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Published: October 11th 2009
Statue with Offerings, Ubud
There are carvings like this everywhere in Bali. Everywhere. It's fascinating.Thank you all for the sympathy after our last entry. Many of you wrote that when we looked back on the difficult parts, the hardness would fade away. This is already true. We talk very fondly of Malaysia now.
Singapore Again Our 9 days in Singapore passed quickly. We really didn’t do much of note except get Ella better (yet another doctor and antibiotic dose). Our last day in Singapore, we went to the Singapore Zoo and had breakfast with the orangutans. It’s a tourist attraction that involves a delicious buffet breakfast and an opportunity to have your picture taken with charming orangutans. The highlight of the breakfast was the cheese, good cheese, which I hadn’t eaten since our trip began. The zoo was lovely. Animals lived in beautiful, seemingly comfortable settings. Many of the animals were active, too- pacing white tigers, chasing chimpanzees, bathing elephants, etc… We had a good time.
Arriving in Bali We flew from Singapore to Bali, an island in Indonesia. We arrived very late and were actually met at the airport by a nice man, Nick, who had a sign that said Paul Castelloe. First time
Ridge Walk, Ubud
Walk along ridge where they grow elephant grass, to make thatch roofs that’s happened. Nick is a friend of the guest house where we had made a reservation. He had dropped off someone at the airport earlier so just waited for us to take us to Ubud and the Warji Homestay. We were thankful for Nick, because it was rainy and dark and 11pm and we had no idea where to go, but he did, so all was well.
Where we stay Warji Homestay is owned by a Dutch woman name Anika. She’s owned it for about 18 months. The host though is a Balinese man name Nyoman. He’s worked here for about 20 years. He, his wife and his 9 year old daughter live in one room of the homestay, Anika lives in another and there are 5 other rooms. All have porches that look out over various little sections of garden greenery. Nyoman cleans our rooms and fixes our breakfasts and checks in every day to see if we need anything.
We wake up to a big thermos of hot water on the table on our porch along with the fixings for tea and coffee. After a bit, Nyoman comes by and asks about breakfast. We always get
fruit and then a choice of banana or pineapple pancake or omelette on toast. It’s relaxing to sit, sip tea and have a yummy breakfast brought to us.
Things to like about Ubud, Bali *One is the friendliness of the people. Everyone smiles and says hello. We get asked at least 20 times a day if we need a taxi. We always smile and say “No thank you” and the car owner, smiles back and says “OK” or “thank you” or “maybe tomorrow”, but never hounds us. Shop owners invite us in to have a look but always smile and wave as we smile, shake our heads and keep on walking.
*Second are the tourist restaurants. We eat lunch and dinner out. For around US $20, we can all 4 get a delicious dinner—pesto pizza, hamburger, homemade pumpkin ravioli, big salad or for even cheaper we can get delicious Balinese food- rice, veggies, tempeh and egg with peanut sauce. All so good. Eating is fun here.
*Third, the weather has been very nice. Today it rained, but before that, every day was beautiful, sunny, clear. Every afternoon, we pay a couple of dollars and visit a
Ricefield, Ubud
Just outside of Ubud, ricefields everywehre neighboring hotel with a beautiful pool. We swim for a few hours which Ella especially likes.
*Fourth, and possibly best, is the lending library. Five minutes away is a superb little lending library. For $5 we can borrow up to 6 books at a time for a month. We are all reading like crazy. They have a good selection for Ella, she’s read the most of any of us. We read while we wait for meals and read on our porch every morning and read before going to bed every night. Today in the rain, we read practically all day, moving locations from one restaurant to a tea shop to the library to our room and back out to a restaurant.
Bali is Touristed but still Different Ubud is the town where we stay. It’s in the center geographically and culturally of Bali. There are many dance performances and music performances every night, all for tourists. There are delicious restaurants every 20 steps, all for tourists, and there are shops offering carvings, jewelry, t-shirts, sarongs, even Polo shirts, all for tourists. But staying here we can see that Bali has the tourist thing down but it has a
real-ness too that is different from what we’ve seen.
Offerings Bali is a Hindu state. The rest of Indonesia is Muslim but Bali is not. It’s been Hindu for a long time. There are many temples around and each place of business and home has at least 1 shrine. Offerings are made every day if not several times a day to different gods and powers.
Outside every door, right on the sidewalk, there are offerings made out of woven banana leaves. Inside the little woven basket are flowers and little tidbits of food. These offerings on the sidewalk are for the spirits who live underground. They are important spirits but not the nicest. The Balinese want these spirits to visit the door, appreciate the offering and then be on their way.
Other offerings are put up high on concrete shrines set around every yard. These are more elaborate and for the Hindu gods, you may have heard of… Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna. Each offering is placed and then a flower, dipped in holy water is waved over it while a prayer is said. Women (sometimes men) carry trays with 10 or so little offerings. They stop at various
places around their home or business and place the offerings, say a prayer, sometimes light some incense and then move to the next place and set the next offering.
Bargaining Most items in the tourist world of Bali are fixed price. But fixed price is not really Bali. Bargaining is what the Balinese do with each other and what tourists must do in many shops and in the market. At first, the bargaining made me feel uncomfortable. Why not just say what it costs? Why play this game of price, counter price and so on? I didn’t like it. But I’ve been thinking a lot about bargaining and Bali. It’s part of their culture, just like fixed prices are part of mine.
Now I kind of like the idea of bargaining. I can see how the price of any item could be dependent on many factors- what time of day it is (the first sale is crucial), how rich the customer seems, how many people have passed by, how hungry the shop keeper is and so on. Bargaining is a conversation too, an interaction, a chance to weigh how much you really want or need any given item.
Ella commented that it would be so much quicker if you didn’t have to bargain, but that’s our culture talking too. Quicker is not necessarily valued here like at home. The conversation is valued more, it seems.
Ella and I spent about an hour in the market one morning. We just kind of wandered around through a maze of passageways lined with stalls selling tourist trinkets. We eventually found the part of the market selling necessitates to the locals, like fresh fruits and flower petals for the offerings and underwear. It was early, so nothing was too crowded or crazy feeling.
Ella and I decided to buy some things. First we found a quilted batik pocket book shaped like a chicken. Ella said her K,1,2 teacher, Susan would like that. (She likes chickens.) So we proceeded to ask how much. The young man answered “850,000”. (Don’t panic, that’s only $8.50.) Well, that was too much, so I offered 350,000. He came back with 700,000. All was very pleasant and relaxed. I came back with 450,000. He said 600,000. I told him we’d have to think about it and maybe we’d be back and then we walked away.
Mojitoes, Ubud
2 for 1 Mojitoes: May likes it; not so sure about Jordan. Some woman from somewhere else yelled at him (the stall’s owner? A Hindu goddess?), and he asked us to come back and said 500,000. That’s 50 cents more than my last offer, and I didn’t want to displease the voice, so I took it. I gave him the money and while Ella picked out the bag we wanted, he took the bill and touched all the displays in his stall, for good luck. It was all strangely fun and rewarding for both parties, I think. Needless to say, we bought some more trinkets at “morning time prices”. Even Ella seemed to like it; once she said,“You shouldn’t pay more than $1.50 for that, mom” and she was right.
So we are having fun, doing fine and enjoying our time here. We have felt no earth tremors or tsunamis or typhoons, thank goodness. Paul will write the next blog in a week or two when we leave here. Thanks for all your good wishes to us.
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Linda
non-member comment
Thanks for all the info. I love reading about things you are doing. So glad Ella is well. Everyone looks well and happy in the wonderful pictures. Wishing you good health and happiness as you continue your travels! Love, Linda