This entry is long. We haven’t had wireless since we left Ubud in Bali, almost 3 weeks ago. Some of the below is copied from our journals, other parts inserted upon remembering. Please forgive the changing of tenses. Think of it as free time travel.
Our first stop in Indonesia, Purnati, feels as though it was both days ago and months ago. Before leaving, we were fortunate to experience both an oton, a life milestone ceremony, and the Balinese new year of Nyepi.
The oton was for the 18-month old daughter of Wayan Sumadra, one of the managers of Bali Purnati. In Bali, every stage of life is celebrated, from ceremonies marking the third month of pregnancy to death and cremation. Children, especially, are lauded, as the Balinese believe that the younger you are the closer you are to God. In order to keep babies as physically close to God as possible, Balinese babies are always carried and do not touch the ground for the first 200 days of their lives. A baby’s first ceremony, oton, marks when its feet will first touch the earth. Thereafter, otons occur every 6 months and may even go on into adulthood, depending upon the family’s wealth.
Wayan’s house compound was filled with family and friends, tables piled with various fried crisps and sweet coconut treats, and the center pavilion festively decorated with large and colorful offerings filled with flowers and burning incense. Several cocks were in cages upon pedestals surrounding the pavilion and children in shoes that squeaked when they stepped would run up to them, encouraging them to cock-a-doodle-doo.
Following is a description of the family compound from Lonely Planet: Bali, much more informed than the one I gave in our last post: “The Balinese house looks inward - the outside is simply a high wall. Inside there will be a garden and a separate small building or bale for each function - one for cooking, one for washing and the toilet, and separate buildings for each ‘bedroom’. In Bali’s mild tropical climate people live outside, so the ‘living room’ and ‘dining room’ will be open veranda areas, looking out into the garden. The whole compound is oriented on the kaja-kelod axis, between the mountains and the sea.”
A very old priestess, I’m guessing well into her 90’s, agilely climbed up onto the platform atop a table and sat cross-legged to perform the ceremony. For all the production, there was surprisingly little attention paid to the ceremony by the guests, who continued their conversations. At the evening’s end, the young girl we were honoring greeted each guest at the door, pressing her hands together, bowing her head and smiling, “Salam,” and, “Terima kasih,” thank you, to everyone. At 18-months old!
We are continually impressed by Indonesian babies and children. We almost never hear them crying and, even at parties and gatherings with other children, they don’t shout or scream and very rarely act out.
About a week later was Nyepi. After an early dinner, just as it was starting to get dark, we followed the groups of people making their way up the main road to one of the large, public outdoor pavilions. Everyone was out, either walking on the road, or hanging out roadside, chatting and waving. Most of the men had been drinking for the better part of the day and were cheerfully boisterous and in high spirits. Everyone was welcoming and inclusive, ushering us around to better vantage points and explaining what was happening.
The energy was intoxicating and palpable. We heard the gamelan music faintly, looked up the road and in seconds it was upon us. Giant lattice-work frames of bamboo, carried by groups of boys and young men, held each of the ornate, menacing papier mache monsters, the ogoh-ogoh. Flashlights lit the monsters’ faces from below, making them appear all the more scary. The boys would run in unison to the left, then quick to the right, then front and back, shaking the giant ogoh-ogoh above them. It was amazing and terrifying and thrilling to watch. The structure would be coming right for you and turn just inches from colliding. About 5 of these monsters passed by, each one made by a sub-section of our village of Batuan. One was shaken so hard its head came off, and the crowd went crazy, yelling and cheering. The gamelan musicians followed the last one and, en masse, we formed the parade down the road to another outdoor pavilion, where the ogoh-ogoh had all collected. Gamelan music is amazing and to hear it live, loud and in a parade is the best way to experience it.
As we neared the pavilion, a whoosh of flame shot up. The largest and tallest of the monsters had been set on fire in the middle of the road and the flames were as tall as the trees, the embers dancing up into the stars and the clear night sky. Really, one of the most beautiful moments I’ve experienced. One by one, the ogoh-ogoh were set on fire, each representing the evils and sins from the past year. But even the Balinese have their vanity and the better monster heads were cut off as keepsakes and spared the burning.
After the first ogoh-ogoh fire, Willa was ready to go to sleep, so I walked back to Purnati with her, while Johnny stayed on to watch. Batuan is a safe village and the night was perfect - breezy, clear skies and road lit by moonlight. I encountered a family of four and we walked together for a ways, introducing ourselves and talking about our children (a very popular subject in Bali.) How old, how many, names, etc. We both had 14 month-old girls asleep in our arms and the father asked me, “What time she go to sleep?” I replied, “Usually about 8. What time does your daughter go to sleep?” (Sadly, I can’t even speak pidgeon Balinese.) He replied, “Same. About 8.” We walked on for a bit in silence and then, “What time she wake up?” It made me laugh out loud. Even in a village in Bali, I’m having the same conversations.
We headed into Ubud early the morning of the 20th to catch a shuttle bus to Munduk, a small town up north in the mountains, near the volcano Danau Bratan. Upon arrival at the bus station we learned that they were closed, still respecting the holiday, so we checked into a nearby home stay. Our room was pretty depressing with no mosquito net, no hook for a net, bars on the window, and motorcycles vrooming by our window. But, it was cheap, clean and we were only there for one night. What we did get out of our night’s stay was an introduction to the jaffle, a greater appreciation for Ubud and a new destination for the morning. Jaffles, simple sandwiches made in those George Foreman waffle-grilling like machines, are popular and cheap, and come filled with either jam, banana, chocolate or chicken.
Ubud has a wide array of galleries, spas, restaurants and cafes (had one of the best burritos ever at Dragonfly, followed by crepes with roasted shredded coconut and palm sugar syrup and chocolate mousse) and some posh boutiques for clothing, jewelry and home collections. The city is charming with its old architecture, narrow streets with steep, dug-out gutters on either side, beautiful shops and tiled sidewalks. I made Johnny play ‘picks’ with me in the shop windows and while he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, he grudgingly went along with it.
Checked e-mail and Johnny had received one from friend Ann Graham, suggesting we connect with her friends in Tirta Gangga while in Bali. Consulted our map and the bus schedule and turned out there was a bus leaving for Tirta Gangga the next morning at the same time as our other bus. Took it as a sign and the next afternoon we settled into a room at the home stay Good Karma in Tirta Gangga. Johnny described Tirta Gangga perfectly and I’ll paraphrase: it’s as though someone dropped a giant stone onto the earth; the ripples forming the stunning rice paddies, reaching out in steps up the steep mountain and down across the valleys. In the distance was the volcano Gunung Seraya with smoke gently billowing off its top, and the image was paradise on earth. Tirta Gangga is famous for its rice paddies and the water palace with all of its pools, also spread out in steps descending from the palace. The palace promotes the pools as fountains of youth and we swam in the cold, fresh water one morning while it drizzled.
Good Karma served up some delicious tempeh and vegetables in green curry (we ordered it three times during our stay) and banana pancakes with tea in the mornings.
BANANA PANCAKES
Prepare batter with white flour, whole egg, sugar, water and pinch of salt. (Is all that separates crepe from pancake ingredients the baking soda?)
In a nonstick skillet, on medium/med-high heat, melt about 2 tablespoons of butter, and pour in a thin level of batter. Cover with one layer of banana slices. Flip the pancake (the woman I watched prepare, flipped it in the air and easily caught it in the pan) and cook some more. When golden, flip again onto a plate, so pancake is served banana side up. Eat as is, or squeeze fresh lime juice on top and/or pour some honey.
We visited with Ann’s friends, Bill Seely and Baxter, and enjoyed their entertaining stories of living in Tirta Gangga after expatriating from Boston 17 years ago. They both return to Provincetown, MA, every summer to work as house staff for the wealthy, so that they can support their lifestyle making art and having house staff in Tirta Gangga the rest of the year. They’ve built a beautiful home and studio, covered and filled with Baxter’s mosaics of mirror, colored glass and tiles, which have inspired me to try making some when we one day have a house.
Tirta Gangga was beautiful and we loved the pools, but the tiny town itself depressed me, with people constantly trying to sell us something, anything, a tour, a guide, a ride, and, after two nights, we hired the services of a driver and headed along the north coast of Bali to Lovina.
Hit hard by the lack of tourism brought on by the 2 Bali bombings, the earthquake and the tsunami (as is all of Bali and Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia), Lovina’s a beach-front town that has suffered from neglect. Aside from the black sand beaches, there’s very little attractive about Lovina. Every hello was followed by some offer to take us somewhere, sell us something, give us a massage, to take our money. The clingy-ness and hard desperation of their manner was almost frightening. Even Willa, who by this point reaches out her arms to all passing Balinese women, shied away from people and cried when anyone other than Johnny or myself made a motion to pick her up. Dogs fought in the streets and older people and fishermen walked by us without making eye contact, ignoring our greetings. We quickly grew wise to any gestures of friendliness; everyone’s got a hustle in Lovina. It was so off-putting that we checked out of our home stay the next morning and jumped on the first bus we could find, eager to get out as quickly as possible.
We caught a ride in a red bemo, a public mini-bus, to the port of Gillimanuk to catch our ferry to Java. The ride was one of our most pleasant experiences. The side door and all of the windows were open, filling the cabin with fresh, cool air with warm pockets coming off of the beach and the woods we followed. The driver picked up and dropped off school children along the way and it was relieving and entertaining to be invisible to these teens, so self-absorbed that they barely noticed our small tourist cargo in the back seat.
We arrived at the port in Java at about 3:30PM, walked to the train station, and learned that the next train to Surabaya wasn’t leaving until 10:22PM. Not only did we now have 7 hours to kill in the rain in a port town resembling Deadwood, but the whole point of our taking the train had been to see the Javanese landscape. We waited in the ‘executive’ waiting lounge at the station where a TV played crappy American movies (Vertical Limits and Marines), alarmist newscasts, and shows with teenagers and genies who meet inside of coconuts and other secret locations and fat, shirtless men with midget friends. We traded off taking Willa for walks around the station where cats with short tails prowled in the grass, stalking bugs and lizards and digging through trash. To each one, Willa would wave and call out, “Hi,” in her sweet, high voice. We filled up on cheap packaged snacks of cookies, ‘happy tos’ corn chips, strawberry milk and unidentifiable fried salty things.
The rain finally stopped and a wedding taking place next door to the station went into full gear. They had two towers of speakers covered in plastic. The music was as loud as a jet engine and had been playing since we first arrived. At the opposite end of the station, off in the distance was a mosque broadcasting the call to prayer on a loud PA speaker. It had the tone of a loud transistor radio with a strange mix of Indonesian and Arabic blaring in an off-key, whining, long line of sound. The two sounds met at the train station and the mix was so terrible and the whole scene so bizarre that it made me shake and cry with laughter. Johnny, more kind than me, described it as being so bad it was almost good.
The train arrived early and, thank God, we were at the station and not out strolling around. Had we missed this train I don’t know if we would have mentally survived sleeping at the station.
On the train, now after 10PM, Willa was still awake and a little manic. She stood on Johnny’s lap, pressing her face against the glass. Outside all was black except for an occasional single bulb or fluorescent tube passing in the distance. We were each given a narrow blanket and a foam pillow and not a moment too soon as the AC quickly reduced the temperature to the 40s. We could almost see our breath and were frequently checking Willa. A steward came by to collect money for the pillows and blankets. We couldn’t believe that our ‘executive’ tickets didn’t include the 12,000 Rp ($1.20) charge for the blankets. It was too cold to lose the blankets, though, so we shelled out the money. The bright lights in the car never went off but as it rocked and swayed its way west the three of us managed to get intermittent sleep. At the second to last stop, after every passenger who could be charged for blankets had been, the AC was turned off and we were all sweltering by the time the train pulled in to Surabaya.
Bleary-eyed, we staggered off the train at 4:30AM and were immediately greeted by an energetic man explaining in broken English that he could take us to a clean, cheap hotel. We agreed upon a price, climbed into a taxi with ‘our guide’ in the passenger seat and his silent accomplice behind the wheel and headed to hotel number one, run by his friend. No vacancy. We went to hotel number two. No vacancy. We went to hotel number three, next door to a night market that was just shutting down. The man told us that all would be gone by 6AM, when other business starts. He repeated how Surabaya was a business town, not like a tourist town. At hotel number three, Johnny went up to look at a room. It was grimy and dank, one step up from a cell. We were all three fully awake at this point so we decided this was no place to stay and that we would go back to the train station to catch the next train to Yogyakarta. The man made one last attempt to ‘help’ us, stopping at a private bus company with a dilapidated sign in a tiny alley. He banged on the closed door until a woman yelled from inside. When the woman opened the door, her price was exorbitant. We headed back to the train station, the man now wanting double what we’d originally agreed to. We shook our heads, turned, and walked into the train station. Everyone’s got a hustle in Surabaya, too.
The sun had now risen and the Surabaya train station is a very pleasant and breezy outdoor pavilion with lots of warungs (food stands). Our favorite being the ‘chicken and donuts’. We sat on a bench, eating donuts with our tea and coffee and Willa had her milk and Cheerios. We people-watched, listening to a Javanese band play country songs including ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’. It couldn’t have been much better.
We finally got our train ride through Java, through green paddies of rice, fields of sugar cane, through slums with tethered sheep, cities with billboards, fields of corn, and more rice paddies. Along the way were many mosques with shiny, silver domes on top.
It was pouring in Yogyakarta when we arrived, but our taxi driver and hotel staff were friendly and didn’t try to sell us on any tours. The city reminded me of Nairobi with the high, zebra-striped curbs, roundabouts and bouganvillea and frangipani blooming in an urban setting. In need of rest and relaxation, we settled in to stay for a while.
Yogyakarta is jam-packed with motorcycles, mopeds, cars, buses, people, bicycles, and becaks, bicycle-driven rickshaws. Entire families ride on the back of motorcycles with babies (many wearing ski-caps and sunglasses) up at the front, holding on to the handle bars. The traffic pollution coupled with the breeze-less sun and heat in the afternoons often drives us back indoors, to our hotel room and the pool.
Jogja is crowded with sellers of batik (cloths, clothing, covered-furniture, wall-hangings, etc.), silver, antiques and leather puppets; food carts frying up cubed tofu and tempeh, egg and scallion-filled crepes, donuts, chicken egg rolls, bread rolls, vegetable fritters - all of it deep fried in giant woks or on giant, slightly concave griddles; women squatting or seated on low stools, grilling short, slender beef and chicken sate skewers over tiny charcoal fires; sweets carts with glass boxes showcasing chewy, neon-colored, gummy coconut sweets with a surprise burst of palm sugar syrup in the center; and produce stands with small piles of local fruit: durian, mangosteen, jackfruit, bananas, tangerines, avocado.
The Sultan’s Palace, in the center of downtown, is a working palace that houses a great dusty lawn in front. Driving around in our becak, we witnessed calisthenic groups, barefoot joggers, and school children in their uniforms playing soccer and practicing javelan-tossing. One afternoon, the lawn was cleared for the Sultan’s 2 elephants, who live in cages to the side of the palace. In the open-air pavilion on the other side of the palace are free morning performances of gamelan music, puppetry and Javanese dance, which we were always arriving at the wrong time to see. Families live within the palace walls, but don’t know how it’s determined who has that privilege. The residential streets within the palace walls are quiet, narrow, tree-covered, hugged by colorful, flowering bushes.
In Jogja, we spent days walking around our neighborhood and the markets, looking in antique shops, swimming and reading. Most evenings we went to the carnival, just north of the palace, running the whole week we were there. The carnival was a bizarre experience of bright lights, blaring Indonesian rock music and covers of American hits, and carnival paraphernalia, including stands filled with strange plastic toys, cotton candy, roasted corn, roasted and candied peanuts and tons of rides, manned by cheerful and friendly carnies. People rode motorcycles through the walkways and the crowd numbers reached into what must have been tens of thousands, but there was never a moment of tension. In fact, we realized that not once have we witnessed any arguments or expressions of frustration between Indonesians.
We took 2 day trips while in Jogja: to Prambanan, a Hindu temple complex with about 50 temple sites, and Borobudur, a Buddhist temple. There are about 1,500 narrative panels and stupas lining the terraced hallways of Borobudur. Each illustrating Buddhist history and teachings. The entire complex is a huge three dimensional mandala that you physically pass through to experience. We walked around and up and down the terraces for hours, studying the faces and images in each one; trying to decipher the stories and meanings, trying to figure out how they should be read, in which direction and order.
We visited Prambanan on an overcast, rainy afternoon. Strangely, coming upon the temples from the grounds made us think of the feel and look of old English manors, something akin to Wuthering Heights (at least in my mind.) The moors of emerald green grass, the grey clouds threatening rain, moss growing on and between the dark blocks of stone. The temples are truly awesome and it felt somehow tragic to see the ruined smaller temples of Prambanan, razed by 2006 March’s earthquake. Just last year! These temples were originally built in the 9th century and had managed to survive all this time.
We returned to Bali (by one-hour plane this time) on April 2nd, and are now in Legian, in a beautiful bungalow by the beach. Johnny’s surfing every chance he gets and Willa and I swim in the pool, take walks on the beach (she’s afraid of the ocean waves). We speculate about the relationships between the people we see as we walk around town, window-shopping, Willa waving to cats and dogs. This region has a beautiful, wide and long beach with soft sand and is renowned for its surfing, which means it’s also filled with tourists with sunburns and cornrowed, beaded hair (mostly Aussies, Italians and South Africans), and very expensive. We leave tomorrow for Singapore.
