Category Archives: Bali

We are signed up to an all day down-hill cycling tour of the villages north-east of Ubud with an early pick-up at 7.30am. We chose a company recommended by the homestay and it turns out to be an excellent choice. There are nine people in the group and two English-speaking Balinese guides; a Japanese couple; two Australian women; a French couple and an Italian women who lives in Notting Hill! We start the day with a drive up into the mountains to breakfast at a restaurant at Penelokan on the outer rim of the enormous Gunung Batur caldera. From here there are stunning views of this giant crater, half of which is covered by an enormous lake and the rest is taken up with a group of volcanic cones. In the centre of the caldera rises the 1717m Gunung Batur formed in 1917. The cones of several smaller volcanoes created by more recent eruptions, the most recent being in 1994, sit alongside. A spectacular sight to gaze at over breakfast.
After breakfast we drive to the start point of our ride where our bikes and helmets await. Remarkably the whole 25km route is downhill all the way and a combination of gravity and hands (on the brakes) do all the work – no pedaling (or hardly any) involved. This is a relaxing and effortless way to get up close and personal with the Balinese countryside, its picturesque villages and way of life. A clever idea conceived by an Australian who migrated here 27 years ago and set up a company offering downhill cycling tours. Now there are several companies in Ubud offering similar trips.
Along the way we stop to visit a Balinese home. The Balinese live in large family compounds which can be home to several generations and up to 40 or more people. Each is laid out in accordance with feng shui traditions in a courtyard setting very similar to the one we are staying in. In this particular compound the family manufactures by hand the woven bamboo matting which is used to line the ceilings, walls and floors of Balinese homes. Interestingly it is the youngest son in the family who inherits the land and along with it responsibility for all the family members living in the compound, in particular the parents. The Balinese don’t have family names, nor do they have passports because travel is not a tradition in this culture. What they do have in abundance are celebrations to mark all manner of life’s events from births, marriages and deaths, to milestones in a child’s development. So it isn’t difficult to find either a celebration in preparation or taking place in a temple somewhere nearby. Offerings to the spirits are also an important part of everyday life and little leaf baskets with offerings of flowers and food are left everywhere – on the pavements, on steps, in doorways. There is a strict dress code for attendance at temple ceremonies which requires women to wear sarong, belt, long sleeved blouse and sash and sarong, jacket and white head scarf for men. In fact sarongs are everyday attire for many men and women in Bali.
We also visit a coffee plantation where they grow, roast and grind Aribica and Robusta coffee by hand. It takes about a week from picking the coffee bean to completing the roasting process which is done in a clay dish over an open fire. They also produce Kopi Luwak – also known as civet coffee – the most expensive in the world. Coffee berries are fed to captive palm civet (a nocturnal cat-like animal with a long snout). The inner bean passes through its digestive system, is collected, washed and then roasted. The resulting coffee is prized for its rich, smooth flavour. Even on the plantation a small packet of Kopi Luwak costs around £40! According to Andy – who sampled a cup – is nice, but not that nice. The visit is rounded off with a tea and coffee tasting followed by some tropical fruit which is also grown here and the obligatory visit to the shop. We are then on our way again cycling through picturesque villages where everyone seems pleased to see us, hellos ring out from compounds left and right, little children come running out for ‘high fives’ and colourful flowering bushes line the roadside. What a beautiful island this is.
Kite-flying is another Balinese passion probably initiated by the need to scare the birds from the rice paddies. Huge kites are often to be seen vying for position in the skies above Ubud as well as out in the countryside. It’s common to see young children out in the villages with a small kite or in the rice paddies flying some large monster of a kite that warbles in the air.

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We are having some difficulty on deciding upon an itinerary for our visit to Indonesia. We had originally planned on spending at least six weeks here and visiting three of the islands – Bali, Lombok and Java. The restrictions imposed by a 30-day visa have made this look rather ambitious, but what to cut out? In the meantime, there is plenty to occupy us in and around Ubud. There is a rice paddy walk just north of the village and we discover that this is where the urban sprawl stretching around the capital, Denpesar to the south, peters out and the real countryside begins. A paved street off the main street gently climbs up into the hills above Ubud and the lush, green of the terraced rice paddies. And how beautiful it is! The walk meanders through the paddies which are in varying stages of cultivation, some lying fallow under water, some bursting with green shoots, others harvested and waiting ploughing and replanting. There is lots of activity as farmers maintain the sophisticated irrigation system and tend the fields. Most of the cultivation is done manually including the ploughing, harvesting (with scythes) and threshing and winnowing. Occasionally, a ‘Japanese cow’ (Balinese for mechanized plough) can be seen in the fields, but that seems to be a rare beast. Large numbers of ducks congregate around the paddies foraging for food in the murky waters. The walk takes along narrow paths that run alongside the paddies and the edge of irrigation channels passing several artists’ and silversmiths’ workshops which sit rather incongruously in amongst the rice fields. Although it’s hard to imagine anyone, even tourists, stopping to buy one of the huge pieces of art on display and then attempting to carry it across the rice paddies back to Ubud several kilometers away!  

This evening we go to our second dance performance, this time in the grounds of Ubud Palace, the home of the local royal family. Tonight’s performance is a series of Legong dances supported by a gamelan orchestra. The orchestra is seated on either side of the stage and is composed almost exclusively of percussion instruments: drums, gongs, xylophones. All the musicians are in identical traditional dress of sarong, green jacket and head scarf. The performance begins with Kebyar Ding instrumental; a fast and furious rendition from the orchestra. This is followed by six dances (The welcome dance; warrior dance, Kraton dance; Taruna Jaya dance; the Bumblebee dance and; Topeng Tua Mask dance) performed in the usual Balinese style by dancers in beautifully elaborate costumes.  

The Welcome dance (Panyembrahma) symbolizes the joyful reception of the gods who attend a temple festival. It is performed by a group of young girls making identical movements. At the end of the dance the dancers throw flowers towards the audience as a gesture of welcome and blessing.
Baris/Warrior dance is a traditional dance glorifying the manhood of the triumphant Balinese warrior.  
Legong Kraton dance is a classical dance which is performed by three female dancers and depicts the story of King Lasem’s desire for the unwilling Princess Langke Sari.
Taruna Jaya dance expresses the changing moods characteristic of the transitional period experienced by any youth in Balinese life.
Oleg Tambulilingan/Bumblebee dance is representative of the traditional Balinese love story. It symbolizes the courtship ritual of two young Balinese.
Topeng Tua Mask dance has a variable number of characters depending on the story depicted. In this case the character of an old man, the Topeng Tua is portrayed.

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The weather is just perfect; sunny and hot, but not too hot. We have a lazy start with breakfast on the terrace over-looking the paddy field. There is no hot water (apparently the gas has run out) and the toilet doesn’t want to flush, but we can over-look these small irritations, because this is such wonderfully calm and verdant setting and our Balinese hosts are very welcoming. Late morning we set out on an orientation walk around Ubud with the intention of visiting the Monkey Forest. But we immediately go wrong and find ourselves at completely the opposite end of the village. The so-called a village of Ubud, is an amalgam of several villages, which together could be more accurately described as a town making up part of the urban sprawl that characterises this densely populated corner of the island. But as we are beginning to discover it is not all built up and several streets back onto small areas of rice paddy. On our wanderings we find the local market, which like many south-east asian markets is packed to the rafters with stalls selling everything imaginable; from fresh meat and vegetables, to acres of sarongs and we pick up a good quality one at the ridiculously low price of £2.50! In fact, we are soon on a bit of a spending spree and pick up a pair of earrings, a batik sarong and a pair of fisherman’s pants all for the princely total of £14. By this time we are starting to flag a bit and stumble upon a small restaurant perched on the hillside above a stream – another little oasis away from the hustle and bustle – and stop for a relaxing lunch lounging on cushions.  
We eventually find Monkey Forest, a little bit of dense jungle in the southern part of the village which is the site of three Hindu temples. But the main draw is the hundreds of grey-haired monkeys that live here and roam freely amongst the many tourists who come to photograph and feed them with bananas sold at the entrance by enterprising Balinese. Cute juveniles scamper around or hitch a ride by clinging to some part of their mothers’ anatomy whilst the adults are on the lookout for a food handout and, as we found when one grabbed our shopping bag and tried to make off with one of the sarongs, are not averse to helping themselves.  
Bali has a rich and unique culture and Ubud is the place to come to experience it. There are several art galleries and a variety of courses from Balinese cooking to dance as well as numerous venues offering a range music-and-dance performances every night of the week. This evening we go to see a performance of Kecak trance dancing. There is no musical accompaniment to this type of dancing. Instead a ‘choir’ of about 100 men, bare-chested and dressed in black and white checked sarongs with red sashes, provide the chak-a-chak-a-chak chant which characterises the dance. Seated in three concentric circles they also provide the boundary of the performance space where much of the dance action takes place. Throughout the dance, which tells the story of the Ramayana, the choir provides a non-stop, trance-inducing accompaniment whilst swaying, stretching out their arms and fluttering their fingers in unison. Meanwhile, three female dancers in exquisite brocade costumes and elaborate head-dresses as well as several other masked characters in fabulously colourful and ornate costumes act out the dance-drama. Balinese dance movements are precise and jerky with particular emphasis on choreographing hand, wrist and finger movements and even the head and eyes in some cases. The result is quite beautiful and accomplished, and in the case of the Kecak very dramatic and hypnotic. The Kecak is followed by a fan dance and a fire dance. The latter provides a dramatic finale to the evening as the male dancer circles a fire of coconut shells before kicking them around the performance area and proceeding to dance across the embers – in bare feet. All of which he does several times, with seemingly no ill effect. An impressive performance.

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