Lovina Lethargy

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After a week in Lovina the rhythm of the day has been established. We wake at 5 and spend time reading until breakfast at 7:30 when the kitchen opens. We seem to find ourselves the only hotel guests more often than not. This is the slow season for tourists. They call it the ‘rainy season’ here but there is little rain in actuality. When it does rain it does so for only a short period in the afternoon and is nothing like the daily summer deluges we are accustomed to in Florida. We swim and catch some sun in the late morning. The sun here is beyond anything we have experienced before. If we have errands to do like shopping or checking e-mail we have to do it before ten in the morning. Otherwise the heat will reduce you to a human puddle by the roadside.

Sandy, the owner, maintains a full staff of twelve people no matter if there are guests or not. At times it appears as if she is running a charity for the local village. She built a house here in Lovina about ten years ago. When the hotel next to her house went into foreclosure she acquired it though she had no experience in the accommodations industry. She made all of her money in the antiques business. Besides this place she has a home in Australia and another in Colorado. We cannot believe that she is making a dime on this operation as her gross income on the hotel and restaurant is well under $20,000 US a year. Nonetheless her business is tidy and well run. The rooms are beautifully appointed and the food is carefully prepared and presented. All of her employees come from the local village. If she were to hire someone from outside the immediate area she would receive no end of trouble from the village. Outside hiring is simply not done. The village chief controls the surrounding area from basic administration of justice to approval of tree removal. Free market does not exist in Bali. All of the tourist operations like diving, snorkeling, fishing and sightseeing are run by cartels that fix the prices and share profits. Definitely a case of Et Caveat Emptor; Let the buyer beware! Indonesian business people rate success not on profit or customer service but on how well they are able to cheat. Lying to tourists is a way of life here. You constantly run into situations where you are quoted a price for a taxi ride only to have it double when you reach your destination. You must always confirm what something costs before you avail yourself of any service. Shortchanging is an art form and when it’s time to exchange money be sure to watch your ass. We have heard of everything from reprogrammed calculators to sleight of hand when the moneychangers put your proceeds in an envelope. ATM machines are the way to go as the rates are based on market realities and the machines seem to be more honest. Exchange rates will fluctuate depending on the type of currency, size of the bill or whether you are using traveler’s checks. Traveler’s checks always receive a lower valuation. That being said, Bali still has a lot going for it.

The island is stunning. Emerald green forests cover the mountains and clear reef filled waters surround the many beaches. The people are extremely hospitable and fun to spend time with as long as money doesn’t enter the picture. A couple of days ago Sandy took us to the local village to look around. We met two families there. Balinese families live in little walled compounds of about an acre with a number of small buildings that they call pavilions. The family includes the entire extended family including brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc… One place we went to had 16 people hanging about. The homes have only rudimentary plumbing. In one place there was one faucet that came up in the middle of the yard and a hose connected to it served the entire compound. A small cistern with a wood plugged spout on the side served as the bathing facility. The water is undrinkable unless boiled. After boiling it is transferred to an earthenware pitcher to cool. They cook on a wood campfire. A sheet of metal placed on the top of the fire becomes a grill. They make a huge pot of some sort of rice gruel every morning in a 3-gallon cast iron pot and they eat from this pot all day long. They will not eat warm food. They eat by themselves and only use the right hand to place the food in their mouths. They do not use utensils. They do not use plates preferring to eat off of a banana leaf which is cast to the pigs after they finish. Pigs are kept to serve as garbage disposals, food and income in the sale of offspring. The Balinese men keep as many roosters as they can support. Cockfighting, though supposedly illegal, occurs regularly. In the village we visited there is a fight every afternoon at three. Gambling at the fights is customary. In the morning the cocks are taken in their individual bamboo cages to the roadsides to watch pedestrian traffic. My guess is that this really pisses them off and makes them better combatants. (“Why the hell am I stuck in this cage when these guys get to walk around”?) They keep innumerable songbirds in cages hanging from the front veranda. There is always a small temple in the property where offerings are placed to ward off evil spirits. There is litter everywhere. Paper wrappers, plastic bottles and discarded food cover the ground. What the pigs don’t eat stays where it falls. Sandy said that when she hires staff her hardest task is getting them to clean properly. They just don’t understand the concept. The oldest male in the family is responsible for taking care of everyone else until either he dies or they do. Any money made by the family members is shared.

Physically the Balinese are thin and short. The average adult height appears to be about 5’4”. They are dark and have flat features similar to Polynesians. They look as if they are pressed between two plates of glass. They love their children. You see toddlers and babies nestled in their Fathers’ and Mothers’ arms everywhere. Balinese babies are not allowed to crawl as this is considered to be animal behavior and must be avoided. Balinese have their canine teeth filed down at puberty so that they don’t look like a dog. Children here are never excluded from adult conversations and as a result they become very self-assured at an early age. Remind you of anyone Noah? At one compound two small children peered at us from behind a wall until we coaxed them out with a couple of Oreos. Afterwards they walked with us alone as we investigated the pigs and vegetable gardens. Medical care is rudimentary at best. Most Balinese go to what are known as ‘Traditional Healers’. We talked with a man who after breaking his leg in a traffic accident spent three months lying on the floor of a hut with his leg bound between two boards. Traditional healing. Handicapped people are peppered everywhere and I don’t think they were born that way. The average wage in Bali is 30 cents an hour. They work six days a week, ten hours a day. Most of them will never eat at a McDonald’s let alone see a real doctor. Dental care is non-existent for the majority. It is rare to find an elderly Balinese with a full mouth of choppers.

There is public education but it is poor. The local school here is so short of teachers and buildings that the kids go to school in three shifts each lasting only three hours. There are private schools but they are expensive by Bali standards. Most kids drop out of school early to work. Most doing what their parents do.
Karen and I went out fishing the other morning using hand lines on the reef. Our ‘Captain’ was a seventeen-year-old kid. As we cruised back to the hotel we came upon another boat that got his attention. He pointed at it and said “My Papa” proudly. Fishermen are getting squeezed out as corrupt village chiefs sell the beaches out from under them to hotel conglomerates and wealthy tourists looking to build a dream home.

Balinese love the arts. All Balinese are expected to be able to do something artistic. Whether it be playing music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting or wood carving. Every village has its own orchestra though you have never seen instruments like these before. Villages will compete against each other musically. Shadow puppet shows are popular as are musical dramas which take many hours to play out and are started at about 10 PM to end at sunrise. The plays are usually based on Balinese mythology with elaborate costumes and props. The demons and witches are favorites amongst the kids. We had a full moon recently. At 1 AM when the moon was at Zenith I heard in the distance a solitary female voice chanting. This went on for nearly a half-hour until softly played drums joined that chant, which then became a song. I half expected King Kong to step out. The moon is an object of worship here and the temples perform ceremonies on every cycle. What I heard was occurring at a temple just up the beach but the same ceremony was being played out all across Bali.

As I told you, Karen and I went fishing with the teenager. He fished with us, which was good since he was about the only one catching anything. We set out before sunrise in the cool darkness. We fished in 20 feet of water so clear that you could gaze upon the coral heads below. We used hand lines wrapped around a short piece of bamboo. We baited the small hooks with chunks of fish and dropped the weighted lines till they hung between the coral heads. When the fish bite you just pull the line up as fast as you can till the fish is on the deck. Sort of like Fishing 101. The boats used here are like long canoes with two outriggers strapped on. Two people couldn’t sit side by side if they wanted to. Small Honda outboard engines with the props attached to a 5-foot angled drive shaft power them. Excellent for shallow waters. We took part of the catch back to the hotel where the girls grilled it for our lunch. It was okay.

The biggest tourist thing to do here is dolphin watching. There is a large dolphin pod that shows up every morning.about a klick offshore. Every morning there is a flotilla of nearly two dozen canoe boats holding 4 tourists apiece racing around following the pod in hopes that one of the mammals will make a leap. At 75,000 Rupiah per tourist (about $7.50) this is the biggest income earner in the tour trade. So much so that the village fathers have erected a large statue of a dolphin in the downtown area. If you Google Lovina Bali images the first hits you get will be of the statue. At first Karen and I worried about the dolphins getting stressed while being followed but then we thought that the dolphins might be enjoying it more than the visitors.

Enough for now. It’s time for a nap.

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Photos

First Meeting
The kids we spoke about in the pre-Oreo phase.

Post-Oreo Phase
When the cookies came out so did the other kids.

Dolphin Tours
One of the dolphin boats heading back to shore. The trip takes 2 hours and costs $7.50.

Trying Real Hard
Karen 2 hours into the fishing. She wasn't real happy with the results up to this point.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Our new buddies on the veranda with some of the many songbirds kept in the compound.

Quality Time
Any time you see a toddler you find an attached adult. The things we could learn...

Captain Kid
The guy we entrusted our lives to. Good fisherman and his favorite song is 'Hotel California'.

Fruits of Our Labors
Our post-fishing breakfast. Fresh fruit, breads and stuff.

Comments

[Ellen]

Looks beautiful
No blondes washing that man outta their hair? This ain't the Bali I know of. Looks like you guys are having a great time. Leaves are vibrant gold and red here. Will think of you at the first frost.