Bali-wood

Bali-wood

This Holiday season in Southeast Asia, I am mistaken for a Russian hooker, took my first Bollywood dance class, have begun to HATE MONKEYS, and spent NYE 2008 at the Kuta Pizza Hut.

Craig met me on the island of Bali where we were adopted by our new Indonesian family, Pak Chandra et al. Chandra is a friend of my new Indian family in Singapore. They used to work together in Jakarta before Chandra married a Balinese woman. He picked us up at the airport and showed us around the island for two days before we set off on our own.

Poor Craig, after thirty hours on a plane, he was thrown in Chandra’s SUV to cliff side beaches, giant gauruda statues and monkey dances during the sunset at Ulu Watu. The Kecak (monkey dance) is a traditional trance dance where Indonesian men drink heavily and chant in a circle as a tale of the Monkey Gods is played out in the center. The temple we witnessed it at is known for it’s beautiful sunset and the monkey thieves who have learned how to steal only expensive items from tourists (i.e. cell phones, cameras, jewelry and sunglasses) to hold for ransom until they are fed bananas. These little beasts are aggressive too.

Hit U with my Monkey Stick

Yes, I had a Monkey Stick! To keep the little monsters off me, because, as you know, I have trouble not terrorizing the monkeys. After the dance, we walked the dark temple and Chandra warned us not to venture down certain shady alley-ways for fear of the monkey gangs attacking us.

When we got to Ubud, our villa was on the opposite side from the Monkey Forest. Our first few minutes looking for the Alam Jiwa, Craig was trying to shake monkeys off his legs. He had tried to hide peanuts in his pants (for himself, not the monkeys), but they were on to him. From then on, we did everything in our power to avoid walking through the Monkey Forest, even as much as walking an hour out of our way in a rainstorm to avoid the evil almost-people.

Prior to Ubud, Craig went to Densapar to take his Indonesian driving test and obtain a national driver’s license. It took a little to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, especially in a world where horns are used not to mean, ‘watch-out’ but ‘I’m coming, get out of my way.’ There were a few times where we realized we were driving on the wrong side of the road and others when we learned not to drive the white lines on the map. That was when we almost got stuck in a rice field.

Ubud is the Napa Valley of Art. The town is remote, yet very cosmopolitan, traditional, yet the cuisine can rival the best SF restaurants. Ubud is ubber-friendly. Artists from all over the world have set up shop there to get away from it all while Balinese craftsmen work alongside them. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas there in a beautiful little villa overlooking the rice fields which were serene and relaxing, except for the view of men with machetes off the balcony.

http://www.alamindahbali.com/alam_jiwa.htm

We loved Ubud so much we returned for two more nights towards the end of the trip.

Note to anyone planning to travel to Bali – December is the rainy season. We walked for five hours in a rainstorm on Christmas and it took days for us to see the sun again. The volcanoes we set off to see with Chandra we had to visit an additional two times before we had visibility of the tops of the mountains.

Everything is $5.37!

What can one buy for 50,000 Rupia (~$5.37)? Taxi to the Airport. One-hour massage. Manicure AND Pedicure. Two glasses of wine. A dress and a rattan purse.

After Ubud, we set off to Kitamani via Goa Gajah, the elephant caves, that smelled like elephant butt, but that was probably the smell of the former rotting corpses that once lined the sides of the caves. We also visited Gunang Kawi with 11^th century carvings and the site of the first Monkey Dance that we saw in the movie Baraka. If you haven’t seen this movie yet and want to feel like you have gone on a trip around the world – pick it up!

http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/baraka.aspx

Unfortunately, Craig was bit by a snake in the rice fields surrounding the temple which sent him into a long slumber that night with an inflamed foot.

Banana Pancakes Again?

In search of Sun, we headed to Lovina, a beach on the northern coast, where for about twenty bucks, you too can have your private bungalow on the beach surrounded by rice fields and fishing villages. The children in the fishing villages were adorable on our morning walk to the town.

http://www.kubulalang.com/

From Lovina, we visited the Gitgit Waterfalls, into the foggy mountains/volcano lakes, Munduk for a panoramic view and lunch, then a sunset drive down the coastal road along the black sand beaches to the diving town of Tulamben. We were up with the sun to do a wreck dive of the US Liberty, a Navy cargo ship that was shot down by the Japanese during WW2 and then split in half by a volcanic eruption in the 60’s.

We drove further around the coast to Amed for lunch and an afternoon hike into the hill tribes on Gutung Seraya. We traversed small menageries and rice field terraces to make it to the ridge where families lived like billie goats in bamboo huts overhanging the terraces.

Sorry we hit your chicken. Here is a glow bracelet to make up for it.

Further down the road were even more remote coastal villages. Dogs sleep in the middle of the street. Children run from their homes to the street to high-five us and say hello as we drive through the villages. Teenage boys gather along side of the road and beg us for cigarettes and sunglasses. An old man stopped us and made a shivering gesture as he pointed to my white blouse that was drying in the backseat. It would have made him look like a pirate and I just couldn’t contribute to fashion faux pas in Indonesia. Instead, I passed out glow bracelets to the kids on the streets.

At sunset, not knowing exactly where we were on a map, we stopped at Irene’s Homestay, in which ended up being Ujung. In the morning, I went for a jog, used the boulders as weights to work out, and taught some local boys some kickboxing moves as the sun rose. We also observed the local construction techniques in which women are used as manual labor carrying boulders and bags of semen on their heads in their OSHA approved flip flops. Oh – ‘semen’ is Indonesian for cement.

Our second trip to Ubud, we brought the sun back from the coast. We rented bikes to ride the river valleys. Temple, temple, temple, rice field, monkey, rice field, monkey, temple, temple, shrine, you buy sarong, I give you good price, temple, temple, taxi? Maybe tomorrow? temple, temple, rice field…

After overheating, sore buttocks, and Craig, 6’5” riding on a child’s size bike all day, we relaxed at the most beautiful infinity pool to get our Zen back. Craig is very well read and indulged in a book on explorations in Papua New Guinea, while I am finishing Getting Stoned with Savages. Ironically, both books are very similar, exploring the South Pacific cultures and cannibalism.

Kuta Cowboys

New Year’s Eve after more banana pancakes, we left Ubud for the Temple Tanah Lot on the western coast –the Mt. Saint Michel of Indonesia, and then to Legian Beach, just north of Kuta for the NYE celebration. We wanted to stay out of Kuta for two reasons – 1.) it is known as the vacation center of inebriated Aussie debauchery and 2.) it is the five year anniversary of the terrorist bombings.

We realized that we are some of the only Caucasians on kuta beach this holiday season, as it is filled mostly with families from Jakarta. At sunset we walked the beach and although we were tourists, we were also a tourist attraction. Families and groups of teenagers wanted their pictures taken with us. One guy asked Craig what celebrities we were.

Oddly enough, the hottest NYE hangout in Kuta is the Circle K Convenience store. This is where the biggest crowd is gathered. Trying to stay out of confined spaces, we were going to hang on the beach to watch the festivities, but we were starving! Restaurants all had their special buffets that would take hours to divulge in, besides the lines and cover charges for the big parties. So we figured we would grab a pizza before taking it to the beach. As we were waiting for the ‘za there was a mad dash of people and bodies flying by the window. Who would bomb a Pizza Hut? Unfortunately, twenty minutes before the countdown to 2008, a torrential downpour with Gale-force winds hit Kuta beach, forcing the crowd to seek shelter.

We were trapped in a Pizza Hut for an hour while the clock struck twelve and the streets flooded. We still got rained on all the way home, two beaches up. Happy New Year 2008!

P.S. The worst thing about 2008 is when you fail to realize that your ATM card expired on 12/07 and you have no money to get out of a country.