Bali

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Life in Babacan

A few initial observations after a few short weeks in Bali.

Where we are here in Amed seems very, very safe in regards to petty crime we worry about as tourists. One thing we always look for is bars on the windows of houses. None here or in Denpasar. At the banks in Denpasar we saw no armed guards outside or at the ATMs. The shotgun index is very low indeed. We have not seen a single gun yet. Putu and Komang are very diligent about locking all of the doors (including the bathrooms which are partly outside) but they are not overly cautious. That is very cool. It's always a drag being in a beautiful place that is crazy dangerous, think Honduras. Conclusion - low DefCon.

The people here are very friendly and genuinely helpful without being supercilious. They generally want to talk to us even if they have to struggle with their English. They always ask where we are from and often express a positive view of the US and especially Barak. Of course the next question is usually do we have any children, which is very common. They seem genuinely interested and are not just trying to sell us something. The touts have a very soft touch and accept “no” easily.

The culture here is very interesting and seems to be holding its own against the onslaught of western ideas and values. The form of Hinduism is very different from what is practiced in India. People seem to be very involved in their temples. Every couple of days we encounter some type of religious procession, or we hear the sounds of the gamelon, musical group, coming from a temple. The daily offerings Komang does here at the house exemplify this rich culture. We see the offerings everywhere we go, at the dive shop, at restaurants, at hotels, on the beach, on motorbikes, even on the road outside of places. That is not to say there is not tension. Kadek, our driver, told us that he fights with his parents often because he does not go to temple enough. He thinks his mother's 20 offerings per day at their home is excessive. He thinks she should “let the gods rest once in a while. You are bothering them by asking for the same thing day after day.” We went to a ritual at her family temple. There were older people and kids up to about 12 or 13, but the 15 to 25 year olds were absent (too cool for school?). But the young parents were there. The Rough Guide states that there is a perception that the people who work with tourists are less religious and this is a source of tension.

The bugs are driving us nuts. We have never ever been any place with as many flies. After the first rains began, flying insects of all types swarmed after sunset. They were really bad, but usually only lasted about an hour. Still, it makes it difficult to cook or eat your dinner cause you have to continuously pick the bugs out of your food.

On Wednesday, the day after we moved in, Putu's brother, Kadek, picked us up at 7 and we headed to Denpasar, the capital of Bali to get my driving license. We also need to get some money and shop for food. Denpasar is 3 hours away. The roads here are pretty good but it is mostly 2 lane roads so things back up behind the trucks and it can be slow going in a car. On a motorcycle you could shave an hour off the trip.


How we celebrated anti-corruption day

This is how things apparently work in Indonesia. I wanted to get a motorcycle driving permit so we arranged for Kadek, Putu's brother to drive us to Denpasar to get one. He had made some calls the night before to try to figure out where we had to go. The Rough Guide Bali listed an office to get the permit, but it was over two years old so we did not trust it. We started off at the offices of the anti-terrorist police, Unit-88, named for the 88 Australian tourists killed at Kuta beach in the Bali bombings in 2002. Kadek had a friend/relative working there. We sat in the lobby while his friend made and inquiries as to where we needed to go and who they knew that worked there. There was considerable uncertainty as to which office to go to. There were a few false starts. After about 45 minutes we headed off to another office. This turned out to be the place where ordinary Indonesians get their licenses. We met his brother-in-law and another woman who worked there. We explained what we wanted, a license for driving a car and motorcycle and gave them my passport and driving license. They went off and researched what we could get and how much it would cost. It turns out that all I could get was the motorcycle license (never had one of those before). To get one for a car I would need a residency permit and that would be too involved to get. We sat in this little corner office and watched TV and chatted with the police functionaries who passed through while our expediters did all of the legwork. After an hour they came back with all of these forms for me to sign. We then proceeded to the processing hall where about 500 locals were going through the same drill, without expediters. We went directly into the an office where my helper put my file under the 10 other guys already waiting in the office, but ahead of the 490 waiting outside. He then stood and looked over the shoulder of the typist processing the files and chatted with him while we waited. He translated and coached me through his questions. That done, he took my file and we went into the next office where they were going to take my picture and fingerprints. He put my file on top this time. I was the next person called. I smiled for the camera and went outside to wait. It only took 5 minutes, top of the stack again. We discreetly paid our helpers 50,000 rp each, approximately $5. Kadek assured me that without the help this would have been a two day process. At this point I kind of think it was a fools errand. The license cost 365,000 rp plus the 100,000 rp helper fee. If you get caught without a license it is a 50,000 rp fine, payable to the cop on the side of the road. They will try to charge more, we heard of fines as high as 200,000 rp, but if you are persistent you should be able to get them down.

It was lunch time by now and Kadek took us to a little roadside place that served suckling pig, Babi Guling. Yum yum yum!

Next stop money, we need millions and millions of Rupiah! We hit the ATMs till they would give us no more and all we ended up with was 12,000,000 rp. We wanted more. We owe 5 million to Life in Amed (they let us leave with the promise of coming back two days later to pay) and 6 million to Putu for the first two weeks in the house. In the end we decided to take the 3% hit at the hotel and pay with Visa.

We did a little touring next and hit the Bali Museum which covered some history and cultural aspects of island life.

Now it was off to Hardys, the supermarket that sells everything from eggs to motorcycles. We went to the one in Sanur, an upscale tourist town nearby. Kadek told us that this one was “complete” unlike the one 30 minutes away from Amed in Amlapura. They definitely had things that Amlapura did not like cheese, prawns, fish, decent looking meat, hard to find veggies....We also bought a case of wine, Hatten Aga White ($10/bottle) and some Arak.

We got back to the house at 5:30 and that little pool never felt better.



The next day we found the chicken lady and bought a fresh bird. It wasn't still warm, but it was not fully chilled when she pulled it out of the freezer. We let her keep the head and feet. Chicken costs 26,000 rp/kg which comes out to about $1.29/lb. It was about the same at Hardys. Karen made a version of Braised Ligurian chicken, we found all of the ingredients except the anchovies. Home cooked meals are the best! The chicken is turning out to be a little tough. We are going to try marinating it next time.




On Saturday afternoon we went up the road toward Amlapura and visited a water palace in Tirtagangga, about 20 minutes away. It was very pretty with decorative ponds and two big pools for swimming. Next time we'll have to bring our suits. We had some juice at the restaurant overlooking the ponds and gardens. It was delightful. That evening Komang showed me where to get charcoal, the nearest “convenience” store half a km away. They sell petrol, 5,000/L (500rp more than the gas station), kerosene, cooking gas, Arak (40,000 rp/L), sarongs, raincoats, water and a few cooking essentials. The charcoal is made from coconut husks. It's good stuff. Light it with a little kerosene, let it burn off, fan it a lot to get it going, and away you go. It's pretty dense stuff, it burns hot and long. We grilled the rest of our chicken for dinner and served it with stir fried veggies and rice. Yummy! After dinner we motored over to a local bar that had a band and met Sonsisa, Pierre and two visiting friends from Ko Tao Thailand.



On Monday (Dec 14) we motored over to Amlapura. It was closer than I thought, only about 30 minutes. I'm really beginning to get used to this motorcycle thing. After driving around in circles a few times we found the Hardys supermarket. Selection was limited compared to the one in Sanur but we got what we needed. We were disappointed at the ATM however, only 8 million! It sounds like so much, but it isn't, only about $900. We did a little netting and got back to out place about noon. We made lunch and worked out. We are really trying to work out every other day this year. In the past we have not kept up the schedule. We brought a set of resistance bands and we work out together. I would like to say that we motivate each other, but it is mostly Karen doing the motivating. So far so good. Every other day we use the bands and sometimes we do abs on our off days.

Temple Ceremony

Putu invited us to a ceremony at her temple in the evening, so at about 4 we headed over to her family house with Komang. He is her cousin. We started at her mothers sarong shop and we were both outfitted with with sarongs and ties. I also got a HAT?. You can not enter a temple if you do not have proper attire. For men it is a sarong with a sash and a Hat. For women it is a sarong, sash and if you are local, a fancy shirt. Karen chose not to spring for the top, so Putu lent her one of hers. This is the women's opportunity to dress up and show off their finery. When Karen went into her bedroom to select a top Putu showed her a dazzling array of sarongs, sashes and tops. The people here spent much of their disposable income on temple related items and activities. These can range from the cloths, elaborate offerings on holy days to expensive marriage and cremation ceremonies. Komang told us he was not married because he did not have the 30 million rupiah for the ceremony. We looked at a piece of land that was for sale so the owner could pay for a cremation ceremony.

Putu was sick, she had tonsillitis so she could not go to temple. Her mother had cut her finger just before we arrived so she could not go either. You can't go if you are sick, have a fresh cut or wound, or, if you are a woman with her moon. We walked over to the temple with Putu's father and he showed us where we could sit. The temple had an inner and outer courtyard. In the outer courtyard the gamelon played and people danced and socialized. The gamelon is an orchestra which consists of drums, gongs, bells and brass xylophones. They strike their instrumentrs with mallets. The music is very syncopated and lively. I like it a lot. Only the women and children danced. We saw this little boy of about 4 who really had the moves down. He was so serious about it. As soon as we sat down they brought over a donation box. We had been told that a proper donation for the two of us would be 50,000 rp, which we gave, but it was probably more than necessary. After a while we got up and wandered into the inner courtyard to check it out. This is where the offerings were laid out. There were 2 or 3 roasted pigs, countless chickens and ducks and scores of fruit baskets laid out on the platforms. The priests were also in there chanting and doing priestly things. I took some pics and we were observing the goings on when a woman seated in front of the main priest beckoned us to sit down. Of course we had no idea what was going on, so we did what we usually do in such circumstances, we did as we were told and sat down. Shortly, the gamelon stopped and everybody in the outer courtyard streamed in and sat down. Now we were trapped in there. There was hardly room to walk and we were right in front of the priest. We just hoped and prayed that this was not going to be an all night prayer session.

Things got underway with one of the priests coming around and sprinkling holy water on each person. Then we were given some flowers and when he said certain things we put the flowers either behind our ears or on our head. There there were a lot of prayers, we did our best to mimic the gestures. The last bit was more holy water. The priest splashed it on your head three times, then into your cupped hands three times, each time you took a little drink, then three times more times in your hand, each time you put the water on your head. He then held out a bowl of rice and we took some and pressed it on our foreheads and temples. That was the end of the ceremony. The praying only lasted about half an hour.

We went home and grilled up some of the best shrimp I have ever had in my life. They were incredibly tender. I'll bet they were the freshest shrimp I have ever had. Never frozen makes a big difference.


Some of the dives

Friday (Dec 11) we went back over to the Tulamben area to dive. Our first site was Kubu, highlights include a spiny shrimp in a barrel sponge, bat fish, dancing shrimp, anenome crab, and a really interesting nudibranch we have not been able to ID. The second dive was Alam Anda. The site was lousy with octopus, we saw three. We also saw red fire gobies, juvenile sweetlips and a enormous bumbhead parrotfish.

We also dove Sunday, we are on the every other day schedule. We went back to Liberty. There was a little snafu, when the guys at the shop packed our gear they forgot to put in our booties. Rather than waiting 30 minutes for someone to bring them to us we dove with our flip flops inside our flippers instead of booties. It worked OK as long as we didn't have to fin hard. The highlight of the dive were the two ghost pipefish, I got a good shot of them, check it out. The second dive was up the beach 300 m at Paradise. This site had more ribbon eels than in all previous dives combined.

We also took the rescue diver course with Sonrisa. It was two days of diving. When we were done with some training we went out to find pigmy seahorses a couple hundred yards off the beach. They are unimaginably small, less than 3/8th of an inch, but we found the piece of soft coral with 3 of them. Way to go Sonrisa! Sonrisa is such a loser sometimes. On the way there Sonrisa lost her regulator and panicked. Karen had to go give her her regulator and calm her down. Then on the way back her mask fell off (!!!???) and I had to find it and help her clear it. Then she lost her safety sausage and Karen and I had to do a search pattern to find it (I cheated and saw her hide it in the sand.) Then when we went back to give it to her she was missing! We had to search for her and found her unresponsive at the bottom “not breathing.” Needless to say we got her to shore safely and revived her. You would think that such an experienced diver would not have so many problems.

Eventually we dove all of the sites along the Amed coast, some of them repeatedly. The site we liked best was Gili Salang. Really nice hard and soft corals and lots of fish. There can be a lot of current so most shops do not take divers there, another plus. The 3 times we dove it the current ranged from nonexistent to moderate. Another plus is the visibility. The island is at the eastern tip of Bali, sticking out into the Lombok straight, hence the current. The ocean current also brings clearer water from up from the depths. As the rainy season progressed some days this site had much better viz than sites closer to the rivers further west. The visibility clears up quickly apparently. We spoke with divers on one day that experienced less than 5 m visibility at Liberty and then three days later, with no rain, it was back up to 10-15 meters.


EcoDive

We liked EcoDive, they took good care of us. One thing we liked was that it was always just Karen and I and a dive guide. One reason for this is that they only use the Jukungs, the local fishing boats, to do their boat dives. I can confidently state that this is the only dive operation I have ever seen that did not have their own boats. Someone told us that they were not allowed to use their own boats. The plus side of this is that it allows the fishermen to get some of the money that the divers bring to the village. They are invested in keeping the divers coming back and preserving the reef. It works great for them. Most of the fishing boats go out twice a day, from 4am-7am and then in the afternoon from 3-6. This leaves the day open to take out divers and pick up a little extra cash. One thing that was different was that our dive guide was not a divemaster, just a rescue diver with tons of experience. We did all our dives except one day with Kadek, and he was excellent. That was nice too, we got to know him. One complaint is that they do not have emergency breathing oxygen available at the shop. I can see why they can't have it on all of these little boats, but they should have a canister in the shop to treat someone for as long as possible while they transport them to the chamber in Denpasar


The Names

It's easy to remember everybody's name here. The first born is named Wayan, Gede or Putu. Number two, Made or Kadek, number three is Nyoman, four is Ketut. When number five child comes along, they start over. The names are not gender specific. We had a driver named Kadek, who's wife was a Kedek also. We only met a few people who introduced themselves with nicknames. It may be more common among the locals. Maybe they use them more among themselves. The woman we rented from in Amed, Putu was known as Putu glasses.

Maybe we could live here

We were having dinner one night at Warung Bobo and we got to talking with Bobo. We told him that we might want to build a little villa in the area. He offered to show us some land, so the next day we met him to have a look. We are not interested in beachfront here. It is way more expensive and does not catch the shore breezes at night. Black sand or rock beaches have never been my thing. We think we would rather have a little elevation, looking out over the rice terraces. He showed us a piece in the village of Datah, about 5 km from where we were staying. It was behind the house of the village headman who needed to sell it to raise money for his sick wife. It was off the road about 100 m, nice and quiet with views looking down on the rice fields and out to the ocean. It was a 10 Are parcel (1 Are =10m x10m) and he was asking $20,000. We looked at two other pieces that were to far away or did not have the view. Bobo, who is Putu's (with the glasses) cousin, told us that she spent about $60K building her place and she told us her 4 are lot cost her about $14k. In the end we decided that we could not live along the Amed coast because the flies are unbelievably bad. Everyone we asked told us that the fly situation we experienced was normal. In hindsight we did not remember flies up at the Datah parcel but we would have to check that out before we committed. It was good to look at the land as it helps focus ones thoughts on the tradeoffs from one place to another. How close to town or diving, what about the flies, beach or hillside...


Merry Christmas

We decided to leave the day after Christmas, so on Christmas day we went around and paid our bills at the dive shop, motorcycle rental place and to Putu. Everyone got a nice present but us, or so we thought. We arranged to go out to dinner with Sonrisa and Pierre at Sails, a restaurant that we really liked. At the last minute Sonrisa invited John, the owner of EcoDive to come along. His wife was doing a ceremony at the temple so he didn't have anyone to share Christmas dinner with. It was a nice time. John held court and regaled us with his stories his 12 years lifing in Bali. In the end he offered to buy dinner, which we accepted. He got his gift, 16 million rp for our diving, and we got Christmas dinner.


Moving on to Ubud

On the 26th we left Amed and moved on to Ubud, about 2 ½ hours away. We hired a driver to take us and all of our gear. On the way we stopped at the village of Tenganan which is known for it double ikat weavings and at Goa Lawah, the bat temple.

Tengannan is a small village of approximately 150 families. It was formed many, many years ago by people who fled to preserve their culture and religion. It is a picturesque village of red bricked temples and facades on either side of a dirt road/path. We bought some of the traditional double ikat, or gringsing weavings. This cloth has intricate prints, usually of 3 colors, all derived from natural sources. What makes it unusual and expensive is that the threads are died to the finished design before the cloth is woven. It is used in ceremonies. The only places where this type of cloth is produced is in Tengannan, India and Japan.

Our landlady recommended a spot for lunch nearby the bat temple. It served chicken Satay, Satay Litit, and fish grilled in banana leaf. The Satay Lilit is a Balinese type of Satay where they mince the meat, mix it with spices and coconut and form it on a thick skewer. We walked into the restaurant, which had platforms instead of tables. We sat at one of the platforms and nothing happened. Eventually a waitress came over to take our drink order. There was no mention of food or even a menu. After a while, food just began arriving at our table. This restaurant only offered one thing, the satays and grilled fish, rice, vegetables mixed with coconut and peanuts, and the ubiquitous Balinese Sambal, which is a sauce served with almost everything. It consists of chopped shallot and chili, dried shrimp paste and coconut oil. Delicious.

Off to Goa Lawah, which was a temple built at the entrance of a bat cave. We had to put on our sarongs and sashes, making the early afternoon heat even more intense. The cave was home to hundreds of large fruit bats, most hanging upside down, some flying around, all making noises.

We retreated back to our air conditioned car and headed off to our new destination. Ubud is inland among the rice fields. It has historically been a center for the arts. The rajas in this area were a big patrons of dance, music, painting and sculpture going back at least a hundred years. The tradition has carried forth to the present day. The town is full of galleries selling everything from fine art to beautiful antiques and tribal items from throughout the archipelago. There is also a big granola set so many yoga studios and meditation gurus have established themselves in the area. Even the food is much more varied than in Amed, a welcome change. We landed at a little 4 room hotel called Sri Sunari. Coming in they told us that we could only have an upstairs room for three nights, then we would have to move every other day, up, down, up. Sri Sunari was very nice, set among the rice fields a few km outside of town. The upstairs rooms were well appointed and spacious at $45, but downstairs just didn't do it for us. The first day we rented a motorbike, about $5 per day, checked out the town and got our bearings. The second day we found a nice little one bedroom villa on the other side of Ubud in Penestanan. Penestanan is a little more laid back and is home to many artists. The villa is not in the rice fields, it's right off the road behind a restaurant, but very private, tasteful, with it's own small pool, at about the same price as the hotel room.

Our big plan was to travel out to eastern Indonesia to go diving in the Raja Ampat islands. They are just west of Papua New Guinea. We did all of our research and reserved a cabin on the MSY Seahorse. Now our problem was paying for the cruise. We needed to do a wire transfer from Chase to a bank in Bali. We spent most of the morning jacking around with the website and on hold with the fraud people and the online banking knuckleheads all to no avail. We moved over to the new place, had lunch and resumed our quest. We finally got it done, but blew that day and parts of others to accomplish it. So frustrating.

We were relaxing at our place with a cocktail planning our evening when the power went out. If there is one thing we have learned in Bali, it is that if you want to be sure you get your PM shower you had better be done by 6:30. Of course we had not showered. Karen was bummed, but I told her not to worry, wherever we went it would be dark, no one would notice. We hopped on the bike and headed over to Naughty Nuri's, reputed to be an ex-pat hangout. We got down to the main road, and voila, they had power. So much for it being dark. We got to Nuri's and it was quite a scene. People waiting in front to get in, indifferent staff, lots of camera flashes. Our tourist trap detectors should have been blaring, but we soldered on and had a very mediocre meal surrounded by Korean tourists taking pictures of their beer glasses. Got back to our villa to find that the power was still out in our neighborhood. It was a fitting end to one of those days when you just can't catch a break.

We spent a few more days hanging around Ubud and looking at all of the cool antiques and crafts for sale. We really like the older wood carvings from Timor and Borneo, really cool stuff. Some of the contemporary wood and stone carvings are really interesting also. By Chicago standards, the prices are very reasonable. It costs less than $250 to send a cubic meter of cargo from Bali to Chicago. After our diving trip we have decided to come back here and do some serious shopping and send a big crate of goodies back to Chicago.

Our cruise leaves from Sorong in Iran Jaya (the Indonesian side of Papua) on Jan 4 and deposits us back there on the 15th. Don't expect to hear from us until we get back here after that.

To get to Sarong we have to go through Makassar, on Sulawesi. Because everyone is flying home Sunday (Jan 3) to get back to school and work, we could not find a flight. We had to fly on Saturday and spend 2 nights. Makassar, the largest city on Sulawesi, does not really have much to recommend it. We mostly just hung at the hotel, surfed the web and watched a little TV. We had cable!!! We haven't watched TV in ages.


There are more pictures lower on this page and on page two. Don't forget to check them out!

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Photos

My license and the currency
The biggest bill at the ATMs is a 50,000 rp note, about $5. The stack of bills at the back is about 15,000,000 rp. That is my Indonesian Motorcycle license.