2013_01_28 Bali! Kuta and Ubud

My Kuta Guest House, Bali Dwipa, off Gang Poppies, had Indonesian residents whose motorcycles filled the courtyard, and Italian surfer dudes there long-term, surely paying lost less than my $12/day. Across from my room was an ornate roofed platform with tables and chairs and TV, where breakfast was served, coffee or tea, sliced bananas on white toast, referred to as a waffle, and fruit. Extras like an egg cost extra. The friendly desk clerk put the plastic bag with my passport and US cash in the safe. He told me at the end of the alley to go right for a cheap meal at the warung, and for the beach; left for the bomb monument. I went right. Temples abound and even the guest houses look like temples. Every shop has little green squares of woven palm leaf on the ground, filled with flowers, rice and other offerings. Their upkeep and replacement is a daily duty. The chop chai (Chinese stir-fried veggies) was sold out so I continued past souvenir shops and women pleading "Massage, Madam?" I could have had three massages for the money wasted on the grandmother's bed. The streets were lousy with tall Europeans and Australians. I noticed numerous signs for Magic Mushrooms. What?

The strip of beach past a stone wall had hawkers too, of chairs, of drinks, of surfboards to rent. I got my feet wet in the sea. Since living in Florida, the ocean is no big deal, and what to do with your valuables while getting wet? I had the key to the padlock of my door to worry about. I found my way back to the guest house. The room was a little shabby but the bed was big and the ceiling fan worked fine. I had two chairs outside my door and a clothes-drying rack. I pulled out the Kindle Fire and got on wi-fi.

I went to the warung and had a meal of vegetables, tofu and rice. There was a display case of the foods for sale with a hanging curtain behind to keep the flies out, more or less. I had lime juice. I had papaya juice. I had a third. I headed in the other direction for the bomb site. World War II? No, indeed. A decade or more ago, a nightclub there had been bombed by terrorists and this memorial listed the names of the unfortunate victims from multiple countries. It took some time to figure out Indonesian for USA. Like the rest, I took photos of this tourist attraction.

From the broken English mistakes I heard, I learned something about Indonesian (one of over a hundred languages). There is no past or future tense, the clues to time are words like 'now' and 'tomorrow.' Likewise 'he' or 'she' do not exist. At first I misheard "Javanese" for "Japanese". But I didn't expend any energy learning any phrases.

At the bomb site a girl approached with me a tourism survey and I soon had two admirers marvelling at my age and quest. I snaked past the constant chorus of "Taxi, Madam? Transport?" to make a curve back toward the beach, enjoying a dollar ice cream cone on the way, and remembering when they cost ten cents in my youth. The rain began and I was glad of the gifted umbrella from Bogor gardens. It was a victory when I recognized the street to the beach.

My Scottish friend, Sylvie, whom I met at a filthy youth hostel in Fez, Morocco in the seventies, has been everywhere, even visiting me in Florida twice, and recommended a Hotel Sorga in Kuta. Before the noon check-out, I wended my way there, past a used book store stall! The place was magnificent, with a swimming pool and sumptuous breakfast but the room only nicer and I couldn't see dragging my suitcase there for one night. I browsed the book stall and promised to return with cash, eventually parting with fifteen dollars for three short story collections from a man who doesn't read English! 

I also noticed Warung Asia which had been written up by Lonely Planet. I dined there twice, the second time meeting Tobi, the Swiss German who had stayed at Indra's in Probolinggo. He was with two Malaysian girls he was couchsurfing with. He saw my beer and ordered one, too, then repaired to an ATM to pay their bill. Tobi told me he'd only paid for gas to the grandmother's, but spent a lot for lodgings near Mt. Bromo, in order to be there for the sunrise, though he split the bill with two others. He said half the men in Asia are gay. Tobi is very handsome and tall so it's no wonder. He had no hard feelings against Indra as I did. I emailed Indra about this encounter; he had been sending me capitalized rants alleging that I'd made his mother cry and calling me senile, all because I gave him a neutral reference on couchsurfing, feeling he was already in the tourism business. I could've given him a negative review!

I stopped in a friendly bar and decided to try the magic mushroom shake to the delight of the bar maids. Back in my room I had some familiar sensations from years past but nothing drastic. Many stalls advertise trips to Ubud, the famous town from Eat Pray Love and other parts of Bali, so I signed up to go to there for 50,000 ($5), the same my motorcycle taxi to Kuta cost me. That night I climbed the stairs of the guest house for more views of the city. There was a large ceremonial bed in the open. I took pictures of this curious place.

The next day a minivan came for me and a German, then stopped at other guest houses for a Dutch girl and a middle-aged American on her umpteenth trip to Bali. We took a perilous shortcut through a flooded rutted road, then past numerous roadside workplaces full of large statuary for sale. I was anxious about finding a place to stay, but a guest house owner in Ubud met the van and pulled my suitcase to his place, Tunjung Bangalows, a block away, $12 a night with breakfast and wifi. Up one flight to a beautiful room with a balcony overlooking the courtyard and family temple. I had a time getting online on my Kindle. A young Hispanic Austin Texan named Romeo solved my problem and we walked up the main road (Hanoman, for the monkey god?) for lunch together, past Komoda dragon statues. He was getting up at 3 am for a sunrise trip to a Bali crater and recommended visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary.

Later I set off for dinner and met a Norwegian woman near a sign for the Yoga Barn. She was taking Yoga there daily and looking for an organic cafe on Hanoman, so I joined her. She manages waystations in Norway for hikers, who pay $100 a night for a bed and shower and two meals. She told me she had her cat put to sleep just before her trip. We were joined by a retired bearded Danish man living in Ubud who grumbled that his relatives never put him up or gave him a meal when he visited them, but expected the works here. We three walked towards a hanging bridge at the end of town. I took a peek at a Balinese performance going on, and we considered going into a jazz club for a beer but it looked too hot. At a classy restaurant by the river we split three large Bintang beers until the Norwegian woman said she was exhausted by talking so much English. The Dane and I drank up and headed our separate ways. I was unsure of my way and took a dollar motorcycle taxi back halfway there, puzzled when he stopped, because I didn't recognize the place in the dark. 

The next day I hit the supermarket for cheese, milk, bread and cream cheese, crazy things to be buying in Indonesia. I had that costly Australian muesli to use up. I walked past numerous statues of monkeys along the street to the Monkey Forest, where you can buy bananas at the entrance to feed the critters. I know from Morocco that monkeys are cunning thieves so I just watched. There are several temples, a graveyard, a place for cremation ceremonies and stunning river scenery and huge trees. Again I was approached by two tourism students and asked to be interviewed. Two monkeys were having sex nearby. The boy offered me a free motorcycle ride to the library and learning center, where I'd read that for a price they would refill your water bottles in an effort to thwart the flood of plastic. I couldn't resist buying another book of short stories. Though I had a map, I was confused how to get 'home'. I bought some satay (meat grilled on sticks) and then stopped at a humble warung with a fly curtain instead of a touristy restaurant for lunch. I almost took a taxi until the fellow showed me to a car. I eventually made it on foot.

Ubud is an arts village and the next day I walked out of town to ARMA, Agung Rai Museum of Art. Agung Rai is the artist-founder, and features the works of Walter Spier, a German, and Lempad, a Balinese who lived to be a hundred. It's a large beautiful complex with luxury villas that support the museum. With admission (double the price of my outdated Lonely Planet Bali booklet) was a free coffee or tea, and after enjoying a couple of galleries, I decided to have lunch there of spinach lasagna and enjoy several English editions of the Jakarta Post. A man who'd assisted me earlier in finding my way waited for me to explore more galleries to show me the children's dance rehearsal. He was the head of landscaping and took me around to the luxurious villas rented by the wealthy and we enjoyed tea and tempeh together. He lives in a village a few kilometers away with his father and wife and has traveled very little, finding everything he needs nearby. The visit took up the whole day. At night I returned to the organic Cafe again for samosa (Indian vegetable turnovers) and lime juice.

I had seen the beautifully painted and costumed ladies the other night and wanted to see a performance. I thought it might be $5 but it was $7.50. A man spotted me and gave me a free ride to the ATM to make the 7 pm performance. The whole audience was tourists to see Kechak and Fire Dance Trena Jenggala. A Philadelphian promoting the Australian open shared his printed synopsis of the action, from the Ramayana. First were dozens of bare-chested men chanting "cheese bread" seated in circles. Then two elaborately costumed women danced about the center with their wrists flexed and fingers pointed as the chanting continued and varied. Various costumed demons would appear and disappear. The lighting was too poor for my camera but the performance was fascinating, though inscrutable. Then two small girls backed by dozens of seated women performed similar dances, ending with faints. Finally a pile of coconut husks was ignited and a fellow appeared astride a hobby horse. Periodically he would stomp into the fire, and men would sweep the coals back to the center. That's entertainment! I finished the night with a late-night meal at a hole-in-the-wall family warung watching strange television.

My last day in Ubud I set off for the rest of the art museums. First I stopped at the Central Market, a dank warren of stalls, and bought silver earrings of Fatima's hands with amethyst for a princely $5. The woman waved my cash over her wares like temple incense for good luck. Then I found the royal palace, just a few small temples in a courtyard, and the water palace, more temples with pools. Someday you'll see the pictures! Then another museum of Balinese art in several buildings, with a kamelan xylophone I was invited to try, and to the free coffee or tea I added a spring roll and pumpkin soup. I walked downhill, map in hand, to the bridge I'd visited the first night and uphill towards the Neka museum. I passed two artists working en route, and one invited me in to see his UNICEF greeting cards and said his work was at all the museums.

Many buildings of galleries with Balinese art, a Dutch artist, the centenarian Lempad, a roomful of swords, but I was not done for the day. I took a motorcycle taxi back down the hill by the river and up to the Blanco Renaissance Museum, an outlandish complex of restaurant (free drink!), colorful live birds on display, and the works of Antonio Blanco, the Dali of Bali! An excellent draftsman who married a Balinese dancer, with collages of his erotic musings and luscious images of women that lose focus at the pubic area. No photos were permitted. It was the Liberace of art galleries, a big circular space with spiral staircases to an upper balcony, all to the glory of Antonia Blanco. His son is also a painter, and the great man's studio was on the tour as well as a feature film. He revered Michael Jackson.

I walked all the way back up to town, pausing to inquire the cost of a trip to Gili Islands. A slow boat was cheap but would take all day, a fast boat less than two hours, after an hour on the bus. In Kuta the man had said to call him for a round trip fare of $45. In Ubud I was quoted $65. Near the cafe a woman asked me not to let people know, but I could have it for $50. I ran home to get the money before she closed, but I really wanted to see if I could reach the guy in Kuta, or if my host could do better. But I couldn't find the card, or my host, or even the woman again! So I found another agent and bought the ticket, then back home, found the owners could've done it for $45. I went out again to the family hole-in-the-wall and met a blond Italian who loves parasailing and was trying to start up a business in Indonesia. His hostel cost half what mine did, but his things kept disappearing and there was no breakfast.

Because of the tides and rough seas, the journey to Gili Islands (Lombok) was in the morning, and the minivan would collect me around 7 am. Romeo had already left but l found a sweet note from him with his email. I left behind my red lungi from India I used as a towel (not included in Indonesia) after it split once when I bent over. Now why didn't I photograph the nice family that ran the guest house?

At the port I bought purple sweet potato chips for the boat ride, where they gave out sealed plastic glasses of water and sold soda and beer. We arrived on the beach and I was immediately greeted by 'Eric' who led me a few blocks inland to Kidi's Guest House, a row of four nice rooms with piazzas, breakfast and wifi for $11 a night. He didn't drag my suitcase through the sand but carried it on his shoulders! They were building a cell phone card store on the site, not more rooms, as I'd supposed. There was one mosque on the island nearby, no cars and no scooters. Bicycles and ponycarts were the only transport.

I decided to walk around the island, the biggest of the three Gili islands, not really knowing its size. I left the commercial strip of restaurants, snorkeling and dive shops behind to high end hotels and then cocoanut plantations. The occasional passing ponycart gave me direction. I saw a tree covered with lost or discarded flip-flops. At last I returned to the mosque and a hole in the wall for tea and cheap eats. One beachside establishment offered $3 movies with free popcorn, first Ted and then The Hunger Games. I wandered back and forth, realizing I was far behind on my blog and could always see those movies at home. In the end I dined at a native establishment and made friends with the restaurant cat.

I signed up for a snorkel trip to another Gili island and joined mostly French and Russians in a glass bottomed boat. A Russian girl hadn't gotten a life jacket on shore and wouldn't go into the water. We made four stops and had a 'free' lunch in the middle of the trip. Some people saw large swimming turtles at the first stop, one even an octupus. I had to ask someone to push me over the side. I saw basketball-sized turtles at the second stop. I wanted more than just tuna at the outdoor lunch, so I had to promise to pay the company after I got back home. I eavesdropped on a Frenchman telling an Italian woman he had found Islam. Jewelry hawkers made the rounds and I bought a plastic crescent moon with a star on a black string as a necklace.

Our third stop was popular with SCUBA divers, an old wreck where sharks liked to hang out. It must've been pretty deep, because I couldn't find it. The last stop was the best, when the captain handed out hunks of bread. We were very popular with the iridescent blue and yellow fish. But a lot of the sea ground looked like bleached cora and dead. I'd been given a booklet at the port about bioreef, a new reef restorative they are trying in Bali.

Between the two islands were rogue waves coming out of nowhere that surfers were enjoying. One of them joined our boat for the trip back. I found the office and time for my return trip the next day to Denpasar. Eric helped me with my luggage again and I gave him a dollar bill as well as change from the two nights' lodging.

The boatride, the hawkers, the minivan to the airport...I was surprised it was actually in Kuta. A thirty-something kid from Jogja had answered my couch request and this time I took him up on it. Jeffri picked me up at the airport with his motorcycle and took me back to his room. His cousin was getting married and he had to stay at his uncle's out of town, but promised to rise at 5 am so I'd make my 8 am flight.

Jeffri sells tickets to highpriced Balinese folk dance performances through hotel contacts. A Christian and a vegetarian, he has the skinniest body I held onto yet on a motorcycle. We drove off to dinner at a simple vegetarian place and he didn't finish his eggs or tea. I gave him a chocolate bar from his hometown and my Bali guidebook. A Japanese woman neighbor looked in. She too lives in a small room with a husband and three children! I asked Jeffri why he works in Bali; the money's better. He hopes to open his own vegetarian restaurant one day.

True to his word, he arrived at six from his uncle's and off we went to the airport. Once inside I discovered I was missing an earring, one of Fatima's hands from Ubud. Jeffri went back to the motorcycle parking lot and found it! It looked auspicious but my troubles were just beginning. My suitcase had torn on one end, and the check baggage people advised me to take it back and have plastic straps surround it for a dollar if not plastic sheeting all over it for $3. It was lucky I wasn't late for my flight.

Then customs in Jakarta informed me I had overstayed my visa and kept my passport. I arrived on the 23rd, was leaving on the 22nd, but according to their rules, that was more than a month. I had to pay $20. How do you define a month? The month's visa had cost me $25. When the same thing happened in Russia, $20 a day didn't hurt so when the month cost $200. But the taxi to the bank and back and to the border was another twenty. It's only money!

I didn't like the rates at the money exchange - I had the cash in case I needed a visa in Malaysia (I didn't!) - so I was escorted out past customs to the bank machine. The screeners had wanted to seize the peanut butter I'd bought the night before but gave me a break. Lion Air wasn't serving anything on the flight. I had to drink my liter of water on the spot or forfeit it.

Then to leave Jakarta, I had to come up with another 150,000 for airport tax. It's a beautiful airport, entirely different from the dump I flew into from Abu Dhabi, but it seems a traveler cannot win. I'd like to use up all the currency in a country before leaving, but who can anticipate these extra expenses? Leaving Jakarta from the departure lounge, I noticed a black bag left behind. It was a camera with a large lens inside and no name. Last year my sister had left a videocamera on the flight to Florida. I gave it to the staff and hoped for good karma, and that the staff wouldn't keep it like someone on USAirways kept the other camera.

Some airports have places to leave your extra unused cash to charity.

For $77 from Denpasar to Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur there were no movies, no drinks, no frills, nothing for the stewardesses to do after the safety demonstration. Kuala Lumpur has a beautiful massive airport and there I lost my big green hat I'd shepherded so carefully. Jasmin Soo, my Chinese hostess, had given me good instructions. On the bus from the airport I asked a fellow picking his nose if he could call her for her exact address. Then I took a train to Masjid Jamek and changed for Cempaya and looked for the guardhouse at the complex of pink apartment buildings. I found her roomy flat on the third floor. Her two cats hid. She was recovering from a sweaty flu - teaching and tutoring exposes her to lots of germs - but we went out in her car for some Indian food. What a modern city downtown Kuala Lumpur is. Who needs Singapore?