first day in bali (kuta). the people are sooo nice. wayan (one of the hotel workers) taught us some balinese phrases: yes - ya no - teeda dont want - teedak mau we're walking - jalan jalan chicken - ayam fried - goreng rice - nasi noodles - mie bananna - pisang egg - telor? vegetable - sayur water - air vegetarian - teedak daging hello - hello thank you - teri ma kasee how are you - abak abar good - baak please - she lak an good bye - slama tingle, slama jalan good morning - selamat pagi bon appetit - selamat makan cheese - keju with - dengan toast - roti bakar potatoe - kentang
indonesia is great. lush, tropical country, very nice people, and everything is very inexpensive: meals from $1, hotel rooms from $5, poolside full body oil massage $4. kuta beach is a mad tourist trap though, everybody is desperately trying to sell you something. heaps of temples, offerings, mopeds, cars, people carrying things balanced on their head. we'll head up into the mountains near ubud.
6.9 ride to ubud w, wayan and his brother, madeh. saw a balinese dance, "barong kris dance" incorporating hindu themes of good/evil, child sacrifice, immortality, and animal morphing. visited batik (hot wax art on cloth) shop, wood cutting shop, stone carving shop, and an authentic traditional village (chickens running around, many stone buildings, thatched rooves, temples.
there are little offerings with flowers, food, and incense, (sometimes even money or candy) all over the place. in balinese hindu, people give 2 offerings per day, where they work.
staying at the beautiful juwita inn in ubud. 8 nites cost less than US$100, including morning and afternoon tea and free breakfast served to your room! they say you can get by on $5 per day in indonesia, and totally spoil yourself for a few bucks more.
took a walk along the streets. after a few turns, found ourselves in a small village with pigs, roosters, cows, and some artisan areas. beautiful rice fields, but we got a bit lost and it was getting dark. a very cheerful man, yoman, met us (had just caught 4 snakes to eat). he kept chatting even though he knew no english and we knew no balinese. helped us find our way out of the rice paddies though, which is a good thing seeing how dark it was getting.
6.10 went to the sacred monkey forest today. the locals really respect this place and there are huge temples and many stone monuments inside. this is different: they will bury a loved one in the sacred grounds, just as a temporary resting spot util they can save up enough money for a proper cremation. we saw a grave that was only three days old. the monkeys are all over the place, playing in the trees or in the temples. they will take a bananna right from your hand. sometimes they get greedy and want the whole bunch - leslie had to tell one a stern "No!" but he hissed at her and showed his 2 inch teeth. scared and shocked, she dropped the rest of the banannas. one cute baby monkey couldn't get up the temple wall, so mom put him on her belly and climbed him up.
got a barong woodcarving (mythical beast representing cleansing forces in the universe), a cloth painting, and an carved ebonybox all for insanely cheap prices direct from the artisans.
saw the balinese fire/trance dance. rhythymic chanting, dancing that depicts a traditional story. at the end, they pour some flammable liquid over many coconut husks to make a bonfire. after it burns for awhile a guy walked through the fire and continued to kick and walk on the coals for quite awhile.
common balinese names for children 1 thru 4: wayan, madeh, yoman, ketut. we've met all but a ketut so far.
6.11 long walk through rice paddies, little villages. a young man named ketut asked if he could join us in our walk to practice his english. sure. he said all banyan trees are sacred - there is a temple next to every banyan tree on bali. told us a nice river/cave walk to go on. saw the ubud final soccer game, ended in PKs, but we couldn't see them because the entire crowd gathered around the 18yd box. the people in trees had a good view, and some people tried to jump at the exact moment of the kic to see.
6.13 rented moped. saw goa gajah cave (900 yr old carvings) earthquake in early 1900s broke most of it. fruit blessing ceremony. flat tire. petrol station.
6.14 moped to the cave walk area. local cop stopped us, nice but told us to turn around, "project". beautiful river (people rafting), rice paddie walk, to cave temple. never would have found it but a nice local showed us. after he left another nice local showed us the bridge walk, great views, cremation ceremony area. took us to his house, climbed a tree, got down a coconut for us to drink. he's an engineer at the local hotel. talked to val and jess on conf call. bought 2 more oil candles (3 men and bird), 6 barongs, droopy old lady statue for jess. rode up into a beautifully terraced area, huge banyan tree. got absolutely soaked. rushed home for hot showers and tea. after meditation class, called T for her graduation day. i miss her so much. mail jesse the weeks. deep vibrant blue dragonfly.
6.15 mailed stuff home. for t: batik purse, fan, small barong mask, aussie frog book.
dunkin donuts. book bus to yogyakarta. book xchange. bought male sarong.
6.16 bus/ferry/minivan to yogyakarta, quite an adventure - 19 hours! they drive crazy here. fast, loads of mopeds and bikes converted to carry large loads. passing (almost bought the farm once) when it's not quite safe. unfortunately, we saw the remnants of an accident, our driver told us the guy was dead.
though there's lush natural beauty here, pollution seems bad. trash, litter, plastic water bottles in the river. air pollution also: petrol is way cheap (filed up our moped for 40 cents). the gas is leaded. many diesel vehicles. you can always see/smell a few fires around (i think many people burn their trash).
6.17 to borobudour (worlds larget buddhist temple) with lyn and dave from canada. they live on an island off vancouver victoria - sounds nice, roadtrip?. borobudour has turned into a tourist trap. most attractions are 3000 rp but this one is 37500, but you get a certificate. gee thanks. built around 800 AD for mahayana buddhism, but then abandoned for 1000 yrs, it was rediscovered in 1814. $20mil was spent to restore it. 432 buddha staues, 1300 storytelling relief pictures (karma cause/effect illustrations, buddha bio, sudhana/gandavyuha/badracari), and 1200 decorative reliefs. buddha hand positions symbolizing mother earth, charity, meditation, reassurance from fear, reasoning, and the turning of the wheel of law.
6.18 water castle, palace of first javanese sultan 1755 (for concrete they used eggs and coconut milk eggs were a common donation). batik was invented here under 2nd sultan. 3rd sultan had 69 wives, so had to move to a bigger palace. javanese is a mixture of hindu, islam, and buddhism. saw where all the sultan wives would swim. sultan would view from above, then pick one to come to his quarters for "final enjoy" (got a picture on the final enjoy bed) bed was made of bamboo, with flowers and small fires underneath to make it like a sauna. we were lucky enough to meet a gamelan orchestra member (gongs and xylophones), andre, on the street, who ended up guiding us through the castle. also took us to his home, where we had tea and bought a batik painting done by his sister, murinda, for $3.
checked out of utar pension losmen (very primitive - to flush the toilet, you pour ladles of water down the toilet) room was less than $2 and we also slept a couple hours previous nite whe we got in at 5am! 2 rickshaw rides today, one with all our bags. (leslie was worried that the first guy was too old and skinny, but he did fine :) local bus to kaliurang less than $1 for both. staying at christian's hostel, with a view of gunung merapi volcanoe. we have to get up at 3am to climb to see the lava flows, and a sunrise view of the beast.
merapi is one of java's most dangerous volcanoes. currently active, in 1994 an eruption killed 69 and injured many more. in 1998 thousands had to evacuate. they now have 6 lookout stations, lava triggers, satellite communicating seismographs, a 4 level warning system, and a forbidden zone (you're not allowed to climb to the top or to one town that was wiped out). around 1006 AD is thought to be its biggest recent eruption, which ruined the mataram dynasty (ruled java at the time), covered borobudur (48K away) with ash, and made most of the surrounding area uninhabitable for generations (maybe that's why borobudur wasn't found for another 1000 years?). the hike requires minimum 4 people, not because of cost savings, but because panther with young are in the forest and less than 4 sets of footsteps isn't enough to keep them at bay. leopards (one had babies in the volcanologists station), monkey, wild boar, and tiger also live in these forests.
6.19 merapi sunrise walk was beautiful! the guides were nice and informative, and gave us breakfast in a hut along the way (coffee, tea, deep fried bananna, deep fried veggie snack). well worth the early wakeup. also on the walk was jacob, from kentucky (born less than 200 mi from me). 69 people ++, 10 months potatoes, animals n/s sides nature signs birds dogs snakes, plants malaria rheumatism poison ivy antidote, more volcanoe factoids :-) the major cause of death in volcanoes is not hot lava or rivers of mud, but rather glowing clouds of superhot gas and ash particles that move at 60 mph, vaporizing everything in their path, which ccan knock down stone walls 10 ft thick. a large eruption has the force of 10000 atomic bombs. 1500 active volcanoes, not counting 100s more under oceans. people are drwan rich soils flat areas.
6.20 chess with cheerful local last night, picutre today. puppies. 4 different groups have asked us to be in their pictures. muslim wailing songs out of loudspeakers 5 times per day (incl 4am!). [les] pics, 20 people on bus, bus vendors, dirty straws. cute litte banannas. phoenetic words: bisnis, eeksekutif, fotokopi, taksi. whitish bat aerobatics under streetlights. pet monkey chained to gate. minivan to yogya held 21 people with luggage! we had a rickshaw accident, dented fender :-) train station 5 hrs.
6.21 "transit room" last nite :-). surabaya zoo, pangolin (mammal with scales), komodo dragon, big bats, mouse deer. on bus, boy puts snack on lap, comes back 10 min later. plight of the artist. amourous people (girls holding hands, guys w/ arms around each other. "tuti: from the malibu hotel helped watch our bags, got address for xmas card.
archaeologival museum had nice borobuour miniature..
6.22 mt bromo area is stunningly beautiful. magnificent greenery against a bacdrop of huge jutted mountains. a patchwork of crops flls many steep inclines. our hotel is on the edge of the huge tengger crater which is 10km across and its steep walls plunge down to a vast, flat sea of lava sand. we saw a barefoot woman carrying a large satchel of sticks on her back up the path on the wall. she was friendly, smiled, said hello and shook our hands. a group of men on the path was playing cards. (seems that the women do a lot of the hard work here.) at the bottom, mainly scrub grasses grow. if you throw a rock up in the air and let it hit, the ground sounds strangely hollow! the ancient tengger volcanoe now hosts three volcanoes, which are each large in their own right. leslie took a picture of me from one side of the bromo lip to the other, and i'm just a speck. we got up at 3:30am to watch the sunrise at the viewing area. i got a wool G. Bromo hat for 58 cents.
the bathrooms here are certainly different. most places don't have hot water. our gili meno place had salt water mixed with fresh water, so showering didn't get us very clean and tasted funny. it's not a good idea to drink any of the tap water. [which creates a problem - plastic drinking water bottles are everywhere. i wonder if you could set up a program where kids gather bottles for some kind of credit for a future trip overseas.] most toilets don't flush, but you're provided with a basin of water and ladle (3 or 4 ladles will do the trick, more if you've just went number 2). most bathrooms don't have TP. either bring some, or do like the locals and wipe with your non-shaking hand or use the little hose to spray yourself off like a bidet. many places don't have a shower head, so again the ladle come in handy for washing.
the sarong i got in ubud is turning out to be a great piece of clothing. it's considered dressy, very easy to put on and tie (thanks to the guys in bali who taught me), comfy, cool, and allows you to go without underwear when it's late in the laundry cycle.