Photos

We are back in Japan now. I still want to comment on the rest of our trip in northern Bali, Eastern Bali and Lombok over the next few days. But until then, here is a link to an album with the pictures that we took.

You can check them out HERE

Enjoy!!

Ubud and around

On day 6 of our 3 week trip, we left the chaos of the Kuta beach area and headed for the "spiritual center" of Bali, Ubud. Ubud is to Bali like Kyoto is to Japan; if you want to get a good idea of Balinese culture, art, dance this is where you head. Much like Kyoto, it is also packed to the brim with tourists, and thus tourist services abound.

The morning of our departure from Kuta we found a website advertising "last minute" prices and snagged a room at classy, little hotel in a village just outside of Ubud. We awoke to the sound of running water every morning and watched the tranquil action (or lack of action...) on the rice fields that our balcony looked onto, over breakfast. A very chilled break from the hectic pace of touristy Kuta and the center of Ubud. Every day, ,rain or shine, one or two farmers were out in their rice fields, slowly tending their crop.....adjusting the flow of water between each field, hoeing the odd weed, and stopping to lean on their hoes as they stared at their rice crop. On the third morning,we decided to give our Indonesian a go and asked the nearest farmer how he was doing. Then we introduced ourselves in Indonesian...as that was the only other thing we knew how to say. He seemed rather impressed that we were able to pull two sentences out of my asses and seemingly thought we could engage in further conversation, to which I responded with a lot of "Ya, ya" and smiles having no idea what he was getting at. After a good natured laugh and a hearty smile, he returned to his farming duties and Yuki and I, to our coffee.

During the days we took in the town, visited art museums, fought off touts and stuffed ourselves on good food. In the evenings in Ubud we went to check out Balinese dance. All performances were accompanied by a orchestra of Balinese men in costume banging the hell out of metal and wood xylophone-like instruments called the "gamelan". At first, it sounds like there is little order or melody to their chaotic music, but once your ear gets used to it you can pick up the swaying rhythm of the music and follow the loud chaotic crescendos. The dance is rather spooky, with gorgeously dressed dancers performing a movement highlighted by finger movements, twittering of their heads and intense stares out towards the audience. The second night we saw the Kecak dance, where dancers performed a similar story, however their orchestra was instead 80 shirtless men sitting around in a circle using their voices in what can only be described as loud arranged "clucking" sounds, creating a melodic chanting of sorts. This is accompanied with swaying of their bodies and choreographed waving of their arms and fingers in a trance like dance. If you have ever watched the documentary "Baraca" you have seen it there. At the end of the performance, one brave dude goes into a trance, grabs a wooden horse head and much like Harry Potter on a broom, flies around the stage.......although he is running through and kicking up flaming hot coals in his bare feet to the rhythm of his buddies clucking away and urging him on. Quite the performance. At the end of it all, members of the audience are invited to sit on either side of the fire dancer and pose for pictures with him and his smoldering feet.

After getting all cultured up, we took a bicycle tour of the surrounding villages, and rice fields. Luckily for us, the route was 95% downhill as we flew through little mountain villages, past countless temples and shrines, people giving offerings and past the tranquil, green landscape. Our tour included visiting a small plantation where we saw growing, harvesting and processing of coffee, cacao, ginger, rice and tropical fruits. On our tour were a pair of 60-something American ladies who were a force to keep up with and they blazed by Yuki and I on their bikes laughing as we braked to avoid running into the roosters and chickens the scared up. The tour finished off with a visit to the Ubud "Monkey Forest Sanctuary" where 4 clans of hysteric monkeys live on the protected grounds of a large Balinese temple. The rabid little bastards greedily eat fruit provided by tourists all day and fight viciously amongst themselves for food, territory and presumably the best shags. We saw more than one monkey nursing it's bleeding wounds along the side of the road after a spat over a banana. Yuki stepped up to show me who was "the man" by bravely placing several bananas on her lap to lure a ravenous little demon over to sit on her knees and tear in the the fruit. She later bragged to me that she could clearly feel the little monsters bum-hole resting on her hand as he sat there...... I had clearly missed out on the action.

Answers to a few questions

Here are some questions that my last post received on my frined Jason's website and my answer to the questions (more like my rant after a long day)

From Jason:

Hey Brady,

What kind of waves are you getting out there? How hot is it? Any good pure vegetarian food?

Yes, please post photos, especially of you know who (or e-mail them to me and I can upload them to the forum from here).

Thanks for posting and keep us updated,

Jason

From Mike:

Sounds good Brady- thanks for the update. I remember that constant haggling/pressure to buy and sell from my short residency in New Dehli. I didn`t find a way though to get out and take that pressure off- so it`s good you`ve been able to do so.
Mike


My response (rant)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the comments. Sorry for the delay in gettting to the internet. Although there are internet terminals about, we haven't found the time to get to one since my last post. And now that we are at one, it is painfully slow!!

First to answer a few questions.....

The vegetrarian options here are fantastic compared to most places I have travelled. In the touristy places, there is always a section on the menu for vegetrarians consisting of Balanese dishes, Indonesian dishes and Western food. And then in the less touristy places, there are still lots of options. They use a lot of Tempe here and it is really fantastic. I have had it a few times in health food stores in Canada, but here you can really see how it is ment to be cooked. (Tempe is like a small thin brick of soyabeans and some other ingredents....it is denser than tofu and really absorbs flavors well. Quite filling and a great subsitute for meat in curries or fried with rice) They also us a lot of Tofu here in their dishes. Then there is the fresh fruit...papaya, pineapple, waterlmellon, pasionfruit, mangostein.....all fantastic and fresh. Fresh fruit juices, noodles, fried rice...the list goes on and on. And the best thing is the price. You can have a meal and a drink at an indoesian place for $3, or you can go to a nicer touristy place and have an excellent meal in a really nice restaurant for $5 to $10. So we have been doing well.

Then the constant hassles for sellers and touts.....yeah it is relentless actually. It is a constant hassle really and we are getting a bit worn out from it. I mean I understand the situtation here.... The main income here is tourism and now then there are less tourists here since the terrorist attacks, and people really depend on the income they can get from tourists...and quite possibly they have been out on the beach trying to sell things all day and you are the first person who they have gotten to look at their stuff....or you are the only couple in the hotel.......BUT you start to realize that all the people that are nice and friendly are really lovely to you just want to find a way to part you with your money. Not by stealing or cheating you....altough if you paid the first price they offer you it would be cheating you. It is everywhere......at your hotel they are offering you tours and transport to other places and trying to get you to book tours with them. (Except at the first 4 star resort we stayed at...they just let us be there) On the street, it is impossible to go anywhere without getting hassled. (As I type, there is a guy trying to get Yuki to buy a necklace from her in our internet cafe....) People will ask you questions and start talking to you and then the sales pitch comes. And we find that they strech the truth a lot to get you to buy from them, and that makes us suspicious. To get from place to place the best way is to hire a driver for the day to take you in his car and you always have to negotiate. In a way it is a bit fun trying to get them down to a good price, but sometimes it is a real hassle. We try to not make this the thing we talk about the most.....or write about in these type of messages to friends back home, but it is such a big part of the tourist experience here.

So I really enjoy the times when we are in a place that is not so touristy......and we can talk to local people here without knowing that they are looking to part you with your money. People here are really, really nice and friendly....even if they are trying to sell you something they are never rude and have a great sense of humour even if you don't buy anything from them, but it is so nice just to talk to people when they are not on the sell. Some places we have had luck with that is meeting people at temples, or on public transport when they are passengers, or talking to the restaurant staff. We also went to a coupld of places that are popular with Balinese tourists, but not so popular with foreign tourists and have found that people are just really curious about you and freindly and want to find out what you think of their country. So those times are really nice.


I have gone on about that far too much.

We have seen a lot of really exciting stuff and had some great experiences in here that I want to write about, but I will have to leave that to another post as I have been here to long and the beach is calling. We are in a chillout type of beach resort on Lombok, another island in Indonesia and I hope I can find time to explain what we have been up to this evening.