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.