. The landscape is layered and criss-crossed with fields in different stages of growth. Even in towns and cities there are rice paddies set up in vacant lots. Planting schedules are arranged by consultation with village holy men, as are wedding days, car/motorbike buying days, naming days, and any other day of even minor importance. Two crops per year. The down side to eating the locally grown rice is little tiny rocks (yes, the ones that can float like a duck, for the Monty Python aware). Paper covers rock, rock breaks teeth… While we both plan on having some dental work in Chiang Mai, it would really suck to not eat solid food until then.

We decided to head north to Amed for some diving. Gusti Gusti was our man. Ammer thought she too would like to kick back and hang on the beach. Along the way we stopped to see the Water Palace, built by a 12th century Majarhit. Upper and lower pools, gardens and fountians. Amed turned out to be less of a village and more like seven notches along the coast, each with a couple of hotels. Ever dynamic, we decided to head straight to the diving attraction town of Tulamben. It wasn’t Ammer’s cup of anything, so she cruised back to Ubud with Gusti Gusti.

Way back in the mists of time the Balinese had come to an agreement with Gunung Agung (Mother Mountain). If every 100 years there would be a large and elaborate ceremony solely for her, she wouldn’t blow-up and destroy the island. This arrangement had been working really well for quite a few centuries. Sure she would burp and fart every now and then, but doesn’t anyone with a belly full of hot lava do the same? High Priests and Holy Men would commune with the spirits and be given the optimum dates for the ceremonies. 1963 was a ceremony year. At that time a “new” government was in charge of Indonesia (some coup or another…). The Holy Men had tentatively set the dates for March. The new government set up an international conference to coincide with the ceremonies, so the delegates could witness the cultural richness under their new rule. As the time neared, the Holy Men had a clearer message of the optimum dates, and they were not in March. The government refused to let the dates be changed for fear of losing face with the international community. Less than 6 weeks after the forced ceremonies Gunung Agung blew. Over 2,000 people died, numerous villages were wiped off the map, and an entire season worth of crops were lost. There was a silver lining however…

During WWII a Japanese submarine off Lombok torpedoed a US cargo transport, The USAT Liberty. It was towed to northeast Bali and beached with the intent of unloading its cargo. The Japanese invaded and claimed Bali before that could occur. For 20 years it sat in the shallows of a rocky deserted beach. The eruption of Gunung Agung literally pushed the wreck of the Liberty back into the sea. Into 20-30 meters of water to be exact. It is a wreck that even snorkeler’s can see, with the stern deck just deeper than 5 meters at low tide.

Almost overnight Tulamben became a diving town. Every single business in the community is involved in diving. Every hotel has an onsite dive company. The wreck and a wall dive are both shore dives. You walk down the beach, put on your gear, walk into the water and Poof! You’re diving. (We shore dive Maui, it really is good to just step in and see what you want to see…). We were the only guests at the Matahari Hotel. (It really is slow season…) Porters to carry the gear along the “beach” (no sand, just wave washed rock), and our own dive master/guide for four dives. The wreck was ok. The wall was amazing! The coral is thriving, the fishes abundant and diverse. An absolute riot of color. There is absolutely nothing else in this little village, but that was fine. The diving was incredible.

We had Gusti Gusti come and fetch us for the trip to Padang Bai to catch the Lombok ferry, about 40 kilometers away. On the trip he was whistle/waved over by a police officer. He pulls over, gets out, and runs back about 50 meters. The cop just wanted his tourist transport bribe… It is a normal part of business for drivers to be pulled over and charged a “tourist tax” of 5,000 Rp per passenger. This goes to the officer’s personal crime fighting budget… Another police tidbit: if your are the victim of a crime an officer will expect to be paid before he renders any assistance. You can only hope you outbid the perpetrator(s). We are not making this up.

The adventure at the ferry dock will be a good start to our Lombok chronicle…