did you want lava with your eggs? sideman, and last days in ubud
hello again. here are pictures to illustrate the following. they are for Malaysia and then bali. enjoy!
so we climbed a volcano. we went to mt batur after we'd exhausted ourselves from doing nothing but eat and chat in lovina (took a good few days, i must say). we had tried durian (pretty darn gross), eaten some western style food (cassava chips and salsa, nut and cheese crusted fish, pesto chicken, guinness beef stew, with some eggplant curry, lentil curry, and other goodness thrown in too), and spent long hours in the little cozy room above the restaurant, talking about life, love, toilets, and other necessities. yeah, the volcano. i hadn't been feeling too well - tummy upset had been forcing me to eat mostly just nasi putih (plain white rice). but after being brought to a hotel that was subpar, having a mediocre lunch, a very strange dinner (lights going out in the middle, cassette tape of gamelan music playing funkily, rice that tasted like soap), and getting hoodwinked into paying more for our guide up the hill, go we did.
we left at about 4:30 am. most people leave earlier - to try to catch the sunrise up at the top, but we thought the extra hour of sleep was worth more. we started trekking along, led by our guide nyoman and the light from our flashlights. nyoman (3rd born) was moving at quite a clip, surefooted in his open-backed sandals, and on our 3rd or so water break, i started to feel really bad. you know when you're really hot and tired and then you stop and you feel superpukey? it was that. i was feeling really weak from the lack of any substantial substenance (nasi putih doesn't give too much energy) and decided they should go on without me. i didn't want to be holding them back and didn't really feel like i could make it up to the summit anyway. not a tall mountain - less than 2000 meters, but it was a big one that day. so i sat there for a while, taking in the views of lake batur inside the outer crater rim as the sun was coming up on the cloudy morning. i munched on some crackers and then started to feel a bit better. it'd be several hours before they came back down. i said i might meet them at the bottom, but i decided to go up a little bit to see if there was a better place to sit (crouching on the ground gets old and uncomfortable pretty fast). so i went up a little. sat. ate some more crackers. sang a song to myself. looked at the lake... up a little more. singing to myself along the way: stuff from onomatopoeia, jonatha, dar, the little mermaid... long trek short, i made it to the top and met them among the monkeys just as nyoman was preparing breakfast, courtesy of the steaming volcano. there were hardboiled eggs (hence the title) and boiled banana sandwiches. sound good? well, i had most of a banana and tossed the rest to the monkeys who were eyeing me hungrily.
while nabia and tammy climbed the rest of the way to the very tip, kelly took me over to see where they collect holy water from the mountain and also to look down into the crater. very cool indeed. last eruption was from a different crater and over 30 years ago i think. but it is technically still active. volkayno. you can see the black lava rock where the last eruption happened.
we made our way down quicker than up (duh), with nyoman getting very friendly and huggy and by the end, telling me he would never forget me.
anyway, the whole experience (good) was slightly tainted by our getting swindled into paying more than the "fixed price." but when it comes down to it, it's a matter of 5 or 6 dollars. it's just frustrating when you think you have a rapport with someone, but it turns out to be a ploy to get you to trust them or to buy something. disappointing.
moving on from there (one night was plenty), we went to the little village of Sideman (see? duh, man.) in east bali. set overlooking a lush green valley filled with rice terraces, the silhouette of the tiered meru of a temple visible on the ridge across the way - just where the sun set as a streak of bright across the sky each evening. our rooms (me and na, tammy and kelly) were next to eachother on the second floor above the family whose homestay it was and we had a little veranda with table to ourselves. that's the last picture in the set. we spent two days there, did a rice padi walk around the valley with a very nice ketut (4th born), saw a cremation ceremony, and bought lots of ikat - they make it there.
So, the cremation: we didn't see them parade the body to the cemetery, sadly, because that's supposed to be the most lively part. but it was just shocking to me how differently they treat death and the corpse. they passed the body up onto a little hill in the middle of the cemetery. the whole town sat around, on graves (temporary - until enough money can be raised for a cremation) or the grass, a gamelan was playing off to one side, and a group of people was up on the mound with the body, getting it into the painted box that would be burned. someone was videotaping it, holding the camera up above his head tilted down to get the best angle. people were laughing and splashing eachother with the holy water they poured over the body. eventually, the crowd up there thinned out and they put two big gas torches under the box. then they burned it. until there was nothing left. then the crowd (i can only assume it was friends and family) scrambled back up the mound to separate the bones from the ash from the wood. the ashes were placed in the cremation tower float thing (second to last picture) along with many many intricate offerings and cloths and i think some more holy water. there was a brahman priest nearby who went through motions of the mudra after he wrapped himself in a cloth and beads and headress - it was a beautiful and entrancing thing to watch, but sadly our cameras had both died, so i can not rewind and repeat. we then went back to our guest house - they would be there waiting for him to finish for another hour or so. later in the afternoon, we did indeed see the parade going by, taking the tower to the river, accompanied by marching gamelan. we ran out to snap some pictures and then hopped on the motorbike tammy sped around the corner on so we could catch what they would do at the river. in my mind, i pictured them setting the raft on the water and watching it float peacefully away on the current. what actually happened is that people jumped into the water, fully clothed, and started playing. then they tipped the beautifullly decorated tower on its head and crashed it into the rocky river. then they flipped it again. and again. someone threw a rock at it. kids started trying to rip it apart. it was crazy. in their belief, the spirit had already left the body before they cremated it. then i guess, after it was cremated, there was really very little left of the original person - they'd already moved on to get reincarnated perhaps... so it is not shown any respect. at least in the way we use respect. anyway, the next step was bathing in the river. we were led to what was supposed to be the ladies' area by a nice gusti that nabia met, but it turned out there were some men nearby. we went around the bend and hopped in the cool fast-running river with our clothes on. it was very refreshing on the hot sunny day, and the motorbike ride back barely dried my fisherman pants at all.
so, after sideman, we made our way back to ubud. it's much nicer to return. i feel like i understand bali better now, so i can see if i want what people are selling - if it looks authentic - if it looks like what people are actually wearing in the actual towns of bali that are not built around tourism alone. i mean, lovina is a tourist resort too, and so is where we stayed at the volcano, but we've now seen a lot more of "the real bali." at least i think so. we've been shopping (more fisherman pants!) like mad and doing our errands (hence the pictures), debating about how to get to java (finally decided on a combination of bemo, bus, and train to be pieced together as a sort of adventure), etc... tammy and kelly are continuing on with us, which is fun ;).
two nights ago, the four of us plus stephen (who i think really thinks we're stalking him because we keep showing up at his guest house) watched a great movie at a place that'll show any dvd you pick or bring to their medium screen tv and serve you pizza. the pizza left a bit to be desired, but the movie was great (Eulogy) and fit the mood quite well. it was nice to be watching a movie with some friends. it's nice to have friends out here.
last night we went out to rumah roda, where we'd gone with stephen before last we left ubud, and had them make up a big buffet for us ($3 each if you have 5 ppl). it was fantabulous and delectable, as you might imagine. it's kelly's birthday today, so we celebrated last night, and we sat around there on our floor cushions, the five of us again, laughing and joking and telling stories until the candle we'd lit for singing her "happy birthday" finally caught its banana leaf casing on fire and she blew it out for good luck. we were leaving anyway.
this morning nabia and i got some beautiful massages. i mean, we couldn't come to bali and not get massages! i'm not usually naked outside, and i have to say it felt kind of nice. there were no sheets or towels to cover me, but i was in my own little open-air room with the masseuse (made - second born), so it didn't really matter. oil massage, papaya scrub (deliciously painful and invigorating), getting rinsed with hot water from the bath, refreshing yogurt rub, then sitting in flower-filled hot bath for 15 minutes. oy. nice.
unfortunately the afterglow was cut a bit short by the motorbike rental guy yelling at us and calling us bad people for returning his bike late. whatever. i'm still feeling good from the massage, though i think i developed a knot with his name on it when he stuck his finger in my face. just unnecessary.
so we're moving on from here today. we may or may not make it over the straits to east java today, but we'll be close in any case. we'll all be together (the 4 of us -i think stephen briefly considered joining us but decided he has to work, and ubud suits him anyway - we all said our goodbyes last night over very full tummies) and that makes a huge difference. getting on a 15 hour train ride isn't as daunting when you've got people to get to know better.
so enjoy the pictures and please comment away!
amy
email me
so we climbed a volcano. we went to mt batur after we'd exhausted ourselves from doing nothing but eat and chat in lovina (took a good few days, i must say). we had tried durian (pretty darn gross), eaten some western style food (cassava chips and salsa, nut and cheese crusted fish, pesto chicken, guinness beef stew, with some eggplant curry, lentil curry, and other goodness thrown in too), and spent long hours in the little cozy room above the restaurant, talking about life, love, toilets, and other necessities. yeah, the volcano. i hadn't been feeling too well - tummy upset had been forcing me to eat mostly just nasi putih (plain white rice). but after being brought to a hotel that was subpar, having a mediocre lunch, a very strange dinner (lights going out in the middle, cassette tape of gamelan music playing funkily, rice that tasted like soap), and getting hoodwinked into paying more for our guide up the hill, go we did.
we left at about 4:30 am. most people leave earlier - to try to catch the sunrise up at the top, but we thought the extra hour of sleep was worth more. we started trekking along, led by our guide nyoman and the light from our flashlights. nyoman (3rd born) was moving at quite a clip, surefooted in his open-backed sandals, and on our 3rd or so water break, i started to feel really bad. you know when you're really hot and tired and then you stop and you feel superpukey? it was that. i was feeling really weak from the lack of any substantial substenance (nasi putih doesn't give too much energy) and decided they should go on without me. i didn't want to be holding them back and didn't really feel like i could make it up to the summit anyway. not a tall mountain - less than 2000 meters, but it was a big one that day. so i sat there for a while, taking in the views of lake batur inside the outer crater rim as the sun was coming up on the cloudy morning. i munched on some crackers and then started to feel a bit better. it'd be several hours before they came back down. i said i might meet them at the bottom, but i decided to go up a little bit to see if there was a better place to sit (crouching on the ground gets old and uncomfortable pretty fast). so i went up a little. sat. ate some more crackers. sang a song to myself. looked at the lake... up a little more. singing to myself along the way: stuff from onomatopoeia, jonatha, dar, the little mermaid... long trek short, i made it to the top and met them among the monkeys just as nyoman was preparing breakfast, courtesy of the steaming volcano. there were hardboiled eggs (hence the title) and boiled banana sandwiches. sound good? well, i had most of a banana and tossed the rest to the monkeys who were eyeing me hungrily.
while nabia and tammy climbed the rest of the way to the very tip, kelly took me over to see where they collect holy water from the mountain and also to look down into the crater. very cool indeed. last eruption was from a different crater and over 30 years ago i think. but it is technically still active. volkayno. you can see the black lava rock where the last eruption happened.
we made our way down quicker than up (duh), with nyoman getting very friendly and huggy and by the end, telling me he would never forget me.
anyway, the whole experience (good) was slightly tainted by our getting swindled into paying more than the "fixed price." but when it comes down to it, it's a matter of 5 or 6 dollars. it's just frustrating when you think you have a rapport with someone, but it turns out to be a ploy to get you to trust them or to buy something. disappointing.
moving on from there (one night was plenty), we went to the little village of Sideman (see? duh, man.) in east bali. set overlooking a lush green valley filled with rice terraces, the silhouette of the tiered meru of a temple visible on the ridge across the way - just where the sun set as a streak of bright across the sky each evening. our rooms (me and na, tammy and kelly) were next to eachother on the second floor above the family whose homestay it was and we had a little veranda with table to ourselves. that's the last picture in the set. we spent two days there, did a rice padi walk around the valley with a very nice ketut (4th born), saw a cremation ceremony, and bought lots of ikat - they make it there.
So, the cremation: we didn't see them parade the body to the cemetery, sadly, because that's supposed to be the most lively part. but it was just shocking to me how differently they treat death and the corpse. they passed the body up onto a little hill in the middle of the cemetery. the whole town sat around, on graves (temporary - until enough money can be raised for a cremation) or the grass, a gamelan was playing off to one side, and a group of people was up on the mound with the body, getting it into the painted box that would be burned. someone was videotaping it, holding the camera up above his head tilted down to get the best angle. people were laughing and splashing eachother with the holy water they poured over the body. eventually, the crowd up there thinned out and they put two big gas torches under the box. then they burned it. until there was nothing left. then the crowd (i can only assume it was friends and family) scrambled back up the mound to separate the bones from the ash from the wood. the ashes were placed in the cremation tower float thing (second to last picture) along with many many intricate offerings and cloths and i think some more holy water. there was a brahman priest nearby who went through motions of the mudra after he wrapped himself in a cloth and beads and headress - it was a beautiful and entrancing thing to watch, but sadly our cameras had both died, so i can not rewind and repeat. we then went back to our guest house - they would be there waiting for him to finish for another hour or so. later in the afternoon, we did indeed see the parade going by, taking the tower to the river, accompanied by marching gamelan. we ran out to snap some pictures and then hopped on the motorbike tammy sped around the corner on so we could catch what they would do at the river. in my mind, i pictured them setting the raft on the water and watching it float peacefully away on the current. what actually happened is that people jumped into the water, fully clothed, and started playing. then they tipped the beautifullly decorated tower on its head and crashed it into the rocky river. then they flipped it again. and again. someone threw a rock at it. kids started trying to rip it apart. it was crazy. in their belief, the spirit had already left the body before they cremated it. then i guess, after it was cremated, there was really very little left of the original person - they'd already moved on to get reincarnated perhaps... so it is not shown any respect. at least in the way we use respect. anyway, the next step was bathing in the river. we were led to what was supposed to be the ladies' area by a nice gusti that nabia met, but it turned out there were some men nearby. we went around the bend and hopped in the cool fast-running river with our clothes on. it was very refreshing on the hot sunny day, and the motorbike ride back barely dried my fisherman pants at all.
so, after sideman, we made our way back to ubud. it's much nicer to return. i feel like i understand bali better now, so i can see if i want what people are selling - if it looks authentic - if it looks like what people are actually wearing in the actual towns of bali that are not built around tourism alone. i mean, lovina is a tourist resort too, and so is where we stayed at the volcano, but we've now seen a lot more of "the real bali." at least i think so. we've been shopping (more fisherman pants!) like mad and doing our errands (hence the pictures), debating about how to get to java (finally decided on a combination of bemo, bus, and train to be pieced together as a sort of adventure), etc... tammy and kelly are continuing on with us, which is fun ;).
two nights ago, the four of us plus stephen (who i think really thinks we're stalking him because we keep showing up at his guest house) watched a great movie at a place that'll show any dvd you pick or bring to their medium screen tv and serve you pizza. the pizza left a bit to be desired, but the movie was great (Eulogy) and fit the mood quite well. it was nice to be watching a movie with some friends. it's nice to have friends out here.
last night we went out to rumah roda, where we'd gone with stephen before last we left ubud, and had them make up a big buffet for us ($3 each if you have 5 ppl). it was fantabulous and delectable, as you might imagine. it's kelly's birthday today, so we celebrated last night, and we sat around there on our floor cushions, the five of us again, laughing and joking and telling stories until the candle we'd lit for singing her "happy birthday" finally caught its banana leaf casing on fire and she blew it out for good luck. we were leaving anyway.
this morning nabia and i got some beautiful massages. i mean, we couldn't come to bali and not get massages! i'm not usually naked outside, and i have to say it felt kind of nice. there were no sheets or towels to cover me, but i was in my own little open-air room with the masseuse (made - second born), so it didn't really matter. oil massage, papaya scrub (deliciously painful and invigorating), getting rinsed with hot water from the bath, refreshing yogurt rub, then sitting in flower-filled hot bath for 15 minutes. oy. nice.
unfortunately the afterglow was cut a bit short by the motorbike rental guy yelling at us and calling us bad people for returning his bike late. whatever. i'm still feeling good from the massage, though i think i developed a knot with his name on it when he stuck his finger in my face. just unnecessary.
so we're moving on from here today. we may or may not make it over the straits to east java today, but we'll be close in any case. we'll all be together (the 4 of us -i think stephen briefly considered joining us but decided he has to work, and ubud suits him anyway - we all said our goodbyes last night over very full tummies) and that makes a huge difference. getting on a 15 hour train ride isn't as daunting when you've got people to get to know better.
so enjoy the pictures and please comment away!
amy
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 4/15/2005 02:07:00 AM
2 Comments:
Omigod. That was fantastic. The Balinese sound like a fascinating people- beautiful (as seen in your pictures) and the traditions and customs are so interesing! So much to learn- thank you!
I loved the pictures- (not the one with the injury so much, but I'm glad it's healed)- my favorite of all had to be YOU in your dance pose at the culture center- you look perfect! I also enjoyed your expression while eating the dreaded stinky fruit. (I actually recognize that look from past experiences) And it's so great to be able to SEE the people you constantly talk about- like Tammy, Kelly, Steven and Mark.
The best.
Feel better, my girl. I guess I won't be making you rice when you come home!!!
Love and kisses,
mom
Amy,
Trying to catch up on your and Nabia's lastest escapades. Not easy tracking a world traveler.
Every time you write, I sit by my computer laughing my sides off at some of your descriptions of both the "food" and the people.
Will certainly be thinking about you during Passover. Now, being the youngest(yea right), I'll have to ask the 4 questions.
Manish tanor ha lie lor ha ze mecall ha lay los.
Note: Not sure if mecall is one or two words.
Either that's Spanish or a poorly fonetically spelled question.
This night is different because my Cousin Amy is on the time of her life and I couldn't be happier for her. That doesn't mean that I won't miss you at Passover.
Always in my heart.
Love you and miss you a lot.
ENJOY!!!!
Sincerely,
Cuz Steve
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