Suffer the swine

The upstairs bedroom in a village homestay right next to the temple. So pretty so quiet, watch the women weaving bamboo for the temple, young girls practising the elaborate dance they'll perform the next day.

Sun sets in pastel, incense burning, gamalan filling the gaps between forest and houses and hills and people, dogs wander lazily through narrow gangs, old men gather with prized cocks released from dome cages out the back.

It was some time before dawn... actually hours before dawn. I heard the pigs screaming. 

Before the ceremony they must kill the pigs! It has to be done this way, timing is crucial, it's for the ceremony. They kill the pigs right there, behind the temple, below the place I slept.

When you stay in the village you forfeit some of the immunity to street life, the big hotels will shelter you from all that if you prefer, most do. The illusion of an unaffected paradise is lost when you depart from the sanctioned hotel rout. When your ass hits the ground you smell the earth, frangipani baths are not included. Sacrifices must be made, rice cut, crops planted, tools sharpened, wood gathered, pigs killed. 

They kill the pigs. Too slowly for my naive Bule senses. I hear pig screams for hours, calling out for help... I anguish over their suffering... Please just make it quick! So much blood! They butcher the meat right there as the final crimson drops are collected in a tub, nothing wasted! Flesh is bathed in flames the way it's always been. 

Blessed offerings, prepared on site in small portions as prescribed. Presented on silver, bamboo with rice and fruit, elaborate and glorious constructions, not for human consumption. Held high on the heads of immaculate women, beauty beyond my reckoning. Girls and boys transformed through dance and costume and tradition become heralds of the Gods moving to ancient tones...

The offering is carried in the highest reverence and grace to the inner chambers of the temple, devotees and offerings blessed with holy water by aged priests of Brahma, clad in white and singular in their devotion. All is laid out as the tempo increases, energy spiking as though the journey through village and field has brought the congregation to a mountain top and God will once again appear, none doubt the presence of greatness. 

There they sit, low and respectful, a bounty laid before them, all the wealth of their toil and labour, a gift for the universally benevolent and powerful, the giver and the taker. All presented, the people, their offerings, their ritual. Given up to the lord of the Temple, scales of justice. The great balancing, deity of order and peace, death and life... if you are true. All can be seen, all are known, nowhere to hide. All is touched by the holy water, all accepted.

The procession is long, the pigs screamed for a night, the people not indifferent to the suffering. They remember their frailty. They give up their greed, killing it with the blade that slowly releases the animal from this world and so is revealed and released their own sin, offered back to one who will redistribute the fat and give them their share. Peace, Enough.

Where Ausies don't oft go

Places I've dreamed:

Monsoonal weather approaches Bali by sea... (Candidasa)

Yes... that's a waterfall (Munduk)

Our secret bungalow in the hills (Munduk)

Subsistence farming... in these conditions it really seems to work (Amed)

A garden of delights and a lot of hard work (Amed)

Kingfisher (Amed)

Carting fodder (Amed)

Fruit trees above the field (Amed)

Padi below Gunung (on the road to Tirtagangga)

I cannot write words for these images or to describe the gradual sense of relief I felt having disconnected from all electronic media for two weeks. I hope you can get a sense of it from the images. The challenge now for me is how to continue to live in that space rather than return to my mental and emotional hedonistic, escape from reality cell.

Four days out

Back into the air....

One week back from Alice Springs and I was on my way again! This time across to Bali.
This may sound crazy but I have a perfectly legitimate excuse for a 4 day jaunt to Indonesia, I simply couldn't afford Not to go! Why?
Well the thing is that years of self abuse have caused me to have not so good teeth. Yes teeth... And what's this got to do with the tropical paradise Island of Bali? (OK it's not such the paradise it used to be but hell, once Bali gets under your skin you just can't shake the place!)
At home I can't afford to see a private dentist so I tend to go to the public dental clinic when I have a problem with my teeth. I get pretty good treatment there by student dentists but they cannot do major work.
I had a broken molar which needed a crown ($1,500 - $2,000 AUD) the only option I thought I could afford was to have it pulled at the clinic, leaving me with nothing to chomp with on my right side. I had to find another option I could afford. This brought me to option C... Indonesia!

Palloma Hotel

To cut a long story short, I found some very cheap tickets, booked them and flew over last Sunday night. I arrived in the new Ngura Rai airport at 2am (It's fricking huge!), got to my hotel in pretty good time (low season 2am is the best time to travel!) and headed off to Denpasar with a local friend in the morning, after a few hours sleep.

With only 4 days in Bali I was quite dubious that I would succeed in having my tooth repaired. Rocked up to a couple of reputable dentist surgeries without an appointment and amazingly got myself booked for the treatment I needed within my 4 day timeframe!

The job was done in two visits with a root canal and molds taken of my teeth on the first day and the prosthetic attached two days later! Amazing!

I can't believe it! Just a couple of weeks ago I was worried that I'll have no teeth and now I'm planning my next 'holiday' to Bali with a perfectly legitimate reason for going! Who'd have thought bad tooth care could have lead to this!

Melasti 2015

 Back in 1996 I sold all my stuff, (including the caravan I intended to live in when I got back) and set out to travel the world. I spent a month in Bali and Lombok and had a plan for returning there to live after I'd done traveling. Somehow life caught up with me and I only made it back as far as Darwin, got married and the rest is history. On this trip I felt so at home, that part of me was re-awakened. I know I can't go back to those old plans but I'm thinking a few trips for dental work might satisfy my hankering for dining in warungs and the scent of clove cigarets.

A walk in the grimy grey

Escaping the nothing...

Like many Australians the first place I ever ventured over seas (abroad... outside my own Island Nation) was Bali. I think the first time I went there I was 18. I wanted to explore the world, Bali was relatively cheep to get to and I was pretty sure it would be a relatively easy place for my first international destination. I remember a fair bit about that first visit. Initially all that existed of Bali for me was the knowledge that lots of people go there for the beaches and to party... I thought it was some kind of Polynesian island paradise, like a cross between the pictures I'd seen of FIJI and scenes from the movie South Pacific. Then I bought my first lonely planet book and was shocked to discover that Bali is in Asia and the natives looked a lot different to my romanticized swarthy Polynesian coconut drinking people of the sea... They were Hindu and apparently looked to the mountains rather than the sea... All this was far too foreign for me... My illusions couldn't cope with the contrast! I had been tricked by my own imagination and ignorance!

Ganesha

What was I to do? Cancel the trip?  No way! I was determined to follow through with my plan. (Actually I would have cancelled except pride wouldn't let me back down, I'd been bragging to everyone that I was going!) I didn't cancel, instead I decided to save myself more embarrassment and read up on this new Bali which I hadn't planned on. Before I left home I had learned that Bali isn't a country, it is an Island in the nation of Indonesia... (I knew nothing of Indonesia) and they eat rice not BBQ'd fish from the bellies of dusky beauties as I'd been dreaming about. (they also eat BBQ fish but not the way I fantasized about). I also learned that the weather there wasn't a bright sunny 25 °C it was humid, hot and sticky... (except on the mountains, where, I learned later, it got bloody cold!) Coming from Melbourne humidity was just an exotique word, I'd never really experienced it. 

I picked up a phrase book practiced a few really basic words and started getting excited again about my trip. I learned about appropriate dress code and behavior in Indonesia, practiced not using my left hand and all those exotic manners I'd never heard of before.

I remember back in the late 80s Bali had already been well and truly 'discovered', Australians had been going there in their masses for decades before I arrived and the locals were very familiar with our surfie culture and other customs and rituals. I arrived in long pants and attempted to use my 'terima kasih' and 'permisi' etc... whenever I could. I soon discovered that in Kuta nobody gave a shit about Etiquette and long pants can become uncomfortable very quickly. I remember the road out to Legian was still mostly dark and nobody ever went to Seminyak. That time I think I spent two or three weeks on Bali, exploring on a motorcycle. Back then I couldn't go very far without a few drinks in me and on my first night I fell asleep at the SC Bar... but now I'm straying from the point of this post.

When I first went to Bali Kuta was already over developed and Ubud was well known but still small. Tourism was a major feature but there were still many aspects to life in Kuta which were distinctly Bali or at least Indonesian. There weren't many hotels over two story high and there were plenty of Losmen (guesthouses) in the main tourist areas. I have read about unfettered development on Bali and the tragic loss of agricultural land, fresh water and just about everything else that is special, thanks to Tourism generated development. But for some reason when I was there last week I realized that Southern Bali is no longer sinking... It has sunk! There was such an ominous feeling of absolute desolation that I felt ill. When I first visited Bali I got really sick, unfamiliar bugs invaded my body, I had dysentery for a month and was later diagnosed as having Hep A. I kissed the soil when I arrived back in Australia and swore I'd never go back there! Once the illness wore off I was left with a strange longing for the smell of burning cloves and the sound of gamelan. I have been back a few times since and have always felt at home there. But this time it was different. A new sickening feeling came over me. This was kind of weird. As I looked around I discovered that everything was too familiar! The Kampung had been smashed and all around enormous multi story hotels were being erected. Concrete on every side, western meals served in every restaurant! The Kaki lima had vanished, the warungs were gone! No ABC sambal at the dining tables... swimming pools everywhere... miles and miles of 5 star luxury air conditioned nothingness! Just like in 'The Never Ending Story', the Nothing's consumption of Fantasia was almost complete! Just like the salt water inundating the dwindling aquifers, the magic that drives Bali had been infiltrated, diluted and polluted with bland Western Consumer driven ugliness!

The New Bali rises... Don't fall in!

In the old kampung there were trees, mango, papaya, jackfruit... space for lizards and birds. Wild bees could nest in the cracks of walls and the sweet smell of incense on carefully folded palm leaf offerings of rice, saffron and fruit kept everything in balance. Now the offerings are less but the debt is so much higher. Who will pay?

Concrete will crumble!

Want a room with Air Con? How about those bad boys?

Kuta and Legian have fallen! Ubud is no longer a village or a town... I followed several lanes and streets out of the centre of Ubud only to find that along each lane hotels entered the rice fields like the tentacles of an octopus stretching out and annexing neighboring villages. I once read an amazing book called 'On the Edge of a Dream: Magic and Madness in Bali' by Michael Wiese. It described a place full of mystical power, of raw and quite wild beauty, where powerful mystical forces kept nature and man in a symbiotic dance of life. Maybe that Bali is gone.

Of course there are some places where life appears to continue as it always has... for now.

Not saying where this is! You can stick your golf clubs where  the sun don't shine

Maybe I have made a mistake? Maybe when I first visited Bali in 1990 I never really wanted to learn the truth about the place. What if instead of seeking truth all I was really doing was trying to re-sculpt the romantic images in my mind to fit what my senses were barely able to perceive? What if that place never really existed? Who am I, a tourist, the cause of the problem to question or challenge any of this? Maybe with all my dreaming and romanticizing I am just part of the virus that is spreading across this place and obliterating every shred of balance nature, time and the careful honour of the Gods had taken so long to create.
I decided we'd drop both Ubud and Kuta from all future itineraries. We and headed for another region where I'd been before. Where it was quiet and still suited my romanticized version of reality... When I arrived I discovered that my secret hideaway had already been infiltrated! Apparently the market for romantic falsehoods is enormous! Everyone's looking for someone else to deliver them to paradise! A book had been written, about some middle-class American woman finding spiritual healing, food and rooting (romance) in Bali! You can guess the rest!
Naturally the film has drawn the eye of the great Nothing to another, unspoilt corner of the Island on another coast and so the blank spaces on the map are filled in until nothing special, no life, no magic remains.

Next time I want to escape I think I'll just get on my bike take a book and go and sit under a tree for a week.

Bali Time

From Collages

Finally another trip to Bali!

Visited Tuban/Kuta, Uluwatu hired a car in Ubud and went to Penelokan, Bali Bird Park and Ubud Botanical Gardens. Primary Objective - Introduce Children to Bali Culture - Dance - Music - Food...
(Flying to Bali and staying in the standard holiday resort style accommodation totally blows my minimum impact philosophy but with two young kids we chose the path of least resistance...)

The last time I went to Bali was in 2006. I went solo for one week soon after our first child was born. I'd just completed a course of study and desperately needed to get away! My wife wasn't keen on going with an infant but was happy for me to go...(actually I'm not so sure she was happy about it)


(Uluwatu)

Anyway I went solo thinking I would finally be able to enjoy the richness of life in Bali, get some rest, eat my favorite foods drink some thick kopi Bali and all the other things I'd missed for the 3 years since I was there last. I was really looking forward to having some time to myself being able to read, sleep, eat, come and go whenever I felt like it. It was only for a week but turned out to be terribly disappointing!



I realized that although I'd longed to return, being solo was not what it used to be... or how I'd hoped it would be. I missed my family too much and every day wondered why I'd gone away without them. The Balinese people were not impressed to hear that I was married but traveling alone and I realized very quickly that having a family and leaving them behind was not the thing to do!

Now 3 years later we have two young children. This time I was looking forward to taking the whole family to experience the magic of Bali. This time it would be different and I would be able to enjoy the wonders of Bali through the eyes of my children... (A romantic notion)

As we disembarked and proceeded through customs the kids were in awe of the colours, the umbrellas and Barong statues. I could see they were absorbing it all. The smell of clove cigarrettes the fact that there were no seat belts in the car we travelled in to our hotel, the way everyone greeted them with a smile and always noticed them.

Exploring was great but meal times were hell! One of our kids wouldn't eat... (It's always been that way) and the other had to be held or we'd find him in the most dangerous of places!

In an unfamiliar environment, no TV and no other kids to play with our eldest became quite a handful. There were countless tantrums, severe cases of homesickness, loneliness and boredom. It only occurred to me on the second last day in Ubud that some toys might be in order...?!


(Horse and cart in Tuban)

We spent three nights in Tuban and six in Ubud. The kids both loved the performances in Ubud and we went to a show every night! Legong, Barong, Keris, Kecak, Wayang kulit so many performances and all of them were fantastic. Our eldest was spellbound while our one and a half year old who doesn't yet understand the difference between performer and audience was compelled to get up and join at least two of the performances!


(Nasi Campur in Ubud)

There are changes in Ubud now that have altered it immeasurably from how I remember the place. Large commercial enterprises have sprung up all over the place! Crowding out the virtually unchanged businesses that were operating when I was first there in the early nineties there are now some flash new air conditioned buildings with bright lightning selling international brands and surely not owned by locals.

(Ubud Near football field)


(Changing Ubud / contrasting cultures)

It used to be that the lights went out soon after the last performance at the Ubud Palace or by about 9:30pm; blackouts were very common. You would have to bring your torch along to find your way home. There were more dogs than people on the street and it was normal to walk down the middle of the road to avoid both dogs and potholes, cars weren't an issue. There are far more bars now and the streets are lit up well into the night and Reggae music can often be heard above the usual sound of Gamalan. However there are plenty of things that haven't changed a bit. For instance the internet cafe on the corner of Jl Monkey Forrest and Jl Dewi Sita still has the very same computers that struggled to handle email back in 2003!

Amazingly 10 years after the woman who became my wife and I had a peculiar encounter with a man selling coconuts on Campuhan ridge I came across the same man while walking there with my daughter! He even used the same sales pitch!


(The coconut seller)


(Barong)

To sum it all up the trip was well worth it! We did manage to enjoy some great Indonesian food, had a few new experiences and 0ur kids had their first introduction to life outside of Australia. Best of all me eldest got to see the Kecak dance for real after having listened to it on tape for four years. Eldest child can now count to 1o in Bahasa Indonesia.

(Gunung Batur from Penelokan)