Week 35 Bali - Ubud and Seminyak

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I forgot to mention that we are back to being multi-millionaires again as the local currency has a ridiculous amount of zeros on the notes. One of our last meals in Sanur had been in the town centre where we were plagued with a well-meaning but over zealous waiter. He hovered behind us and popped up at the table every two minutes to pour another inch of drink or to move a plate around and became very annoying. His killer move was when we cut our pizza and picked up the first slices - our pesky waiter dived in with a napkin and swooped up all of the cheese strings between the slice in our hands and the plate (yep, all the best bits), so we had to firmly but politely tell him to go away. Hard when you are smothering giggles.

It was time for the second of our three-part holiday and in order to get from the coastal town of Sanur to our next stop in the centre of the island in the midst of jungle-covered hills near Ubud. So we called Ida, the taxi driver who had driven us from the airport as he was lovely, provided great commentary full of interesting information and spoke excellent English.

On the way we visited a batik factory to watch the manufacturing process where they paint the designs by hand onto blank white material using melted wax, then dye the fabric. They then scrape off wax from areas where the second colour needs to go and recover the already dyed portions with new wax before applying the second dye, then the third and so on until the complex and beautiful design is completed. We had a good look around the shop and admired the finished products but restrained ourselves from buying.

Our next stop was at a silversmiths where they make all the jewellry by hand and amazingly enough we didn’t buy anything there either. We passed through many small artisan villages, each having its own specialism - some were wood carvers (different villages made a certain type of item or statue), some were painters producing a wide range of canvases, some were furniture makers and others made all types of pottery items. We wound our way deeper into the jungle and higher up the hills, passing through rice paddies and rural farming villages until we eventually reached our hotel Villa Sarna, sitting on the side of a hill overlooking a lush jungle valley 30 minutes drive to the north of Ubud.

Our home for the next three nights turned out to be absolutely stunning, set in lush tended gardens, the Villa had originally been built as a private residence but it made a great 7 bedroom hotel with a really friendly and accommodating staff. There were lots of steps as the Villa is set out over a series of about 7 terraces cut into the hill, with our room being at the very top which made for a puffing, wheezing walk up, but gave great views from our balcony. The bedroom was bright and fresh with a double height cathedral ceiling and the most amazing marble bathroom with a big walk in shower and luxurious toiletries.

There was a tranquil and pretty pool area with a large open air room with a daybed covered in cushions where we spent a lot of time reading and relaxing. There was a cute dining area perched overlooking the valley and a main lounge that was light and airy with fabulous views, decorated in a colonial style but with huge daybeds that were so wide they made you feel as if you were on the set of Alice in Wonderland having taken a Small Pill, as your feet stuck out it the air and you felt like a child. Kim’s favourite spot was curled up on the biggest if these, with a book and Whiskey the ginger-coloured dog at her feet. They have a second white-blond dog called Soda there too. Whiskey follows you everywhere, drinks from all the statue fountains or from the swimming pool and jumps in with you when you swim.

Villa Sarna is one of the most tranquil, peaceful, beautiful places either of us had been and we loved it. However the peace was interrupted by dozens of very confused roosters who cockadoodled all day long in the surrounding valley which echoed their calls up to us. We also got the Frog Chorus all night long too. The weather was mixed and it rained quite often, usually in short sharp bursts but occasionally it came down like stair-rods for a couple of hours. The brief spells of sunshine reminded you how hot it was but the killer humidity drained you

We noticed that there were lots of people with the same name and asked about it. In Bali there is a tradition of naming your first four children (male and female) in the following way - the first born is named Wayan or Yan for short, the second is called Made, the third is Nyoman and the fourth born child is named Ketut or Tut for short. If someone has a fifth child it is named Wayan Balik which means Wayan Again and the process starts over. Obviously they have other names and nicknames too, but many just use their number-name.

We went to Ubud town on a shopping trip via the hotel shuttle that runs every two hours along one of the 4 different routes into town, some through the farms and rice paddies and some on the main road that passes lots of shops - including many that sell the local handicrafts. Its best if you get there between 10 and 4 to avoid the thousands of day trippers from the coast. We passed the Monkey Sanctuary at the head of Monkey Forest Road (the main shopping road) but neither of us was keen to encounter the vicious little thieves, as we had heard countless horror stories from fellow visitors, with tales of traumatised children, bitten and scratched adults who stupidly tried to protect their food, drink, hats or anything that wasn’t permanently attached to their bodies. Stories also of stuff pilfered from pockets and bags by sneaky furry fingers and trees hanging laden with cameras and other expensive booty that the monkeys had run off with. Nope not for us.

Just after we arrived all geared up and energised for a mammoth shopping trip the heavens opened and sheets of rain fell, making us hide in a restaurant for cover. As it became obvious that the rain was here for hours instead of minutes, we flipped our plans and had an early dinner and then shopped when it stopped - with full bellies, significantly less energy and in a horrible close, humid, hot atmosphere. Because it was a bit early and we didn’t have full appetites we opted for delicious but light Indonesian food. The pavements were really slippery after the deluge and some were covered in slimy mud, so you had to take even more care about the holes in the footpath. Walking on the road was not an option due to the number of cars, vans motorbikes and sometimes huge buses wizzing past. One car got so close that its wing mirror lightly clipped Kim’s arm.

First we wandered the market where we saw piles of offerings at the Prosperity Temple from all the local shopkeepers to try to influence their business fortunes for that day. All of the shops in Bali have little leaf trays on the doorsteps filled with offerings for the gods, which look lovely but we kept stepping in them. We explored the centre of town and watched a children’s parade with two kids under a dragon costume which was a bit like a pantomime horse, with one child wearing the head and some poor sweaty sucker being the rear end under a thick blanket. We shopped until late then returned to the hotel where we collapsed with cold Bintang beers.

The cute hotel driver Made (pronounced Mard-eh?) took us out on a tour of the villages and rice fields around Ubud, including the grand finale of Number One Terrace View. First stop was to see the ornate Galungan decorations in the rural villages that far outstripped the ones we had seen in Sanur for intricacy and height. The tall bamboo poles, laden with carefully curled palm leaf scrolls and tassels, hung so that they made archways along the village streets. Very pretty.

Next we stopped to catch a glimpse on the horizon of the large volcano with its top shrouded in cloud and to view the ripe rice fields from a distance across the valley. On the way to the rice terraces we passed through more artisan villages where they specialised in carving different types of religious statue from jack fruit wood and some of them were incredibly intricate and skillfully made. They ranged from tiny to enormous in size.

We made our way up to the rice paddies and saw that the whole village had turned out to help bring in the crop. There were people cutting the ripe rice stalks with vicious looking scythes, some people thrashing the rice from the stalks by beating it hard on the ground behind windbreaks and some people sifting, collecting and spreading the precious seeds out for the drying process. Made insisted that I walk out to the centre of the terraces, which involved balancing on a high narrow strip of grass bank with a steep drop on either side into a flooded field or the irrigation stream, which would have resulted in a very wet and muddy landing of I fell off. Kim wisely stayed on firm ground as I tottered along the ridge. We chatted to some of the workers who were very friendly and all wore huge smiles. They must have been melting in the heat and humidity as they were all working flat out - Kim and I were wilting and all we were doing was watching and taking photos. We were very lucky to have been there during the harvest and we loved seeing this glimpse of Bali life.

The farmers keep flocks of ducks that they take to the fields every morning and we passed some being shepherded in a long line along the side of the road.. The farmer uses a long thin bamboo cane with a white cloth flag on the tip to control the ducks and when he gets to the field where they can graze he sticks the cane in the ground. I don’t know how they are trained, but the ducks all stay obediently within sight of the flag as they feast on all of the insects in the rice paddies, and graze on the grass and weeds among the crop. When its time to move fields, the farmer leads the procession again with the flag-topped stick and they all move on. This is a great natural (organic) way of pest control. Of course the poor ducks end up as fat juicy legs and breasts on top of steaming rice in the end, but at least they have lived a free range and happy life, milling around their little flag kingdoms.

Our final destination was to gaze at Number One Terrace View, which was a carefully tended series of rice paddy terraces where they obviously bring the day trippers and bus tours as we were immediately swamped by people trying to sell us stuff. It was actually the best looking set of terraces, but we had seen and walked along several others earlier in the day that were well away from the tourist buses and where we had been the only Westerners to watch and sit chatting to the locals as they brought in their rice crops

On the Sunday we needed to change hotels again and wrench ourselves away from the paradise of our magical stay in Ubud. We had arranged a full day tour with Ida to see more of the island and our first stop was at Taro where there is a beautifully laid-out and maintained Elephant Safari Park We spent time petting and watching a bunch of elephants including a couple of mothers and babies - the Park has 3 babies all less than 2 years old with the same father, a cranky big bull called Mr Wong. We briefly glimpsed Mr Wong but he is kept well away from the tourists and most of the other elephants.

After a brief show where we saw four of the animals perform some tricks, we got onto the none too comfortable seat on top of the very high back of Yanti, a young female elephant, for a 40 minute ride through forest and jungle. We had a fun mahout who made us giggle with his patter, obviously honed for his many tourist passengers over the years. The ride ended with a brief wade through a pool of water (Yanti waded and we perched) while we had our photos taken by the Park’s photographer but we also handed our camera to a couple of watching mahouts who took a few pictures for us for free.

Next we drove to the massive 3,000 foot high volcano, the largest of several mountains on the island. Its been many decades since the last eruption but there is still a huge black dead zone where nothing grows and all you can see are the trucks collecting the black lightweight but string rock for building projects, looking tiny in the vastness of the lava field. There was a good viewpoint that overlooked the volcano and the lake that has formed in part of the caldera left from an enormous eruption way back in history, but unfortunately the clouds were low and kept obstructing the view and it wasn’t until we had driven away from the viewpoint that we caught a glimpse of the top of the volcano through a tiny gap in the weather. This area is too high to grow rice but has an abundance of fruit crops that are for sale on stalls along every road.

We stopped in the artists village to check out several shops trying to find a particular elephant painting that Kim wanted, which we had seen for sale in Sanur and Kuta. Eventually we found them and after some hard bargaining struck a very good deal that included taking the canvas off the mount and rolling it in padded paper so that we could get it back to Australia safely.

Our final leg of the tour took us to the Tirta temple. Originally we had planned to include a trip to the Mother Temple in the East of the island, but it would take between 2-3 hours to go around as the complex is huge with over 40 temples and we would have to pay for a guide, so Ida suggested this alternative that we managed to tour in under an hour. We had to don sarongs provided by the temple staff in order to enter the third and central section where we watched quietly as many people came to pray and leave offerings. There was an interesting thermal pool that was pouring out clear blue water that rippled through sediments of black ash making gorgeous patterns that were very pretty and extraordinary to watch. The strange thing was that this blue area was in the mist of a large green pool, making it even more visually stunning and unusual. This spring eventually fed a series of water spouts where people bathed and prayed as they made their way along the line of fountains, leaving offerings and burning incense.

We managed to see a huge chunk of the island and were very tired by the time we reached our third hotel in Seminyak in the early evening Sadly we were disappointed as it did not compare to the first one in Sanur and of course we had been totally spoiled by the best possible place in Ubud. The setting was fine as it fronted the beach with a great view over the wide sands to the huge crashing waves, but the hotel itself was tired and none too clean, with dark rooms and tatty furnishings. We also had ants nests in the bathroom. We tried to get the room changed but they were full and the only alternative on offer was just the same so we decided to make the most of the good points which included a nice pool with clean refreshing water and a rooftop restaurant with great views of the sunsets. We had dinner there on the first night but the food was poor so only had beers and spring roll appetisers there on the other nights.

Seminyak was good with plenty of shops and the whole range from markets to high end boutiques. The fixed price taxi from the hotel was too expensive so we bargained on the street for rides at a third of the price. I got dragged around the shops in the blazing heat and 98 percent humidity for 8 solid hours one day by my energetic daughter and we managed to pick up quite a few lovely things for her and the kids. I was far too hot to try on clothes but did get one very fine and lightweight top.

The sun was out each day with blue skies so we made the most of the good weather and got some relaxing time by the pool over the last couple of days, where we had a great time lounging, reading and floating about with the occasional perch on one of the stone stools at the swim-up bar for a Bintang beer or three. When we felt energetic we split up so that Kim could continue the marathon shopping spree and I could go for a massage in one of the many spas in town. We found a nice little restaurant over the road from our hotel and ate there twice but on the final night we splurged and went into town for a great meal.

We enjoyed our holiday in Bali but strongly preferred the unspoiled rural areas inland around Ubud to the overbuilt, crowded, frenetic coastal towns. Back to Perth next for a few weeks with the family so there will be a brief break in the regular weekly blogs.

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