Warning:This has many words and some whining. Feel free to skip to the pictures.
Bali! How can I be in Bali? The place has hovered on the edge of my awareness in the same category as Shangri La, tropical and mythical paradise, or at best a shorthand for unattainably exotic and luxurious haven. (Okay, it makes some people think of 'terrorism,' but I am pretty out of touch.) But here I am. And from my first twenty hours, it has earned its reputation. I am so overwhelmed by its beauty I almost want a break, like for the reason there is white wall space in between masterpieces at the museum. (Here's one secret, though; If someone else has bought your ticket, Bali is, for the most part, very, very cheap. Which is good, since I am very, very in debt.) I didn't even feel like I was attempting that much, and I didn't do any touring until noon and got back just after sunset, but I can't believe everything that everything I saw today I saw today.
I rolled in last night after an 11:30 landing, left the airport with (hallelujah!) my bag at 12:15 or so, too anxious about driver losing faith & taking off to stop even to take out cash in rupees, meet driver (Indiana? Like Jones? No, Diana, like Princess. Worth noting Driber Diana is in fact a man.), stopped at a Circle K to purchase water with rupees borrowed with the driver out of dehydration paranoia, 1:20 or so finally pull of endless main road and face...endless dark, steep, stone stairway. Bear in mind I have been fantasizing about collapsing in this bed out of sheer post-Timor exhaustion pretty much since I boarded my first plane. Oy. Thankfully, Driber Diana , bless his soul, carries my bag up for me while I carry my backpack (pride has been abandoned at the foot of the stairs.) At the top of the stairway is completely unlit stone path between menacing stone walls. (In my mind, this is an epic journey, taking at least as long as scaling a ten story building followed by at least a mile's intense hike. In the morning by daylight it takes about 7 minutes.) Finally, walk the stepping stones laid to my virginal room (I am the first to stay here; it smells of woodstain) Make plans to tour with Diana tomorrow but when he asks what I want to do besides visit temples I answer at least three times SLEEP just in case he gets inspired to check if I want to go on a walk to watch dawn or something. Relieved, pass out gratefully at about 1:40.
7:30 am, talking and clinking. Is there a breakfast party next door? Remember earplugs, which cover the voices beautifully. They do less well with the hammering. Investigate, discover I am sharing the building with a work site. Am nearly in tears with disappointment at not getting to drown my exhaustion in melatonin-facilitated slumber. Almost ruins the shockingly idyllic tropical rice paddy scenery and traditional architecture surrounding me. Suck it up and walk to breakfast. Meet owner and host, Karja, who has a plate of fruit with me on the raised platform not taken over by yoga teacher trainees. A massage table has to be moved out of our way--note to self: investigate. (Karja's little son, playing, lies face down in the facehole of it during most of our converation.) Turns out he is charming as well as generous with his time, and extremely worldly as he describes his MFA training in Florida and his many trips to exhibit in Switzerland, where he is now working on a PhD in "the invisible aspect in Balinese painting." His painting studio is across from us, above the yoga studio. Overheard at yogini breakfast table: Yoga trainee 1:Hey X, can I put your poem on my blog? Yoga trainee #2:Ooh, can I put it on my blog too? [Now that I am posting this on my blog, I am like meta-fruity? Or does it cancel out?]
Aim for town, check next door yoga schedule en route, meet my driber at taxi stand on bottom of stairs, get directions to ATM & sim cards. Grocery store five minute walk
from there, hooray! As you may know, I love foreign grocery stores and am mildl
y fascinated by them. Successfully get phone & sim card ($40) and meet driver for temple tour. Intricate, rich beauty in details arranged around spacious, lungfilling vistas. I am almost relieved when the sky gets darker and heads towards rain, just to dampen the overstimulation. On the way out of town, I ask if Diana thinks other places are beautiful when he visits, since I have never seen anywhere as beautiful as Bali. He gives a definitive yes and I ask his favorite other place. Answer?...Albany. Albany, New York?! I insist. Yup, Albany, New York. Huh.
First temple is a water temple. I have often reflected that if I were to worship anything, I would
probably pick water. This temple seemed an especially nice way to pray to it. There are streams coming out of the wall in a line over a waist-high pool full of worshippers each dousing themselves in each of the spouts in turn, sometimes bearing wailing children. After washing their bodies and minds, they can enter the temple to be blessed. All I need is a donation and a borrowed sarong to watch. All we need to leave is to walk the gauntlet of shops and pay for parking and for the police (my driver comments on how corruption is in Bali.)
Next stop is coffee tasting. Whee! On a long table under a roof pattered by rain and open to a stunning valley view I am served five teeny glass cups of ginger tea, ginseng coffee, Bali coffee, hot chocolate, and lemongrass tea, al
l delicious, all free. A bit too sugary maybe. All from plants grown here, including the coffee & cocoa beans. Diana has notified me I can try the luwak coffee here, which is the famous coffee made from coffee beans a civet-like forest creature has eaten whole and shat out. Not kidding. He does warn that I may not want to try because it is so expensive. He pauses for dramatic effect. Four dollars for one cup. I laugh and explain that this is exactly what Starbucks charges in the states, which I suppose he knows since he has worked in Seattle. It is very good, but not, honestl
y, mindblowing. Still, very good. I am the sucker and buy some tea and some (mindblowing) chocolate. Chat with seller about Timor's history & prospects for a spell. I express my enjoyment of the exotic fruit we sample that I have never seen before (senak? selak?) and Diana grabs me a few extra samples on the sly. I think we will get along.
As we leave, as always, barraged by people and kids who have learned enough English to aggressively peddle every manner of crafts. Overwhelming after Timor's halfhearted vending of three kinds of goods. We listen to American radio in the car, a classic developing world mishmash of Madonna, third rate oldies pop heavily leaning towards the eighties, and current R&B. Diana tells me his favorite music is techno. He doesn't like to dance but likes to listen at clubs and watch people do funny things because they are "loaded."
Drive to volcano, Batur, top obscured by thick mist. Hot springs on the lake, also Batur, where Diana almost drown once, having lost the sandbar he'd been standing on & p
anicked till he went under. (He no longer likes to swim, understandably). He was out for two hours, but was told he was saved by a westerner who he didn't find. A miracle he says; he doesn't know how it happened.
Pass large spread of trees planted in the volcanic soil on the way back from the volcano's base. Diana explains they are to do Bali's part against global warming; they are funded by the IMF. Late lunch back up at the view of the volcano, welcome, warming pumpkin soup, and indulge in tasting black rice pudding with coconut cream.
Next is a temple carved into a stone cliff. It is now raining so hard the windshield is hard to see clearly through, and the temple is at the bottom of (endless, of course) stone steps slick with the downpour. Gamely descend in cautious squats, wrapped in sarong and unevenly protected by Diana's rainbow umbrella. The storm heightens the hushed drama of the place, leaving us the only visitors, making it hum with rushing water, and of course adding that thrilling hint of romantic danger as every step threatens to drag my Patagonia hikers clad feet from under me and set me on my ass, or possibly in the river.
Return to Ubud, pay Diana for the day ($40), find my room the paradise it should be now that work is done for the day. Now, tea and typing.
