Bali Finale

Okay, big things are afoot, and it's time to catch up. It has been an insane 3 weeks. feels more like 3 months. I've been in India for about a week now, and it has been...something, to put it mildly. But I can't move on without recapping the rest of my stay in Bali, which was so incredible that by the end of it I was desperately trying to find a way to stay there longer and shorten the India portion of my trip.

here we go...photos will have to wait, which is frustrating because words can't possibly do this place justice.

(if you don't know anything about Bali, like me before I went there, it might behoove you to read the wikipedia page or just google some general info. I was ignorant when I arrived, but enlightened when I left, and needless to say there is much more to the island than surfing, resorts, and terrorist bombings)

March 6: Shawna, Katie, Keri and I woke up early, left Allie and Jon on the beach to nurse their 'hangovers', and got in a small wooden longboat heading to Lombok, the big island nearby, with Sunny and Danny, two of our local island friends. They had invited us to go with them to watch the parade taking place that day in Mataram, the capital. The parade was a precursor to Nyepi, aka "the day of silence," one of the most interesting holidays I've ever heard of:

from Wikipedia:

Nyepi is a Balinese "Day of Silence" that falls on Bali's Lunar New Year (March 7, 2008). It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation.

Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are: no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali’s usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes. The only people to be seen outdoors are the Pecalang, traditional security men who patrol the streets to ensure the prohibitions are being followed.

Although Nyepi is primarily a Hindu holiday, non-Hindu residents of Bali observe the day of silence as well, out of respect for their fellow citizens. Even tourists are not exempt; although free to do as they wish inside their hotels, no one is allowed onto the beaches or streets, and the only airport in Bali remains closed for the entire day. The only exceptions granted are for emergency vehicles carrying those with life-threatening conditions and women about to give birth.

the highlighted sentence above I found particularly cool, and symbolic of the overall kindness and generosity encountered in people here. an article in the newspaper said that hotel rooms showed a large increase over the weekend, as non-observers, especially families with noisy children, checked in to hotels so as not to disturb their Hindi neighbors. that would never happen in America.

anyways, back to the parade. in the weeks leading up to Nyepi the whole community constructs giant monsters (called ogoh-ogohs) out of bamboo and paper mache, meant to scare away evil spirits. Supposedly, at the end of the day these monsters are all burnt, but we saw some surviving demons on the side of the road all over the island many days after Nyepi, which made for some interesting scenery. here are some ogoh-ogohs; teams of kids and young adults carry them by their bamboo frame, and take turns screaming and running in a circle and generally shaking the out of the monster, to make it seem alive.


















Yes, the parade was awesome.

afterwards, our driver Chip, an old local who was very weathered and friendly, took us for a leisurely cruise around the city's colorfully grungy back alleys in our little jeep and then back through the lush jungle mountains to our boat for the return trip to Gili Trawangan. that night, Shawna and I laid out under the island's (cliche-warning) blanket of stars listening to music. and life seemed pretty good.

March 7: I went SCUBA DIVING! and it was sweet. me Allie and Jon did a discovery dive while Shawna and Katie went deeper and longer, bc they think they are pro's. if i had had a tiny bit more time and a good chunk more money, I would've gotten my open water certification. alas, that will have to wait. saw a ton of different fish including a giant puffer fish and some scorpion fish, coral, starfish... no turtles though :( big ups to our unintentionally hilarious Italian instructor, Frederico.

later that night there was a huge party at a bar called Rudy's. the whole island showed up. (it's a pretty small island). very awesome fun times that was, sweating it out on the dance floor to some hard house with other travelers and then as it got late just the locals until we didn't know what time it was and didn't care. next day, feet were hurting.

***a couple days prior to this, I got a massage from a quiet and wise-seeming ancient woman named Lydia, who lived in a small hut next door to our bungalow. she used her own massage oil, making it as I laid there on her table, crushing aloe and some other stuff in a bowl to make some super strong concoction that made me want to scream when she slapped it on my sunburned regions. well, that was a cool experience on its own, but it gets better. at the dance party...guess who is standing right next to the DJ booth in skin tight spandex pants and a neon pink headband, looking fantastically badass under the blacklight, sipping some Arak from a flask? Yes!! Lydia!! she had some feckin' moves too, she was really grooving. and that's not all...she had a plate of some nasty dried and salted fish that she had brought with her, it was just sitting up there on the dj booth. sure, why not? Lydia does what Lydia feels like doing. and Shawna and I were forced to eat some of it, with a smile of course. I have pictures of me and her dancing, it kills me that I can't put them up right now. such a great memory, it still makes me laugh now.

March 8: I got a tattoo.

it's a slightly modified version of the symbol of the 3 Gilis (Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air). the white stuff is sunblock.

I'm pretty happy with it.

the tattoo artist deserves a whole separate blog post. since I don't have a picture, I'll just say that he was a wild man from Borneo who looked like a Native American. we're unsure of his exact heritage, after doing some investigating online I think he might be indigenous Dayak.
twice while we were on the island we got to see him perform tribal chants at a local club. he would take the stage for 20 or 30 minutes in between the in-house reggae band, and during this time the entire bar would go silent as everybody got caught up in the rhythms of his voice and he danced like a man possessed.

Shawna and Katie also got ink done; a lotus flower on the back and some script added to an already existing flower on the foot, respectively.

this was our last night on the island, and we had a small little farewell at the Horizontal Lounge that night around a bonfire with a local named Audi who had become quite a good friend during our stay. it wasn't so sad though, i know i'll be back one day.



March 9: epic day of travel. 2 hours on wooden longboat to Lombok, 1.5 hour bus to ferry port, hours on ferry back to Bali, 1 hour minibus to Ubud. I had been dreading the ferry ride, but it was actually very scenic, met some nice people, worked on my tan on the sun deck and read a lot. the drive from the port to Ubud, at sunset, was gorgeous.

March 10-12: spent 3 glorious days in Ubud. here are some snapshots...

-walking the rice terraces, narrowly avoiding death by falling coconut, sipping tea at the organic Cafe Sara in the middle of the rice fields (along with some obnoxious older hippies-"um, excuse me, if i had one suggestion for your cafe it would be to provide cloth napkins, you know, because of their carbon footprint"- and some nicer younger hippies from calgary/san francisco).

-went to see a Balinese Kecak dance, aka the Monkey Chant, performed in an old temple in the jungle...if you've seen Baraka you have seen this intense form of storytelling where no instruments are used, just a chorus of men chanting "kachakachakachakacha" in a syncopated rhythm. it was seriously hipnotizing. here's a random youtube clip:




-took a Balinese cooking class, learned a lot about spices and native island cuisine, ate way too much delicious food, got a cookbook and an official "Bali Cooking Team" apron out of it.

-rented a motorbike and took off with Shawna to explore on our own. this was possibly the most incredible day of the whole trip up to this point, which is saying a lot. we stumbled onto this huge but completely deserted temple...deserted except for us and the grass cutter and 3 old women giving offerings. Shawna and I stood silently behind them for what seemed like forever. I can't really put it into words, but it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. as we watched they went through a simple but elegant ceremony pouring water on the ground from a half dozen of these old decorated containers of different shapes and sizes, waving incense in the air, waving flowers in the air and then putting the flowers in their hair, bowing, chanting, and repeating the cycle. this is one of many reasons why I fell in love with Bali...you see this marriage of faith and life everywhere, every day, in every person you meet. and it's clear that the people here are not doing it for tourism's sake, they would be doing it regardless of our presence. you don't have to look hard to feel the age of their rituals, to know they've been doing it for a thousand years. and one of the things I find most powerful about all of it is that unlike a lot of other countries and cultures I have witnessed, the modern age seems to have hardly made a dent in the inherited customs and structure of family and village life. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, seeing as how it has already persisted through Dutch colonization and pressure from the rest of Islamic Indonesia (the entire population is 88% Muslim, 1.8% Hindu).

Somebody told me that the Balinese believe when you die, you don't go to heaven, you go to Bali. I don't know how accurate this is, maybe it's just something they tell the tourists, but I love it, I think it fits perfectly.

Speaking of death....from the temple, Shawna and I were taken on motorbike by one of the temple caretaker's friends to a cremation ceremony that was being held in a village down the road. I found this website with more information on this practice and some great pictures:

Balinese religion is based on respect for and worship of God and ancestors, and
is a combination of Hindu elements and indigenous Balinese culture. After death,
the body must be dissolved and returned to its original elements. The cremation
ritual is a purification rite which frees the roh (soul or spirit) from its
temporary earthly house and facilitates its journey to its next existence.

The ceremony we witnessed was for a priest, so they were burning a (fake) large white bull. We pulled up just as they were setting the 10-meter tall funeral pyre on fire (another moment of perfect timing in a week full of them...fifteen minutes later and it was almost completely burnt). It was a chaotic scene, almost festival-like, and we were quickly surrounded by old women selling traditional sarongs, scarves, and hats, which we bought so that we wouldn't stand out like the white foreigners that we were. And after the ceremony wound down, our 'guide' took us to his little village house and introduced us to his family and showed us his small painting studio (we declined to purchase anything). And so the gods of Bali provided us with yet another unforgettable experience totally out of the blue.


That night we were invited to go watch the owner of our bungalows and officially "nicest woman ever", Maday, play the gamelan during a traditional Balinese dance performance (she also drove us 20 minutes out of town for the Kecak dance the night before. like i said, nicest woman ever). This, like everything else, was absolutely captivating and strange and beautiful. don't have time to find a youtube clip right now but you should look it up yourself, really.

And last, but not least...Shawna and I took the motorbike out for one more cruise on my last morning in Bali before I headed to the airport. I figured nothing else exceptional could happen in such a short amount of time. Well, we took a wrong turn somewhere, got completely lost, stopped at what looked like a remote bungalow operation to get our bearings, and ten minutes later we were being given a private tour of a rather large collection of traditional South Asian masks and puppets. The owner of the collection, whose name I forget, saw us on the bike, came out and greeted us excitedly, unlocked the doors to his buildings, turned on the lights, and walked us around, telling us what he could about different items with his limited english. His collection was huge, I can't imagine how long he had been collecting or how much money, and it was actually really impressive; all the moreso considering it was IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE and we had found it by pure chance.

After the tour, he told us how to get back to Ubud and sent us on our way.

Back at our bungalows I said my goodbyes to Shawna and Katie and Maday, which wasn't easy, and headed to the airport. Spent the 4 hours I had left laying out on Kuta Beach (which is 15 minutes from the airport), caving in at last to the persistent but friendly old Balinese women selling bracelets and foot massages, and enjoying one last sunset in paradise.

20 hours later I was thrust into the madness of Delhi, and I wanted to cry and run screaming back to the beach.