SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Thursday, 9 July 2009

SAILING FROM AMED TO LOMBOK ACROSS THE WALLACE LINE

From the 'immense' perspective of a week after our return I have a few thoughts to pass on about the organisation of such a trip.

Bali, or Lombok, or both? Since the highlight of the holiday, was the four hour deep water sail in a small dugout with bamboo outriggers between the islands, from Amed to Gili Trawangan, we would have to say both. This is reinforced by the fact that both Amed and Gili Trawangan were amongst the favourite places. Trawangan would qualify as a resort with a lot to offer catering solely for tourists, whereas Amed in great contrast is still a traditional area with few tourists where the beaches for mile after mile of bays are lined with outrigger in-shore fishing boats and few tourists. One of the sights of the trip was to see many hundreds of such boats returning in the early morning to the beach powered only by their multi-coloured sails.

Lombok, anywhere coastal as far as I, know offers superb golden beaches whereas in Bali most beaches except on the south coast are black gritty sand.

Kuta Bali is best avoided, it has little to commend it unless your primary motive is shopping for designer women's clothes and jewelery, or investigating budget travel by Perama minibus. The best suggestion I read about was to take a Bluebird taxi straight from the 'Denpasar Airport' (really Kuta) direct to Munduk and acclimatise there in beautiful quiet countryside with hot days but cool mountain nights.

Places we wouldn't bother with again for choice include Kuta Bali, Pemuteran and Lovina, meaning Kalibukbuk - though nearby Lovina (Anturan) rates amongst our best stays because of chance meetings with Putu the Fisherman who organised early morning boat trips just for us, and, Putu the Restauranteur in the main street to the beach. Putu the fisherman gave us breakfast of fried banana and tea at 6am, took us to a Hindu family wedding and their families celebration shadow puppet show in the evening. The restauranteur fed us well.

Pemuteran though would be first choice for Scuba Divers due to the proximity of Pulau (island) Menjangan (Gili Trawangan would also rate tops for Scuba and snorkeling). Equally Kuta Bali and Kuta Lombok would be first choices for those into surfing, with southern Lombok offering the more exciting, challenging, dangerous reefs.

So what does this leave us recommending?

MUNDUK

MUNDUK in the interior for at least four days acclimatisation. Hot days but cool nights, peace, greenery, wind vanes like you never saw before, giant waterfalls and lakes. Why not go direct by taxi from Kuta?

UBUD

UBUD, a must the artistic centre of Bali, though we would have preferred it in the peaceful, less commercial, guise of years ago. Activities, museums, shopping, Balinese peace in surrounding countryside if no longer in town, and restaurants to suit all tastes.

AMED

AMED, on the east coast, by way of the mountains and Gunung (volcano) Agung, for its authenticity, calm, beaches, masseurs and people.

GILI TRAWANGAN

GILI TRAWANGAN, LOMBOK, for wonderful beaches, bathing, snorkeling, scuba diving, seafood and fish restaurants.

MATARAM HOTEL POOL

MATARAM the capital of Lombok for a good hotel Lombok Garden, restaurants (leaving MacDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut to one side), access to craft villages like Banyumelec (pottery), and a fine compact modern museum.

GUNUNG RINJANI

SAPIT, or SEMBULAN LAWUNG (for trek to Gunung Rinjani 4000m). Get there by way of the still authentic craft villages of Loyok (basketry) and Pringassela (weaving by hand loom). Close to the big volcano Gunung Ranjani.

KUTA LOMBOK

KUTA, LOMBOK, for a view of life currently balanced between the traditional fishing and bathing of naked local school children, the tourists (who come here to the surf inside the 'tubes'), or for the natural beauty of fine bays and beaches, and a wider selection of food). A scene which will rapidly alter if the new airfield near Praya leads to the proposed tourist resort investment on the Kuta coast from the Middle East. 



If there is a next time we would expand our coverage of Lombok to include for sure Senggigi on the east coast which pre-dates and has been left behind by Trawangan, visit at least the adjacent Gili Menor and Gili Air (water), plus Tetebatu in the mountainous centre of the island, and probably Praya or other towns on the interior west east road full of street markets and horse and carts (though there is no accommodation listed in the guidebook at present).

The wonderful south coast is predicted to be hit by an explosion of tourism but the centre of the island won't change overnight, though the craft villages will be hit by day trips from package tourists and end up as shams like the Sasak village, Sade, near Kuta has already done. The Lonely Planet edition issued April 2009 shows little sign of being up to date on Lombok, though was pretty good on Bali.

FLOWERS
I am very conscious that the colourful ambience and peacefulness of Bali in particular resulted from gardens full of flowers. We have a huge number of close ups of flower heads which do not appear anywhere in this Blog, but as Joan pointed out we do not know their names

Travel Tips
The travel scene in Bali/Lombok has changed out of all recognition in the past 25 years because seemingly almost everyone needs and has access to a motorbike. I have often remarked that the quality and availability of public transport is far superior in the countries without widespread car ownership, eg India, China, South and Central America. Bali and Lombok, being small islands, have made the same revolution but with motorcycles. Beware the appalling state of minor roads and pavements (especially in Lombok) which means traffic weaves from side to side to avoid potholes, although nominally they are one of the few countries still to drive like us on the right-hand side. In spite of this chaos we witnessed only a single accident in 6 weeks, when a girl fell off due to a poor road surface outside a restaurant under construction with no other vehicle in sight.

We had not intended to hire cars with drivers but in fact that, plus the firm Perama's mini bus transfers on major backpacker routes, were what we ended using to travel from place to place. The drivers were key and in general we made such arrangements after a chance meeting gave the opportunity to guage their facility with English and their feeling for what would interest different tourists.

On the downside far too many of the locations were just linear towns well spaced on the side of the main roads, often built in response to tourism, without any centre, Kuta Bali, Pemuteran, Lovina, Munduk, Amed and Kuta Lombok were all of this linear form. The exceptions being only Denpasar, Ubud, Trawangan (to a degree) and Mataram. A downside of this being the unpleasant danger of walking to restaurants in the evening along a road with dense traffic mostly motorcycles, occasionally without lights, and sometimes overtaking lorries from an inter Indonesian island ferry - remember in the tropics it suddenly gets dark at 6pm. Pavements, as in so much of traditional Asia, I rate as the 'number one hazard', the number of missing a paving stones proffering a metre drop into the surface water drains is staggering, particularly in Lombok. We call this hazard a 'Kuala Lumpur' after Joan fell into such a hole years ago just outside the iconic railway station on our first visit to that capital . Bangkok, chasing Singapore, is far better than it was when we first visited twenty years ago, in fact on the first day of two successive visits there I finished up sprawled on the pavement having softened my fall instinctively, so my rucksack cushioned the fall - not recommended for the toothpaste within but OK for almost everything else except bones.

Costs
During thirty nine nights in Bali/Lombok we spent as a pair £1829 (just over a third for B&B accommodation), mostly in cash (Rupiah) obtained from ATMs but also including 500 USD in Travellers Cheques from money changers in areas without banks, and just £182 on debit/credit card. This was our total expenditure abroad, for absolutely nothing was paid in advance, and thus covers accommodation, food, travel, purchases & presents (though these as usual were a small percentage). The spend was thus £47/per night for two, two budget backpackers would half that amount - except for the costs of partying!

Factor in the cost of the airfares (Malaysia), Annual Travel Insurance, 90 day Visas and National Express transport to the Heathrow and the all in cost rises to £3142, or £77 for two on each of 41 nights, of which two were spent on long haul planes).

(Petrol was 4500 Rupiah/litre or 27p/litre)


NB The references of people and accommodation at the end of postings are additional to those found in the Lonely Planet guidebook

EARLY DAYS WITH ATER

Saturday, 23 May 2009

As promised Ater met us at the airport after a long but fairly painless journey. We would recommend Malaysian Air if only for the service, they kept plying us with cold soft drinks and water for the whole journey, a level of service which seems to have disappeared from the major European airlines. We took a taxi to the Hotel Ater had chosen from the list I had given him Bali Agung, lots of picturesque stone built bungalows in a beautiful tropical garden with enough new flowers to keep Joan happy and a nice pool.

Price takes a little getting used to, 350,000 rupiah including cooked breakfast, until you get the maths working and realise that is only 35 US dollars. Then you go to the nearest ATM and find the maximum withdrawal offered is 600,000 rupiah not enough for two nights. (Later we established the physical maximum was 1,250,000 for ATMs issuing 50 Rupiah notes, or double that for 100 Rupiah notes, also that you could make repeat requests up to your daily Sterling limit). Three days in we still are trying to get a feel for the currency. I saw tea advertised in a smart cafe for 15 rupiah and then realised the smallest coin is 200 and it dawned they meant 15,000 about 1 pound.

We first met Juliater (Ater) Tarigan in April 1996 on a bus from Medan to Brastagi on the first day of two months travel in Sumatra immediately after our retirement . He was then a second year student at Medan (state run) University, studying English and hoping to teach. He took us around the area to his home village Lingga and to a memorable much photographed Batak wedding. We have kept in contact ever since.

A couple of years later the Asian Financial crisis hit Indonesia hardest of all and their currency dropped to a fifth its previous value overnight leaving many unable to afford even rice. We were able to help him finish his studies. So were a German couple who I imagine had played a major role in converting him to Christianity but later learned his mother had already been converted, along with many others from the Batak area.
During two of his main holidays at university he went to Kuta, Bali (4 days by bus) via most of Sumatra and all of Java because all the many tourists with whom he had made contact had either been to Bali or were intending to go there. Since he saw contact with tourists as the only possible route to making a reasonable income he intended to survive these learning trips any way he could. Contact with travellers had convinced him that the taboo of his home culture for university students to take menial jobs during the vacation was nonsense. When the sun shone he earned money by selling Walls ice cream on the beach at Kuta, and by selling umbrellas when it rained. He furthered his understanding of the backpacking tourists and Western mores.
He has undying admiration for his mother who although only a simple farmer supported him throughout his studies even though she was getting further indebted to all the members of her village. She was a farmer, say market gardener - all by hand but on a field scale. He never had any respect for his father who had left home for a second wife with whom he had five children to add to the four of his first family. A father who unlike all the other fathers in the village never took him to the village coffee shop in the morning before work. The one daily treat he felt all working fathers could afford, in spite of poverty.
Once the Asian financial crisis hit he had to ask us and the German couple for help which was forthcoming, and he had to earn money by working the long vacations in Bali.
On graduation he left home in Sumatra, in spite of leaving his mother who could speak only Batak and not Indonesian, and therefore who could never make friends on Bali. That move was ten years ago. On arriving here he worked with an established British owned School which taught a full syllabus in English servicing the extensive ex-patriate community.

However he now improvised to fulfill his dream of travelling to Europe, which we thought he would never ever be able to fund given the huge difference in cost of living between the developed and undeveloped countries like Indonesia where a normal wage was a US Dollar per day. All the same by using what little capital I had given him to operate also as a money lender, loaning to women street traders and charging large interest rates whilst they slowly repaid on selling their goods, but soon found he was in great demand as a provider of such services. 'You lend to her. Why not to me?' This is the one period of his life about which he does not feel good.

Never the less he was able to buy a return ticket to Germany in January and arrived in Frankfurt. He told the German family the best welcome would be to let him find his own way to their town on his own. He spoke of his wonder at the Metro and of the trains which he long watched before boarding, whilst understanding the system. He stayed many days with the German couple but found they, having no children of their own, they stifled his wish to see what was going on in town outside of their mostly elderly family friends. Regrettably he left them without the best of relations to meet Joan and I in Amsterdam. We had to travel there because although he had been issued a European Visa in Bali he had been unable to get a British visa in spite of financial guarantee from us. In the process he had to take his first ever air flight to Jakarta (Java) to attend an interview and pay a large non-returnable visa fee, which had left him with insufficient bank balance to pass our visa criteria. There are a few times in my life when I have been ashamed to be British but this was one of them.
He said how glad he was that we had shown him European life, and in particular to take him to a jazz concert at a pub where Hans Dulfer, Netherlands top saxophonist had been playing to an enthusiastic audience, (his daughter was just then beginning to make her international reputation in New York also as a saxophonist). We remember that in Amsterdam he asked "Why are all the trees here dead" (for unlike the tropics there are no leaves on the trees in winter). His memories are amazement at the underground trains and snow which he had never seen before.

After meeting us for a long weekend he arranged to visit Italian friends he had met in Indonesia, and from them he learned of an organisation offering free stay in other members homes and so he arranged a trip to Rome, a city which filled him with awe, although virtually penniless he had queued so long to get into the Coliseum that he paid the required 10 Euros. From Rome he got back to Frankfurt and caught the flight back to Bali.

The Terrorist bomb hit Bali shortly after his return. The British owners of the school in which he had been working fled and so did all the expatriates and tourists leaving him without obvious ways of support.
So he took a 10 year lease on a house, converted it for use as a school he called Seminyak English School, with a single bare backroom in which he could sleep with shower and toilet. Here he initially taught the Balinese English. As the expatriates began to return and with them the tourists, he switched his major activities to teaching Indonesian to the expatriate business community, a far more lucrative undertaking. Yesterday he had just finished teaching an Usbekistan couple, who are travel agents. He teaches basic Indonesian conversation in 40 hours of tuition, four week course five days a week, two hours a day, in small groups or even one to one for those with more advanced requirements. Indonesian, basically the Malay language, is like many Asian ones have very simple grammar - no verb conjugation, no genders, no 'to be' verb, no 'a' or 'the' just 'this' and 'that', no plurals and so on, but word order is important. I learned Malay with Linguaphone before coming in 1996 and intended to relearn it but got lazy.

Ten years ago he rented his present property for 10 years, but there is only three years to run. He is quite happy, though sad his mother will never join him, she didn't like Bali since she cannot speak Indonesian or Balinese, only her native Batak, and thus could make neither conversation or friends here.

Last August he also rented a shop an converted it into a restaurant called 'Warung (food stall) Ala Asia' where we ate well on the second night. He had decorated the interior tastefully with one huge enlargement of a Banyan Tree and other old black and white and sepia photographs. But we ate outside on the covered patio. As a business in which he had no prior experience it was just breaking even, so he felt he had his main gratification in being able to give work to seven Indonesian staff some with families to keep. The majority of Indonesians have no work, not I think a new phenomena.
Yesterday after his last lesson ended we all went by taxi 5$ to the capital Denpasar to visit the island's main market. On the way we stopped at 300 square metres of land which he was in the final stages of buying, where he hoped to build a one room house 6 by 6 metres, with a second storey later, leaving a huge garden where he could relax away from his work, and get back to his country beginnings. He bought us a huge range of sweetmeats and confectionery made from sticky rice, sago, and a sweet black jelly. One of the key sales in the market was of flowers and vegetables. He explained this was a wholesale market where people bough to sell on at smaller markets. We sat for hours on the steps of a simple temple and watched traffic roar, observed the going on and talked by on the main street ceaselessly. We watched a middle aged woman regularly stagger past with a huge basket of cabbages on her head, which must have weighed 50kg. Many other women walked around the market with empty baskets on their head looking for such work. There doesn't seem to be break from rush hour conditions in this part of Bali.

Just in front of us right adjacent to the road two women were assembling Hindu offerings from small boxes of coconut leaves and flowers petals and selling often by the half dozen. Making such offerings on a daily basis is part of the Hindu Culture of this Island.
For over a decade now we have had a dream that we would meet Ater again here in Bali. He had a similar dream, and he has been marvellous company.

Our last evening before leaving to explore the island we spent together in Kuta. First I asked to go to Perama who organise minibuses on a schedule to various parts of the island. We wanted to go first to Ubud to which there are four departures a day at 7, 10, 13.30 & 16.30. The 10am minibus goes on to Lovina. We wanted to go Ubud and then several days later to go Lovina and found that we could buy a ticket for 13.30pm to Ubud but with an open journey onward to Lovina provided only we confirmed a seat a day in advance at Ubud. The cost 12.50$ each (It is easy to convert into USD so I will use this currency throughout (1 USD = 10,000 Rupiah).
Just a short walk along the street brought us to the monument for the victims of the first Bali Bomb. A little chastening to realise that people from 21 different countries were killed in that blast, all their names were listed 88 from Australia, 60 Indonesians, 38 British etc.

Then we went as planned into Kuta, rather better than we had expected, but very Westernised, name a shop and they have it. We ate pizza at a popular backpacker restaurant off the main street. This day for the first time Ater allowed me to pay. We visited the beach for the sunset, not at all spectacular and finally ended up in Starbucks for a coffee and a long chat. It was over the following two hours or so that Ater told us his story. That caused me to re write much of this first posting so it would be good thing to start at the beginning.

What I have not integrated was the way he described that he felt very different from the rest of his extended family of eight siblings, because he had ambition and was prepared to work as hard as it took to succeed. He did not understand where his drive came from! This feeling became very strong when he graduated and they had a big party at his village and his mother instead of being the universally disliked debtor and pauper suddenly became celebrated in the village as the first mother to bring up a child and support him through to graduation from Medan University.

He had originally planned to go to Bali since he could see there were prospects with the tourists for those with a good grasp of English. Unlike a cousin who had simply returned to his village and back into subsistence living in a farming community, the disillusionment of which had driven him madness. Graduation was his opportunity, and he was determined to take it. He wrote to me again asking for money to start a business, I seem to recall sending him 1000 pounds. He used half of this money to pay all his mothers remaining debts and with some of the rest he bought a lot of chillis which he intended to sell in smaller lots in the 'free trade' island of Batam, south of Singapore. There he discovered he could afford to buy a big number of a new hand held computer game. Unfortunately although these sold reasonably well on the boat to Bali, he could not shift sufficient thereafter even though he tried very hard to master the selling technique, for instance boarding a bus and handing them around for people to handle and then either collecting them or taking the price asked. We have seen this technique used many times in many countries particularly as a way of selling learning books for say English or Health care - but it obviously didn't work for this much higher cost items. Eventually he gave up and sold the rest of his stock at a big loss. Then he got a teaching job in the British owned and run school. The rest has already been described earlier in this posting.

UBUD1

Thursday, 28 May 2009

Journey to Ubud
We took a taxi to Perama to catch the minibus and found they had a nice cool waiting area hidden from the street. (The Hotel used Bluebird Taxis just as Ater had advised us to do, because they were very trustworthy and because their drivers had to use the metre or they would be fired. The meter starts at 0.5$ and the largest fare we have had was under 4$ for the journey at night and in heavy traffic (taking 30 mins or so) from the capital Denpasar to our hotel in Seminyak).

The rest of the 14 passengers were mostly travelling with rucksacks or small wheelie bags like us. After a few minutes one of a group of four young Italians realised she had left all her money and passport at in her hotel (we hoped in it's valuables safe) and they had to get off to retrace their steps. Otherwise the journey was unremarkable and we arrived on time at the Perama terminus which was located as shown by the LP street map.

Finding Somewhere to Stay
In the old days I would simply have used my compass to confirm the direction in which to walk and to break away from any hassle. In South America or China I would have hired a taxi to take me to the most likely sounding hotel from the guidebook with a choice of others in the vicinity. But walking from the outskirts was no longer an option and unlike Kuta there were no taxis on the street. Indecisive I decided to take up the offer of young family man Wayman to look at his place. We mounted his motorbike and went into town, the first room he had in mind had just been let so he took me to another which I accepted and we returned to Joan at Perama, paid 2$ for a transfer in one of their minibuses. First impressions of Hai HomeStay were not good possibly coloured by the fact that it was raining and at 5pm already starting to become dark, and continuing tiredness from the heat. It was one of seven stone built bungalows in a large typical Balinese garden, with trees and plants everywhere plus many stone carvings, a considerable step up from garden gnomes! The quite large room had been well decorated and there were many modern abstract Balinese painting son the walls, but the door although sound showed signs of an earlier attempt at forced entry which made us fear our valuables would not be safe here whilst unattended.

A further uniqueness was that the bathroom was open to the sky, with a floor covered in smooth pebbles, a la Pwyll Du, and was without hot water. But then what do you expect for a largish room with two breakfasts for 10$!!








We hastily left to search of better options for the following nights, bearing in mind that we would probably be spending our Golden Wedding night in Ubud. We soon located Agung Cottages nearby and that was delightful with six bungalows (two larger ones called villas) in a lovely garden full of colourful flowers and a fine views. Joan decided a villa was where she would like to spend her anniversary, so we booked in for five nights.

The next morning at Hai, after a really comfortable night, was delightful. The garden was so peaceful just the occasional noise of a motor bike on the little used street outside, the sun was shining, and a flask of hot water and tea bags was on the veranda. So we sat and contemplated the haste with which we had decided this place was not for us, whilst the young man fetched us a tasty breakfast of fruit salad and a toasted fried eggs and tomato sandwich. Even the cold shower had been pleasant , as we had learned many times before there is nothing unpleasant, or freezing, about a cold shower in the tropics, and the choice of a smooth pebble floor seemed a good choice when the alternative whenever it rained would have been mud. ( The Balinese reflect on the wonder of the Lotus (water lily) flowers which grow out of much disliked mud).

Talking to the man who brought the breakfast we learnt that our bungalow should have cost just 6$ and I investigated an empty one opposite, which had built in bathroom with a hot shower and these went for 10$! We now wished we had spent a couple of days in the company of the young Asians staying there, rather than immediately checking out to join the independent travellers like ourselves in the more upmarket Agung Cottages, though even this was listed under budget accommodation but, not for the first time, we had far preferred an LP budget choice to those in the 'mid range' bracket.

We stayed 7 nights, rather too long breathing in the quiet peace of Agung Cottages at Ubud. It was not quite a case of breakfast in bed, but breakfast delivered to your own balcony.Though it was so different to our starting hotel in Seminyak which was also peaceful and quiet but somehow the pool and sun-loungers, the dining area serving breakfast and well heeled Westerners separated you from the real experience of Bali.

Joanna O'Connor's Story
We were suddenly jolted out of our bliss on meeting Joanna who had just taken early retirement. She was distressed and black with bruises having been violently mugged at 2pm walking along the main street. Since she had been carrying all her valuables in a bag slung over her head, in the usually safe style, but she had lost everything, money of which she was carrying far more than she could reclaim from her insurance, travellers cheques, cards and her British passport (though she was born Polish).

The incident had happened a couple of days earlier leaving her with injuries including a worrying head injury (leaving her with severe headaches) and apparently bad bruising to her hip. The attackers were on motor bikes, maybe they just pulled her over and she fell to the ground hitting her head on the kerb but she though she might have been kicked. Passers by took her to the ambulance station where they applied ice to the swelling on her head and treated the abrasions as best they could.

Now she was just beginning to deal with the consequences, she had earlier cancelled her cards and informed the insurance. But was now in the same catch twenty two situation we had been years before with a young family in Seville when she presented herself at the unhelpful British Consulate in town. Yes she could get a new passport but she would have to pay for it in advance, but now she had no money so sorry we can't help you - all so reminiscent. Only the thought of having a young family refusing to leave their premises until they helped had worked earlier for us.

She got help from a British man she had only met on the plane from London. They were not travelling together but had followed the same route first to Sanur and then Ubud. If she would transfer money to his account he would pay for a replacement passport and give her the equivalent money in Indonesian currency. At the time she first spoke to us she was uncertain whether he could be trusted, but he appeared whilst we talked and she went off with him to return a little later with a big wad of Indonesian rupiah and a big smile.

Today she smiled again in recognition that she would be getting her passport in time to return by the air flight she had booked, and I handed her 25 pound notes (all the English currency we had) so she could buy another National Express ticket to Brighton on her cardless return to Blighty.

Her faith in Human Nature is gradually being restored.

Wake up in one of these lovely gardens in early morning and look out over the mist and listen to the birds and the crowing of cocks, look around the garden flowers and flowering shrub, only photos could illustrate this scene, and relax in the cool of early morning. That is a unique experience.

There are so many restaurants to choose from it is difficult to know which way to turn but it doesn't seem to matter. Every night of the week there are a different array of Balinese dances to attend (typically 7.5 to 10$). There is also a seemingly endless number of art galleries. The Tourist Information seemed devoid of information hand outs but speak to them and it is a quite different scenario, a charmingly helpful girl spent time with us and the dance events, identifying the best on each night of the week. The equally charming woman, who we had first spoken to, on the street sold us the tickets for a performance. We walked there that evening and thoroughly enjoyed the performance, wonderful expressive dancing with Balinese hands, fingers, eye movements and body shapes.

The third day we went to the ARMA Agung Rai Museum which is not only the repository of the fine collection of Balinese paintings many in the old style, and the rest of the collection of Agung Rai, but some of more modern form by a variety of Balinese and also many expatriate painters who made their home in Bali between the wars, and some who died because of their choice.
ARMA (Agung Rai) serves not just as a museum but a place where visitors, including foreigners, can stay to absorb the beautiful peaceful atmosphere, similar in some ways to an Ashram in India. In addition they provide opportunities to children to learn the traditional dance or farming skills. All this is well documented in the introductory chapters of the LP so I can expand later.

On having completed our long stay we got into conversation with one of the curators, a second year University student called Putu Martana (nicknamed Liong since Putu is a name frequently given to the first born son, as Putira is to the first daughter). The similarity in many ways with Ater was amazing. He had specialised in 'Tourism during his last years at secondary school, they normally make the final years vocational, eg tourism, electronics, hotel and catering etc. He got a job at the Agung Rai Museum to learn how to make contact with tourists, a task his laid back manner and good English was ideally suited for, and eventually on explaining his predicament he found one or maybe several willing to fund him at University. As he explained there was no chance a boy from a little wood carving village could never hope to afford the tuition, but found that 400$/annum

He was now in his second year studying English and Japanese. Like Ater he was a delightful young man and so interesting and easy to talk with. Like Ater he offered to take us to his village to see the wood cutting. We arranged to meet the following day when he would pick us up at 7am and take us around but that he had to start work at the museum by 10am. (We paid 15$ to the driver and 5$ to Putu for the almost three hour trip, both were well pleased). That was the first of three such trips.We set the alarm for the first time on this holiday and first experienced the wonderful cool of early morning in the tropics. We vowed to adjust our internal clocks once again to make best use of the tropical day, for the early morning before the heatof the day is superb. We went to the Elephant Cave where the carving is believed to have been carried out long ago using nothing more complicated than human nails. It is now a Temple and a wonderful park descending and climbing 750 steps at that time in the morning was nothing like the challenge it would have been in the heat of the day.

Earlier as we passed through Ubud we had seen all the primary school children on their way to school all carrying what looked like rolled up wicker mats, he explained their first task was to sweep the school clean using them as brushes. Equally at the Elephant Cave before opening an army of about ten men were brushing that clean, yesterday's baskets of Hindu offerings, and all the leaves and petals that had fallen in the last twenty hours.Next stop was the Pura Tirta Empul (Water Spirit Temple) apparently the third most important Hindu temple in Bali. Again they were cleaning up before opening time and we were able to experience the temple before any other visitors arrived. The only activity was a few men and women bathing in the holy water which issued from carved stone spouts into a large tank.
Then by chance leading a group of women and supervising a major clean, we met Mrs Agung Rai, whose painting we had seen in the Museum the previous day. She suggested that the next time we came we should stay at the Agung Rai Museum. She was as charming as the young men met the day before. This is a family of a man who having started making money by collecting paintings in the villages and selling them on to backpackers, eventually becoming a rich man he set his mind to devoting his life to restoring and sustaining the traditional Balinese style of life.

WITH MRS AGUNG RAI

Returning to Ubud we passed slowly through several villages, thus seeing the early morning activities and we had had our eyes opened once more to the charm of Bali.

Perhaps I should backtrack to the day before to record the long conversation we had withe other curator of the museum Francois, he too came from simple village stock but although only being through primary school, ie till 12, his English was first class having picked it up entirely by ear, and that would apply to other languages. He took us to coffee, which when I offered to pay he said was free. We had a very long wide ranging conversation, about Balinese life and their politics in which he was extremely well versed. We talked about the bomb and the role of Muslims in particular. Most Balinese are Hindu but since the rest of Indonesia is largely Muslim they know that in national government terms they are only a tiny minority. Moreover he was most concerned that most of the Muslim schools were private and financed by who knew who from outside Bali, moreover what they taught was not under state control or even supervision. That made me reflect on my dislike of Faith Schooling - far better to have Muslim schools within the state system than outside it.

Today we walked to the Botanical Gardens and on the way back bought tickets for a Shadow Puppet show of a story from the Ramayana, changing our earlier intention to visit the week's most expensive dance show. I must finish here and get some dinner, as usual our first meal since breakfast.

Putu Matana, nickname Liong
boyputuari@yahoo.com
Tel 081805592797

Hai Home Stay
60 or 100 Rupiah
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Jalan Jembawan No. 34
(0361)970761

UBUD 2 GOLD

Friday, 29 May 2009

Golden Wedding Day
I am writing this on 30 June and sometime today, we calculate about midnight, we have been married 50 years.

Yesterday we decided to walk the 2+km in the morning to the Ubud Botanical Gardens, unfortunately we selected the wrong road by assuming ours would join since the map showed it merging with the correct one, and true enough it did but having got to the join we had to retrace our steps south (luckily by then we had bought seats in his car from a local householder (entrepreneuress).

They immediately greeted us with the news that the restaurant was closed because they were dealing with a new load of fertiliser in the kitchen, but that we could buy the whole garden for 1 million pounds. In fact they made us tea and coffee but then initially served it with salt in a basin instead of sugar!!

From that, and the fact that they had few visitors each day, like us you will be surprised to find the 4 hectare garden was still in very good condition, though how long it will last is another question. Never the less we picked up a lot of picture of flowers from plants collected all over the tropical world. The paved pathways were in extremely good condition, and indeed looked like a fairly recent improvement.
In between time I blogged for 3 hours and thought the lot had failed to publish, since although telling me it had published correctly and inviting me as usual to 'view the blog', which showed no change from the mess of the day before. I was thoroughly stressed by thought of losing so much time, which did not augur well for our hurried dinner before the shadow puppet show.

Walking back, by the right route this time, we met Joanna going in the opposite direction in the late afternoon. She directed us to an Art Gallery where we were persuaded to buy tickets to that evening's shadow puppet show of a story from the Ramayana. We were surprised to see as many as sixteen tourists in the audience, attracted by this chance to experience this pre-talkies cinema technique, a disappearing attraction which we had first seen in Southern Thailand. The man introducing the show indicated the puppeteers were supported by Agung Rai.

Today Putu again picked us up with a car and driver at 7am and this time took us for a walk between two very small country villages. We started off walking along the boundaries of the rice paddies but Joan found that too hard as it meant continual steps up of 20 inches, so we transferred to a small paved path between borders of tall grass, called 'horse grass' (or is it elephant grass) which is harvested dried and then used for thatching - a task which has to be repeated every 10 to 15 years.The light and the reflections in the water of the paddy fields were a joy, so was walking in the cool low sunlight of early morning.We went passed a man painting eggs and I stopped to talk to him whilst the other two went on. Most of the 'eggs' were today wooden imitations but he showed me the way he was mapping out the pattern before filling the black and white ones with ink but taken from a source which I mistook for charcoal. He offered me one for 5$ and I wished now I had bought it because being small, but beautiful, it would be easy to add to our luggage.The country walk was beautiful, in retrospect we think it was the south going part of the Campuan Ridge Walk as a described in the LP. A man in a particularly fine sarong passed as Joan was walking with Putu. 'That was the king', he whispered, but I following with the camera had not been observant enough to capture the moment. Joan assumed he meant the King of Bali, but we are uncertain now we know realise Bali was divided into many kingdoms. No doubt he was well educated, as befitted his rank. Putu said he emigrated to Australia and returned a rich man.After the walk we had breakfast at the Agung Cottages on our verandah, under this traditional high, peaked, roof. Later I came back to the Internet location, checked my email, and found the blog was in perfect order, so yesterday's panic was unwarranted. It seems there was merely an interruption in the Internet service, and everything was queued and got through in the end. I am now once again a happy man.



In the evening we went to our second dance performance in a suburb of Ubud called Peliatan, an area associated with the education of artists and dancers under the auspices of Agung Rai. This was by far the better experience, for not only was there a mixture of adult and young dancers but the dozen or so tourists in the £ seats were far outnumbered by the local families sitting for free at the sides. We were particularly impressed by a young boy dancing the part of a monster, which he did with such great skill and since there was no one else on the stage, gave a fearsome impression. Also a boy playing the part of a monkey who selected a Japanese girl from the audience and proceeded to search her for fleas

Sunday 31 May
This being a Sunday and Putu had a holiday we saw him almost all day. Unfortunately he had chosen to take us on a comprehensive tour so we ended up by spending too much time in the car and not enough visiting areas close to Ubud.

First as Joan had agreed we went to the National Botanic gardens, although this was more half way to Lovina where we were going to move to the next day. It was very impressive for being fairly high it was cool and the gardens were laid out in a style which was not that different to a drive around a British estate, lots of grass, lots of elegant layout and lots of trees. Joan was however disappointed with the two glass houses handling Orchids and the other with Cacti. The orchids were all native species which they were intent on preserving, very few were in flower, and those that were were not as flamboyant as the hybrid orchids to which we are accustomed.

From there we drove to the nearby Lake Bratan with a Buddhist temple which was nearby and a pleasant place to visit.

On returning to the car we found ourselves back in Denpasar where we called a halt to the trip, so we would not be too tired for the evening meal we had been promised at Putu's home.
He picked us up again at 7pm, but this time the electricity had failed, we think all over Bali though we were note aware of it at the time. His mother had prepared us a fine Balinese meal with around ten differing dishes, rice of course, the various things cat fish, chicken, grated coconut, dishes of spicy green vegetables, of delicious sea food in a tomato based spicy sauce, a dish of tofu and soft pig skin, satay sticks of sea food some with the rest without coconut, to drink we were given a green coconut full of milk and we ate the soft coconut flesh for desert. For starters we had crunchy pork chitterlings, something I remember well from the war years as my Baker grandfather kept pigs we the waste from the bakery and was I believe allowed to kill two a year for his own consumption - nothing was wasted including these fat based intestines??

That is what we remember, though when we look at the photos we will probably see other dishes, remember all this was of necessity eaten with the light of a few candles. The only view of his mother father sister and his best friend and our driver Dexno, was by flash photography. Altogether a most enjoyable ending to the day and our friendship with Putu.

LOVINA

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

At 11.30 on Monday 1 June we left by Perama mini bus for Lovina. On arrival the Perama staff gave us a simple rice based lunch and persuaded some of us to stay in their bungalows and simple rooms, rather than searching around. We ended up with a large clean bungalow with hot and cold shower and air-con for 10$ for two nights including breakfast, an absolutely brilliant choice for quite different reasons as it turned out.

As we walked down the only road to the village 200 metres away we got into conversation with the owner of a of a very small restaurant, which didn't even get a mention in the LP, he showed us a book full of recommendation, told us he was the best cook in Lovina so convincingly that we advance paid to enable him to buy some fresh Snapper fish for BBQ, and guarantee our trade.
From there we walked down a few more metres to the black sand beach and made our way along with difficulty because of the number of dugout fishing boats with bamboo pole outriggers, one per each house cheek by jowl along the beach. We were to discover later that this went on all the way to the more central location of Lovina. Giving up our attempt we made our way back by footpaths when we came across a newly dug out hull and whilst we were looking the builder appeared, who spoke fairly good English even though he had never learned it at school. The hull was essentially finished, seven metres long and 700mm high, a huge trunk. He talked of the cost and said that depended on how close to a road the tree had been before felling. It had been oiled and was now being left to season for a month, before being completed with outriggers and a mounting for the long tailed engine.

Even more interestingly he told us he was member of a group of eight boats who fished together with a large 200metre long and 70metre deep net. They drew the net into a circle around a permanently moored Kontiki raft with a 1000 metre anchor.made of bamboo poles and brushwood sail. Then they used powerful lights on all 8 boats to attract the fish. He said the best time was new Moon as the technique was less effective in strong moonlight. Finally the catch was landed and put into large baskets each holding 30kg of fish, mostly mackerel at present, and sold for use in nearby Singaraja, Bali's second biggest city, for 20$. On a good day they would get 100 such baskets to sell.
The next day we went out with him at 6am when he supplied a fine breakfast of tea and lots of fried bananas,some of which he later used for bait in order to attract the fish. Launching the bamboo outrigger 10 mins later to see the sunrise, spectacular but
we had not risked taking the camera!, to see the dolphins, the local attraction, about ten boats from the centre of Lovina village called Kalibukbuk, all tourists in life jackets, pursued a school but we soon left them to it and then left the crowd for a reef where I snorkeled in a sea full of coloured fish with very brilliant blue ones on the bottom. At the end he hauled me back on board with a rope loop for my feet. For all of this we paid just 15$.

Putu Merte
Desa Anturan
BR Labak Pantai
Bali

'Putu Boat Hire and Dolphin'
'Pishing Sailing and Senorkelling'
Anturan, first narrow road back, parallel to shore, look for coconut tree and green garage door

HINDU WEDDING AT ANTURAN, LOVINA

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Our Fisherman had previously invited us to his nephew Hindu style in a local family house. It had all ready started by the time we returned from our boat trip to see the dolphins and snorkel so we showered quickly and went with him.There was quite a big crowd of extended family to watch the ceremony with the bridegroom and his elder unmarried brother, the second part of the ceremony was at the brides home,which we did not attend,then she came to us to join him for the final ceremony.


As in Sumatara 13 years ago every one was so very friendly at the marriage and we were encouraged to photograph. The main set was the marriage bed and it was there that the main ceremony was performed by the village religious head and his wife in white, and that is a ceremony called teeth cleaning. It was very prolonged with much ritual brushing and spitting, not surprising when one of the implements was a wooden chisel and wooden mallet as well as what seemed like emery paper,and cleaning with paan.

He also had a lock taken from his hair by the priest and put in an envelope. All the time two musicians had left the band and played gamelan (bamboo xylophone) whilst men sang dirges through a microphone including one song from our man Putu ( Putu is common because it is the name usually given to the first born son.
Before being joined by his bride,heavily pregnant, he had an almost a Roman garland put on his head and also that of his elder brother who accompanied throughout the ceremony as onlooker/moral supporter. Finally joined by his bride they walked together over the Hindu offerings in front of them three times. The ceremony seemed complete so we left.

That evening at 8pm were invited to to the shadow puppet show for close family. This was performed by the local puppeteer from the village and was infinitely more enjoyable than any we had seen previously,because the audience was Balinese rather than tourists they understood exactly what was being said. There was a lot of interaction with the crowd and it was clear as though once more a scene from the Ramayana it was clear that the repartee was of a form more associated with our pantomimes, the puppet show much more in common with say Punch and Judy.

The next day we repeated the boat trip with Putu complete with camera but the dawn was not so spectacular,our first bit of bad luck.

We ate fish with the Holy man the first night,a BBQ snapper and two cutlets cooked in banana skin which Joan preferred, each 3.5$.He was very pleased with me because by speaking alone with him whilst drinking tea in the afternoon I had attracted a lot of custom. We order a whole duck between us for the next day and bargained a reduction based on our services from 20$ to 15 for two. It was a huge meal, the first time we have made pigs of ourselves this trip,better and bigger than the much more expensive duck in Ubud.