There’s a beauty in the geometry of a terraced rice field. I can’t imagine the labor that went in to this field. I hope it fed them well and made them some some money.
As you know from Part One of this posting, I was in Singapore for business (read that all expenses paid) and thought to double my pleasure by hooking on to the end of my Singapore sojourn a side trip to Bali. Why Bali? Well, it’s in the neighborhood, so to speak, and I’d never been there, and everyone wants to go to Bali don’t they?
It’s an easy and short flight from Singapore to Denpasar (you knew, didn’t you, that Denpasar is the capital of Bali). It’s a semi-chaotic medium sized metro area that only hints of the real pleasures and treasures to be found further afield. I had deliberately chosen Ubud, in the central highlands of Bali, as my home base so I could avoid the reams of mostly inebriated party animals from Australia that tended to congregate in the nearby beach and bar communities of Kuta and Sanur. All those bikini clad Aussies girls cavorting, might have distracted me from my assimilation of Balinese culture, don’t you see. In addition, Ubud had been featured in the recent chick flick of some note, Eat, Pray, Love, which I saw three times. Also, I thought if there were any terrorist lounging about they would be unlikely to plan anything for Ubud which is of no strategic value to anyone except for the tourists who congregate there to partake of the eight dollar massages.
Bali, as you know, is a province of Indonesia which is, itself, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, only a few of which are inhabited. My research indicates that the main islands were populated several thousand years ago by Austronesians. I have no idea what an Austronesian is, but I’ll bet they’re a whole lot nicer than the Dutch who colonized the islands as a trading post for a couple hundred years and the Japanese who did their normal rape, pillage and plunder thing when they were the occupiers during WWII. As I said, the Aussies are doing a pretty good job of pillaging by their mostly happy, but raucous behavior on the beaches and the Brits and Americans are doing their bit to plunder by building thousand dollar a night hotels all around.
Let me give you the short version of my trip report first. In two words, I LOVE BALI. I know that’s three words but I couldn’t figure out how to say it in two. Let me tell you what I like about Bali.
1. Their religion is terrific. Most of you know, I’m normally not too hot on religion, but this one is different. Its Hindu with a Balinese twist. As one old timer told me, “it’s part religion, part culture, part tradition, part mystery, and a lot of fun”. Lot’s of temples where there always seem to be gaggles of women folk making stuff for the next festival or ceremony. Lot’s of personal shrines, and personal gods (if one god is good, why shouldn’t lots of gods be better). Bright colors everywhere. Banging of drums and cymbals. Incense burning pretty much everywhere. Small offering baskets of fruit and flowers are given every day to pretty much every shrine. It’s a happy religion, and if you get it wrong the first time, you don’t go to some fire pit, you come back and try it again. How great is that.
2. Tranquility. They’re never in a hurry, and they get where they are going without stress. They don’t honk their car horns. They greet you with hands pressed together and a slight bow….always with a shy smile. They seem to want to make you happy. I dunno if this is the result of the religion or their culture, but it makes for lot’s of happy expats and tourists.
3. There are lots of rice paddies. I know, this is an unusual reason to like a place, but look at the picture above. It’s geometry, it’s artful, it’s colorful, and it feeds the people. I took a long (actually, far too long) hike through the rice paddies surrounding Ubud to see and photograph some of the indigenous birds of the area. I’d had a confrontation with a dose of the Bali Belly the night before, so I spent a good bit of the hike huffing and sweating, but even that couldn’t diminish the beauty of the area.
4. The food. Yes, I did get a dose of the Bali Belly (BB), but it wasn’t the foods fault. Well, it did come from the food, but I’m culpable. I ordered a combo of chicken and lamb sate when I was attending the Balinese dance performance (more about this later). I knew when I ate the chicken that it wasn’t fully cooked. In fact, the center of the chicken was still cool, and I ate it anyway. The results were predictable and painful. The breakfasts were to die for…not from BB…but the fresh fruit and noodle or rice and egg dishes, preceded by an array of fresh fruit juices. I never felt so healthy and well fed in the morning. I’ll admit it. I’m a duck man. I like duck in almost all its forms, and evidently the Balinese like duck as well as it was on every menu, and I found one top restaurant named The Dirty Duck. They fix it lots of ways, but I like two best. Duck breast steamed in a banana leaf and crispy duck. Both come with an array of sauces from really spicy to fairly mild and a heaping mound of rice. A local beer or two aids the digestion. I finally figured out that you couldn’t spend more than ten bucks for a meal unless you loaded up on foreign hooch.
So you can see there’s lots to like. There’s nothing about the place that I didn’t like, but there was at least one thing that I couldn’t understand. Balinese dance is beautiful but unfathomable. Ok, maybe I was a little addled because of the uncooked chicken I was eating (or the double gin with a splash of tonic). The best metaphor for Balinese dance is a Dvorak symphony. You know you should like it, and every now and then you may hear a note you recognize, but the whole piece never comes in focus. In Balinese dance, there are pretty girls twirling around and waving their arms supported by thumping of drums and tooting of unrecognizable instruments. They are supposed to be telling a story of some sort, but it’s way over my head. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t get there.
My driver and guide, Warung, pointed out several men walking to a temple with baskets of what looked like chickens. I asked him, “is there a market around here”. He replied negatively, but explained further, “they are going to a cock fight”. Of all the explanations I might have anticipated, this was not one of them. He asked if I would like to go. I thought he couldn’t really mean a “real” cock fight, could he? That, as I found out, was exactly what he meant. We walked up a narrow lane beside the temple to a field which contained a small, circular fenced space. He paid a handful rupiahs to gain us entrance. Women were manning food stalls around the perimeter and some men were sitting on benches talking animatedly around the enclosure. Yet more men were inside the enclosure holding their cocks (I must be careful here) and gesturing while the cocks crowed loudly, pawed at the dirt and flapped their wings. My first thought was to wonder if their might be any SPCA agents around.
I’ll spare you the gory details only to say that after a period of getting the bets made, sharp blades were tied to the cock’s feet and the fight was on. There would be only one winner, and it didn’t take long. Every one but me seemed to be really enjoying themselves. I’m still trying to figure out what I think about it. Given the opportunity to do it again, I’d probably give it a pass.
BTW, every first born male child in Bali is named Warung. Hmmm. They also have common names for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I dunno what happens after that.
Benjamin Disraeli said, “like all travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I’ve seen”. That pretty much sums it up for me and Bali.
