Bali: Weekend No. 2

Saturday, July 10, 2010:

I spent the day wandering the streets of Pengosekan and Ubud looking for souvenirs.  It really was a bit intimidating knowing that I had 11 siblings and two parents to find souvenirs for.  After five hours of looking in every shop that looked interesting, I came back with almost nothing.  But don't worry, I eventually found something for everybody.

Sunday, July 11, 2010:

"Sunday was an unbelievably phenomenal day.  I might even say that it was the best day I have spent in Bali so far.  Seriously, it blew my mind!"

The day began at 8:30am as we headed out east to go snorkeling along the coast.  I didn't really know what to expect and I was a little uncomfortable when we showed up.  We were taken through a back alley to a little shack where they began pulling out random pairs of flippers, snorkels, and masks to have us try on.  It all just seemed very sketchy to me and I had no idea if I should trust these guys.  After we got our scuba gear, they loaded us onto two small, skinny boats with runners (like a catamaran) and took us over huge swells (okay, they were probably tiny, but I'm new to this whole ocean thing) and out into the ocean to a small, rocky island where they simply told us to "jump!".

The middle island in the distance is where we went to snorkel

There was no shore and whatever possessions we brought on the boat (camera, wallet, sunscreen, etc.) were left on the boat with the drivers in the plastic bags we had used to try to keep them dry from all the splashes on the trip out to the island.

Snorkeling itself was incredible!  The fih were so brightly colored and many of them were larger than I would have expected.  The coral wasn't too spectacular, but it was still really amazing to see all of this marine life.  I saw many of the fish that are so popular in photographs because of their bright colors and interesting shapes.  I saw Nemo and Dory and Gill and eve Crush (the sea turtle)!  It was such a breathtaking experience to be out by that island swimming along its rocky cliffs and seeing all the beauty that nature had to offer.

We climbed back onto the boat after a short duration in the water and began a 20 minute boat ride to a beautiful white sand beach.  The boat ride there may have been the best part, though.  We passed by beautiful islands rising right out of the ocean and covered with rich, luscious green foliage, separated from everything else by the waves crashing upon their rocky faces.

As we passed by the shore, misty silhouettes of rounded mountains appeared and passed, their surface thick with trees.

Many ended with a steep cliff, topped by carefully carved rice terraces complete with cows.  It really was a sight to be seen.

The volcanic mountains were obviously very old as they were worn smooth into a beautiful curved landscape and the lush vegetation and thin layer of mist really made them something very special.

The white sand beach to which we traveled was tucked between two such mountains and set out in seclusion from all other beaches.

White sand beach - not so white

I played in the waves for a bit while others lounged under umbrellas and enjoyed fresh coconuts.

I know it looks like I photoshopped my feet into this picture, but I was really there

A boat kite!  I love it

I also spent about an hour doing some more snorkeling, exploring all the areas of the beach, including a cave along the side of one of the cliffs that flanked the beach.

My boat, Suci, in front of the cave I explored

I also spent a good amount of time diving down to get right near the fish and coral.  It was absolutely unbelievable and I think now that snorkeling is right there at the top of my list of favorite things to do.  It can be a social activity, but once you're in the water you enter a world that is completely removed from everything else, including those around you.  In an instant you find yourself in total seclusion, but also surrounded by the most amazing creatures as you're cradled by the sea.  It is definitely my kind of activity.

Once we had all soaked in as much sun as possible, we headed back to where we started, past all the unbelievable scenery again, to meet Danu for the next leg of our adventure.

After eating a meal in an empty restaurant with a nice view of the jungle while being serenaded by the vocal talents of Celine Dion circa early 1990s, we got in the car and drove to Tanganan, the oldest village in Bali.

A dark picture, but look at that view!

This village is only open to visitors until 6pm and each home that lines the street doubles as a storefront in which each family is competes to sell the same sarongs and scarves.

A few houses were selling ekat, which are pieces of weaving done in a traditional style for which this village is famous.  I didn't find any such pieces that I liked, but I picked up a silk scarf for each of my sisters after seeing them over and over again in the houses.

Out in the street were several oxen (are they oxen?  ETA:  Mel tells me that they're water buffalo.  I actually remembered this while in the car after writing the post, and knew full well that he would correct me as soon as he saw it.) resting or headbutting, while roosters of every color looked on from their crates - obviously waiting until the next cockfight.

Many villagers were standing around the firepit in the middle of the village where a pig was being roasted.  It was almost time to leave, but there was one more thing I had seen that I wanted to buy.  Before paper and pen, the Balinese wrote their stories down on palm leaves by etching the words and pictures into the surface with a small knife and then rubbing it with charred hazelnut to fill in the small scratches.  In the morning as I was thinking about the day to come I had thought to myself, "I would love to find a map of Bali to hang on my apartment wall back in Pittsburgh."  Never did I think that I would find such a map created in this traditional style and elaborately decorated with designs and flowers, framed by carved palm wood (bamboo?).

It was, perhaps, the most serendipitous thing to have happened to me in Bali and now I have the map I didn't even know I wanted when I woke up to hang on my wall.  The artist even carved my name in English and in Balinese.  Could it have gotten any better?!

Bali: Days 10-12

Day 10: Wednesday, July 7, 2010

After rehearsals on Wednesday I went on a walk through the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.  It sounds promising, right?  It was within walking distance from my hotel and I had wanted to go ever since I got to Bali.  It was a very exciting and peaceful walk through the forest and I took over 250 pictures.  (I apologize for the photo overload that this post will become).  I just can't get enough of moss-covered sculptures,

Balinese foliage,

or monkeys.

The monkeys were literally everywhere and actually quite tame.

There were several babies, which were adorable, and many of the monkeys didn't even flinch when you stood right next to them.

There was a staircase leading down to an old temple and then there was a winding path along the river that was just unbelievably gorgeous.

My friend, Minh

Vines and ferns and palms were everywhere and the river (which was more like a stream) tumbled over boulders and down worn paths.

There were Balinese sculptures everywhere!

There was an absolutely gigantic tree by the long staircase whose roots descended from the trunk and branches down to the ground and they twisted and wrapped all around each other.

Minh again

These trees (banyon trees) are considered sacred in Bali and they all have some sort of temple or offering site near them.  This one was incredible!  You really do have to stop and soak it all in because it's so amazing.  It's difficult to process it all unless you consciously take the time to think about everything.

Day 11: Thursday, July 8, 2010

There is honestly nothing to report about this day.  Rehearsal, dinner, hanging out.  I did eat the most expensive dinner of my entire stay in Bali, but that's not worth talking about.

Day 12: Friday, July 9, 2010

Today we spent some time learning how to play the suling, which is the bamboo flute played in a gamelan.  As we rehearsed the piece we were going to perform at the end of the program (to accompany several little girls singing) it was decided that I should have a solo at the beginning of the piece.  What?!  After lunch we switched with the dancers again and learned some more of the male form.  I didn't get nearly as tired or sore this time and I felt a lot better about it, too.  It was fun to learn something and not feel like it was slowly killing me.

Once rehearsal was over for the day (and the week) we had a pool party at the hotel with everyone from the program and all of the Cudamani musicians.  It was a lot of fun!

We ordered pizza (which is a bigger deal in Bali than it is in the States) and had an assortments of soda and really just had an all around good time.  It was nice to be able to relax with the Cudamani guys.  They tended to be a little shy and kept to themselves in rehearsals (due to our mutual lack of language ability), but we all had fun at the party and everyone loosened up a bit.  These were really some cool guys!

Bali: Days 8-9

Day 8: Monday, July 5, 2010

On Monday morning our program director told us that we would be performing the next day as part of a temple odalan.  An odalan is a 3-day celebration of a temple's anniversary, occurring every 210 days (following the lunar calendar).  It is a very important celebration and I was very honored to be invited to participate in this festival.  Monday was then, of course, spent rehearsing as up until this point we had only learned two of the three pieces we were going to be playing at the temple the next day.  I was playing kendang on this third piece and it was so difficult to learn!  I had never played a drum before in my life and I didn't think I was ever going to be able to learn my part.  My teacher would play the pattern for me to repeat and I'm sure I had a look of "You have got to be kidding me!" on my face the entire time.  At one point I honestly panicked and thought I should just give up - it's so hard being a beginner sometimes!  Of course, once I understood the pattern I was able to do it without really paying attention, but wow.  That was stressful for a bit.

Once rehearsal ended - well past 4pm - I headed back to the hotel to rest a bit and get ready for my evening.  The Ubud Festival had been going on for several days at this point and I hadn't yet managed to make it to one of the evening performances.  Ubud is the city near the village where I stayed and I was very anxious to see one of the performances.  Several of the previous nights had been rained out.  In fact, Cudamani, the gamelan with whom I'm studying, performed the evening before and actually had to run off stage carrying their (heavy!) instruments with them to get out of the rain.  It had been raining all day during rehearsal on Monday too, but I was hoping it would stop before the night's performance because I was REALLY excited to go.

As it turns out, the rain did stop and the sky cleared to reveal a beautiful curtain of sparkling stars over the Ubud Festival.  I got there a little after 8pm, which gave me plenty of time to grab a seat in one of the front rows so that I would have a good view of everything on stage.  The soccer field where the festival took place, as I predicted, was a giant mud puddle and all of the chairs were soaked, but I got over the muddy sandals quite quickly and I sat on my sweatshirt to prevent wet pants so there was really no trouble.

The night's festivities began with a gamelan jegog from West Bali!

This is a rather unique gamelan as the instruments are all made up of bamboo tubes, the largest of which are sometimes more than 3 meters long and the players actually have to sit on top of the instrument's frame to play them!

I had wanted to see a jegog live ever since I saw a video in class and I had no idea they were even performing until I showed up that night.  What a treat!  There was a very interesting (for lack of a better word) dance that accompanied a few of the songs, but it was entertaining and I really enjoyed my time.

I was a bit confused by this dance

I think the dance was supposed to depict some type of jungle scene with birds and other animals and maybe hunters?  I wasn't quite sure.

See the tails?  They were detachable and used a whips

At 11:45pm the reason I went to the festival finally started.  My new friend Ayu Eka was dancing and I was very eager to see her perform.

You see, back in Wisconsin during my class, we actually studied Ayu Eka, reading articles and interviews, watching videos, etc.  I couldn't believe upon arriving in Bali that I was actually going to meet her!

We're actually friends now and just last night spent a good deal of time chatting on Facebook, but I digress.  So yes, I was finally going to see the Ayu Eka perform and she did not disappoint.  What a phenomenal dancer!

It was so bizarre, too - after she finished dancing, she changed out of her costume and then came and sat next to me and my roommate in the audience, as if nothing happened!  She's incredible.

The final piece (that I stayed to listen to) was a performance of the piece I had heard in rehearsal on one of my first days in Bali.  Remember, the one that totally blew my mind and made my jaw drop?  Yeah, I got to see it again and it was just as unbelievable as the first time!  My roommate recorded the whole thing, so now I have it and am able to listen to it whenever I want.  Sweet!

After that piece was over, we chose to head back to the hotel because it was already 1am and we had an early morning the next day with the temple odalan.  I'm so glad I stayed as late as I did, though!

Day 9: Tuesday, July 6, 2010

On Tuesday was the temple odalan for which we would be performing.  Did I mention that this was a private house temple for a high Brahmana priestess?  They kept saying that she was pretty much as close to God as you can get while still being human, so this was a bit stressful for us as foreigners invited into her home to help celebrate the anniversary of her temple.  It was what is called our "ngyah" (nie-YAH), or our offering.  It is thought that everyone should offer whatever they can to the ceremony whether it be food, money, transportation, offerings, or in our case, dance and music.  It didn't matter whether we were the best performers or had no idea what we were doing, it was only important that we were there giving what we could.

When we arrived at the house, it was hot and sunny and we all sat around drinking tea and eating snacks until we were needed.

Just hanging out

Of course, as fate would have it, it began pouring rain and continued to drench the area for the rest of the day as soon as we needed to move locations.  With the constant rainfall, all of us program members, all of Cudamani (the Balinese gamelan musicians), and several little girls who had danced as their ngyah were crammed onto a tiny platform with the gamelan where we once again drank tea, hung  out, and occasionally played a piece or two for the ceremony.  Everybody there kept apologizing for the rain, but I think it was a great experience to be there and see what an odalan entails and to be a part of Balinese culture for a day.  I felt like I was actually experiencing a part of Balinese life that tourists don't really get to see - it wasn't a perfect day with beautiful weather and warm sand on a beach with fresh coconuts, it was rainy and we spent a great deal of time sitting and waiting and not knowing what was going to happen next, and we all adjusted.  We did what we had to do and nobody complained, we all just enjoyed each other's company and went with the flow.  It all felt very Balinese.