July 28th Bali, Indonesia

We finally found an internet cafe in Ubud, Bali with decent internet speeds, so we will do a big post tonight. Internet cafes here advertise that they are "high speed" but creep along at a telephone modem speed. I guess that's "same same" broadband internet, or something.

Anyway, enough kvetching, we are in Bali, afterall. We arrived here in the late morning on Monday. We had to haggle with a few taxi drivers before finding a reasonable fare, but we found a cab to take us from the airport to Ubud, a town about twenty kilometers inland renown for its cultural events and shopping. The ride took us past mile after mile of tropical road lined with palm trees and countless roadside shops selling stone and wooden sculptures of the Buddha, Hindu deities, or local deities we did not recognize, of all shapes and sizes.

We arrived in Ubud and began a short search for a place to stay. It is a great little town, chalk full of artists, galleries, shops, resorts, and rice paddies, located in the middle of the island. The accommodations in Ubud run the gamut from cheap bungalows to posh five star hotels (several of the hotels in Bali are consistently rated among the top ten best in the world.) We opted for the cheapest option, mostly because we knew Jillian was going to do some real damage in the shops selling funky, colorful everything. The first bungalow joint was too expensive (80,000 Indonesian rupiahs: roughly $9) so we held out until we found a clean bungalow for a better price (50,000 rupiahs: $5) with breakfast included!

After dropping off our luggage (which has gotten much heavier since we left NYC), we set out to explore the town of Ubud. The town is beautiful, with sloping streets lined with little boutiques selling local handmade wares. We stopped at a cute restaurant and had lunch overlooking picturesque rice paddies. The food was really good and the view was magnificent. Then we wandered through the streets and alleys of the town, past temples, mixed in with shops, and a few small rice paddies thrown in for good measure. The hours passed, and somehow it became evening.

That night we went to a Kekak Fire Dance show. We had heard that Kekak meant chanting, and we thought the fire dance would be cool, but we had no idea what a treat we were in for. The kekak dance took place on the open air patio in front of a temple, in a grove of trees, lit only with candles. The show began with one man coming into the center of the plaza, and lighting a six foot tall candleabra, which lit up the entire area. Then dozens of men came out, clad only in black and white checked sarongs, and sat in circles around the pyre. Then came the chanting. These men began and continued to chant, "chak-a-chak chak-a-chak" at different volumes and speeds for the next hour and a half. They got up and danced like flames a few times, but for the most part, they just swayed and belted their "chak-a-chaks" in place. Soon a few other fully costumed dancers came out and danced the Ramayana story for us, in and around the middle of the circle. The costumes were incredibly elaborate, complete with masks, hair and sequins.

After the completion of the Ramayana story one crazy Balinese dude came out, "riding" a straw horse all around the middle of the circle. The chanting men moved off stage, and the candleabra was replaced by a bonfire made of coconut husks. Two other men, bearing wooden rakes came out into the center with the crazy dude, and the second half of the show began. The crazy dude (wearing only a sarong- no shoes) held tight to the reigns of his "horse" and ran through the middle of the bonfire, sending coconut husk embers flying in all directions. It was cool to see them flying towards the other spectators, but when flaming coconut came flying in our direction, well, that was a little more nerve racking (We never actually got hit, but we had to pick up our feet and skooch a little to the side to make sure). That's where the men with the rakes came into the picture. While the crazy dude ran around with his horse, they swept all of the embers back into a pile, so he could charge through them again. And again. And again. This ordeal went on for about twenty minutes (with the "chak-a-chaks" going in the background the whole time) before one raker had to steal the dude's horse, while the other tackled him to the ground. The first raker had to go back and help hold him down. Then a third man (possibly a shaman?) came out and sprinkled water on the crazy dude. It was only then that we realized he had been in a trance the whole time, because we saw him come out of it. (Not that it made the whole thing any less crazy). The show was over, the house candles came on, and the crazy dude was sitting in the middle of the circle catching his breath. We went over to check him out, and his feet had been completely blackened, though he didn't seem burned. He was one crazy dude.

Tuesday morning, we decided to check out some of the local Batik courses to try and find one that suited us. The Lonely Planet had a few leads for us, and we didn't have much trouble finding one. We did have a little trouble making it directly there, since there were so many shops to wander in and out of along the way. Bali is known for its textiles, particularly hand painted batiks and intricately woven ikats, and the craftsmanship is amazing. We first went to ARMA, Agung Rai Museum of Art, a local art museum, resort, and place for learning. They offered many classes on Balinese culture, but we were a little disappointed in the batik offerings. We wandered around the grounds for a bit, passed by a music and dance lesson for local children, and then headed into the museum. Like many other museums in Asia that we visited, the architecture was extremely impressive and the collection was just OK. It astounded us that in the open air museum, most of the pen and ink drawings and paintings were not behind glass or protected in any manner. You could see them obviously wilting from the humidity fluctuations in Ubud. There was a distinct Ubud style to many of them, and the museum only held local works, which was cool, but half of the galleries were totally empty, which was not cool.

From ARMA, we headed to the Monkey Forest. Our bungalow is on Monkey Forest Road, so we had to see what the hubub was all about. We walked in to find monkeys everywhere. There were monkeys on the path, monkeys on the railings, monkeys in the trees, and monkeys stealing women's purses (and who says there is no pick-pocketing in Bali. Generally we saw the monkeys take any snacks, then give them back). At a spot in the woods where a few paths converged, some of the park rangers (men wearing sarongs) put out piles of raw sweet potatoes for the monkeys to feast on (and the tourists to feast their cameras on). It was quite a scene! The monkeys fought over the best potatoes or best lady monkeys or for no good reason. Most of the time they were pretty content just to sit and eat potatoes. We even saw a few mama monkeys carrying their baby monkeys on their bellies, and grabbing them by their tails when they tried to wander off (nature's first baby leash).

After we left the Monkey Forest, we started to walk back towards the center of town for dinner, when we saw a monkey walking down the sidewalk in front of us. We paused, so we wouldn't get too close (rabies was the one shot we didn't get before we left), but the monkey was not interested in us. The shopping is just so good in Ubud, even the monkeys check out the shops every once in a while.



The monkey on the sidewalk stood up, walked up four steps, and disappeared into a shop. He remerged with someone's bag of oranges before we realized, maybe we should do something (other than take a lot of pictures). Ari started to yell, and got the bag away from him with a stick. The shop owner came running over, snatched the bag back, and threw the monkey an orange. Satisfied with himself, the monkey headed home.

We got a quick dinner in town of gado-gado (Jillian's new favorite meal. It consists of boiled vegetables smothered in a sweet peanut sauce). Then we were off to see a wayang kulit (shadow puppet) show. Shadow puppetry has a long tradition in Indonesia, where puppet masters carve the puppets out of leather, and paint them beautifully, even though the audience never actually sees the puppets. Wayang Kulit is traditionally only performed on religious occasions (or when tourists pay enough). The dalang (puppeteer) trains extensively in puppetry and Hinduism to learn the stories and techniques. All of the wayang kulit stories are Hindu epics from the Ramayana.

The show itself began with the lighting of one huge candle behind the screen, which provided the light required for the shadow puppets to cast shadows. The story is one that has become old hat to us, so even though the play was not in English, we got the jist of the plot. The main action was interspersed with the puppets doing funny skits in English.

We will tell you how our batik class and the rest of our stay in Ubud went next time.

Lots of love,
Ari and Jillian