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| Bali Girl. Ok, it's Telen - Beautiful and Exotic |
Bali is one of those places that seemed
exotic and magical to me. It always had
the lure of mystery and fantasy. In my
mind it was white beaches, dense jungle, beautiful exotic women, and strange
adventure.
The beaches are more golden than
white, the jungle is dense and the
women are beautiful and exotic. It has a feeling of magic about it.
But I think we came to Bali at the
wrong time.
Things you don’t want on your beach holiday
are rain, humidity, flies, and Russians.
Rain was probably the most obvious
detractor. If it rained only for an
hour or so a day it would not be a problem.
It rained every day while we were there and, according to the locals,
that is normal for this time of year. My
concern was the volume and duration of the rainstorms. When it would rain it would pour or it would
flood. We had a few days where there
were a few hours where it would only threaten to rain but almost no sunshine at
all.
When it wasn’t raining it was
extremely hot and humid. Hot is good on
a beach holiday. Humidity? - not so much.
The problem with humidity is that you cannot cool down. Perspiration does not work because the margin
between your perspiration and the air is poorly defined. Perspiration does not
evaporate. It accumulates. You get soaked
whether it rains or not.
The humidity and the rain bring with
it another aggravation. Flies. Flies love
perspiration! Heat and humidity: this is
a win-win situation for the flies. The
flies rocket in on anyone who dares to show a trace of skin to have a little
sip of perspiration. I don’t begrudge
them the perspiration – I certainly have plenty to share – but I do begrudge
them the tickling. When you are chilling
out with a book in those rare moments of no rain it is very irritating to have
little fly feet running all over you, not to mention the slurping sounds. Flies have no manners.
Speaking of which. Bali seems to be the “Hawaii” for
Russians. I know, I know, I am
stereo-typing (typing with both hands…) but my experience with the Russians so
far has not been positive. In Laos they
stole our breakfast and then said that they had been there first so it was
theirs. In Bangkok I got into a shoving
match with a Russian man who slapped my hand away from the door to the toilet
stall so he could barge in. We had a
group of Russians arrive next door to us in Bali and proceed to celebrate their
arrival by getting stinking drunk, banging the doors, jumping in the pool and
screaming at each other at full volume.
Normally that would only be a mild annoyance except that they arrived at
3 am. Telen was shouldered aside by a
young Russian boy who wanted to get into the washroom before her and then
invited all his friends in to do their thing.
The Balinese locals, who are probably the most tolerant of all people,
shake their heads when we mention the Russians. But they like their Rubles.
Having said all that Bali is still
exotic and magical. If you look
closely, though, the magic has a little taint of capitalism. Bali is the richest province of
Indonesia. The reason for that is
us… tourism! Just in our little hotel alone there were
tourists from Germany, eastern Europe, Russia, and Japan. Which explains why no one ever smiled… except
the Balinese… Having all the tourists
around with excess cash hanging out of their pockets just begs for tacky
T-shirt sales. There are a million
little shops dotted all along the street all selling the same things. The vendors in theses shops are always
accosting you to buy something from them.
They are warm, friendly and persistent.
Very persistent. As you walk
down the street you are constantly bombarded by warm Balinese smiles
accompanied by words of greeting such as “Massage?” “Transport?”
“Shopping?” Strangely they all seem to
sound like English words.
We did go to the coffee plantation
where they produce the Luwak coffee - the most expensive coffee in the
world. The reason it is so expensive is
the processing. The Luwak is a type of
weasel who eats the coffee cherries and poops out the beans. The beans are then collected (I don’t want to
know how), cleaned (thank goodness) and roasted to make the famous “weasel” or
Luwak coffee. Apparently in Thailand
they are attempting to do the same thing using elephants. I can see the advantages – elephants eat a
lot more than Luwaks and, as the old saying goes: “You eat a lot, you poop a
lot”. The one disadvantage that I see is
that handling an elephant that is irritable, cranky and hasn’t slept well has
to be more difficult than a weasel.
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| The poor wide-awake, agitated and cranky Luwak |
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| The cocoa pod - this is where chocolate comes from.
I tried the Luwak coffee for a mere 50,000 per cup. Which works out
to about $5.00 Canadian. I know that
this is where I should be making all kinds of puns about how crappy the coffee
tasted but I won’t. To tell you the
truth – I could not tell much of a difference between the Luwak coffee and the
regular Balinese coffee. So, in spite of
the sales pressure, I did not invest some hundreds of dollars for a pound of Luwak
coffee. As I was leaving I could see the
Luwak looking at me with signs of relief in his staring eyes.
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We stopped at Ubud – the place made
famous by Julia Roberts in her film “Eat, Pray, Love. The ultimate “chick-flick”. This is where all the artwork such as jewelry
making, woodcarving, batik and painting comes from – as well as the famous Balinese
dancing. It is the cultural center of
Bali as compared to the cultural fringe in Kuta - where the Australians come to
be offensive. It actually looks like
Sanur (where we are) with tons of shops all selling the same things – just more
of them.
We went up to see the volcano at
Kintamani. It felt like we were driving up a river. The road was completely inundated and, since
it was on a slope, it was rushing down.
The rain was hammering down and the visibility was so poor I am pretty
sure our driver was navigating by recall.
Great, I thought, we get to see a spot on the road where, when the God was
willing, the volcano has once been seen. We stopped at a restaurant and as we sat down
the rain stopped, the clouds parted, the trumpets blew and, lo and behold,
there was a faint outline of a volcano.
During lunch the visibility improved to the point where it was possible
to actually see the volcano. When we
finished lunch – the rain started up and the volcano was turned off.
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| The Volcano at Kintamani. |
In spite of my griping Bali was a
good experience. The people are friendly
and smile easily. I would imagine that
in their dry season things would be more pleasant and there would be less
Russians and more Australians. Certainly
that would mean less rudeness and more smiles although probably no less
emesis. If we had made Bali our holiday
destination we would probably have been very disappointed but since it was a
stopover between Asia and Australia it was ok.
Telen writes:
After the intense cultural
experience in Indochina, I found Bali to be rather mediocre. Don’t get me wrong, Bali is beautiful with
warm sunny weather when its not raining.
The island however is very touristy with aggressive vendors who would
stop you at every block.
We took a day tour to the interior
of the island as I really wanted to visit Ubud.
Yes, I read the book “Eat, pray and love” and watched the movie starring
Julie Roberts. Unconsciously I had this
image in my head that Ubud would look like scenes in the movie i.e. small
villages with children running around. I
definitely did not see signs to take one to see the local priest for word of
wisdom. We saw more souvenir shops,
cafes and lots of tourists crowding along narrow streets. The rice paddy terraces were beautiful but
oddly we had to pay an entrance fee. The
drive up to the volcano was interesting to say the least. Rain was pouring down so hard that water was
running down the pavement like river.
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| Telen and me at the rice paddies |
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| The rice paddies by themselves... |
What I struck me the most about Bali
is how Hindu spiritual practices have woven into people’s daily lives. Our tour guide, Wayan, explained that every
day, each family and business would lay out an offering to the Gods. The offering looks like a little square tray
made with coconut leaves, containing flowers, rice and sometimes incense sticks. The trays were visible on the pavements in
front of every shop in Bali. Every 15
days and every month, a more major offering would be done at local temples. On our return to Sanur at the end of the day
tour, Wayan pointed out the beautifully dressed ladies balancing a huge basket
on their heads making their way to the temple to make offerings. There are numerous celebratory days in the
year e.g. day of iron to pay gratitude for having all kinds of tools to use,
day of education, day to honor rice, etc.
For Rand, he repeatedly mumbled that
he missed the eager hands of the Asian girls stroking his hairy shoulders. “I am not popular anymore”!
