Bali: Ceremonies & Sunsets

Our trip to Bali was an unplanned detour, by way of Kuala Lumpur, where we had flown in order to escape the below freezing weather than had engulfed southern China, and only after discovering a glitch in our plan to take the train over the border from China into Vietnam: the train to Vietnam originates in Beijing, and only four berths are saved for passengers boarding the twice weekly train in Guilin – our point of origin. In order to get one of those berths, however, you must relinquish your passport for three days – the amount of time it takes from booking to ticket delivery from Beijing. Ouch. Foreigners cannot go anywhere in China without a passport – we'd have to stay in Guilin (see previous blog – NOT happening) while waiting for our tickets, not to mention the anxiety of simply letting our most valuable travel possession out of our hands. We started looking for alternatives – another traveler we met decided to head west and cross at a different border, and the bus to the border and then another to Hanoi was a possibility, but required at least 10 daylight hours to make the journey. Then we met a Malaysian woman and her daughter who had flown direct to Guilin from Kuala Lumpur (KL) for less than $100. From there, it was similarly inexpensive to get back up to Hanoi – altogether only a little bit more than the train, but without the passport hassle. But the real clincher was the $50 AirAsia fare from KL to Bali. We had three weeks until we needed to be in Hanoi, so booked our flights – paradise, here we come!

We landed in Denpasar, Indonesia and were picked up by our hotel and deposited in the center of Bali's surf and nightlife mecca: Kuta. One day of that was all that we needed to arrange a shuttle transport to Lovina, a relatively quiet beachfront town on the north coast – beautiful! and with a view of the mountains on Java when the light was right.
We spent a week watching sunsets and (mostly) fending off the ever-present fruit, seashell, and massage vendors on the beach, while marveling at the ever-present flower and incense alters and offerings to Ganesha, Allah, and Buddha at every storefront, house entry, and street corner in sight.
Faith and ceremony marks every moment and otherwise routine slice of life here, injecting thoughtfulness and beauty into the simplest walk to the corner market to get a refill of water.
Our homebase in Lovina was an unexpected treat! We booked a room for $25/night – higher than some alternatives, but at a place I felt reasonably assured we could get a good night's sleep and not worry about leaving our meager valuables in the room. For that price, as it turned out, we got a luxury resort – complete with extensive tropical gardens, two pools, a play area and treehouse, poolside restaurant, bar and onsite spa, and only half a block from the beach.
We spent our week snorkeling; heading to sea in a fishing boat at daybreak to look for dolphins (successful!); and touring the temples,waterfalls and hot springs in the nearby mountains.





We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner poolside with a whole duck roasted in banana leaves, and ventured as far as Menjagan Island offshore of Bali Barat National Park for a day snorkeling at the edge of a steep, deep reef shelf with the most spectacular coral formations and diversity of tropical fish Ive ever seen (and that's saying something!).
We began to make friends with the family that owned the neighborhood market closest to the hotel (Colin discovered during a blackout that they all play chess), and were invited to attend a cremation ceremony, unfortunately scheduled for the day after we decided it was time to move on.... next stop – Ubud: food mecca of Bali, nestled in the hills north of Denpasar.

We found a driver to take us there, so we could stop off and visit Singaraja Market, the 400 year old Beji Temple, Batur Volcano and a coffee farm on the way. When we arrived at our guest house in Ubud, we discovered preparations for another cremation ceremony underway on our small street, so spent the evening watching the large wooden bull that the body would be placed in for cremation being carved. Bali was beginning to grow on us, but the best was still to come...
On the third night we were to spend in Ubud, our guest house was full and we had to find new digs. Colin's prodding encouraged me to check Couchsurfing for hosts before booking a new room. There were indeed people listed in Ubud, and we got an almost immediate response from our first inquiry – that evening, we found ourselves at Villa Kubu Merta, a luxe villa on the outskirts of town, being preparing for use as a guest house and future home of the Bali Institute (www.baliinstitute.org) by its resident diver/owner, Elsha.
In the meantime, having been a couchsurfing host in Hawaii before moving home to her native Indonesia, she had opened up the villa's elegant rooms and lovely pool (watched over by Ganesha, no less!) to couchsurfers, as a means of training her staff and simply b/c her heart and her spirit are just so dang big! Wow – Kubu Merta was not only beautiful in itself, it was filled with the coolest, most inspired travelers and adventurers of all sorts. We had an incredible three days, finding ourselves almost reluctant to even leave the grounds and the company to continue our own explorations around Ubud. We did manage to see a few things during our time there, though... most notably:
Odalan

We happened to be in Ubud on the anniversary of the central temple, an occasion celebrated at temples throughout Bali with special ceremonies and offerings.
In the afternoon, after browsing through the public market, we wandered across the street in the general direction of some enticing music, and found the local gamelon orchestra in the courtyard of the Ubud Palace rehearsing for their performance at the Odalan ceremony that evening.
In the adjacent courtyard, we found two young men practicing with the dance master for their own roles in the proceedings. We kept bouncing back and forth between the two, inhaling the incense that perfumed the grounds, and taking in the music and dance, until we noticed a procession of women passing on the street outside the gates.
We stepped out and ran smack into the arrival of the offerings for the ceremony – elaborate headdresses carried by even more elaborately dressed women and containing layer upon layer of fruits and flowers to be laid out in the temple as an offering to the gods. Each person to enter the temple grounds (open only those appropriately dressed for the occasion – we were not) was sprinkled with holy water by the guardian of the gate. After a ceremony lasting several hours there would be a public performance of music and dancing in the town square – we were too wiped out to make it that late, though, so were content with our early glimpse into the preparations and headed “home” to get some sleep before the roosters started up (they seemed to think 4 a.m. was sunrise - not so!)
Sacred Monkey Forest
In the center of Ubud sits an expansive park containing forested and moss-covered temples and a holy spring, criss-crossed by serene trails, and decidedly NOT serene, mohawk-wearing, crazy monkeys! At the slightest sign of a banana, say in a two-year-old child's eager hand, they will jump upon the banana carrier, snatch the desired fruit, and proceed to munch away while sitting on your shoulder.
Should you have been so foolish as to enter Monkey Forest with such a thing, you will not be abandoned by the monkey once the fruit is gone. Said monkey will linger on your shoulder, on your back, off your hip, and in your backpack if at all feasible, looking for more “gifts” to appease his appetite. If you have been wise enough to abstain from carrying fruit through Monkey Forest, this can all be widely entertaining... until someone gets hurt. We were fortunate enough not to see bloodshed, but apparently it does happen. Despite this, the monkeys are damn cute, if also a little intimidating.
They even look nearly regal when perched atop the stone carvings of the temple.

If you want to escape monkeys while in Monkey Forest, then head for the banyon tree and holy springs – the most peaceful and mysterious park of the park is inexplicably free of monkeys, and absolutely lovely.

It was finally time for us to conclude our detour and head back to our regularly scheduled programming, but not without a stop en route in Kuala Lumpur to visit Elaine and Tasha, our Chinese travel mates who had turned us on to our detour to begin with.

We flew out of Bali – again just a day ahead of a new cremation invitation (!!) - and landed in KL for a brief look around before continuing to Vietnam.
Our day with Elaine and Tasha included a visit to Batu Caves - a temple in a limestone karst and home to more monkeys (where Colin got to hold a live python); a wonderful Malaysian lunch at a crowded, locals-only (except us) cafe; and a romp in Lake Gardens Park, before setting off on our own to tour the KL Bird Park – home to peacocks, hornbills, scarlet ibises, and hundreds of other fascinating and exotic birds in what is billed (no pun intended) as the world's largest open-air aviary.
Not normally one for tourist sights, this one was pretty spectacular. We also ate our way through Kuala Lumpur's international panopoly of foods – the highlights being succulent Moroccan kababs
and halal-prepared Spanish tapas. Yummmm.


Up Next: Vietnam for the holidays....