North to the Forest

I've had two opportunities now to wander northward into the central part of Bali.

In late August, Szuyin and I took advantage of yet another festival day and went in a road trip on the occasion of the Galungan Festval. Galungan is kind of like new years (though not really).  It is the occasion of the Birthday of the World! This year it was August 29, and is an island-wide holiday.  So Szuyin and I decided to visit Pura Luhur Batukau, one of the most important temples in Bali, at the base of Agung mountain. We started out early in the morning, with Szuyin driving the motorbike, while I perched on the back with the infinitely-useful Bali Atlas and Road Guide. (This thing is 200 pages, and a miracle. Best book ever). As we drove along, every house was decked out with these giant bamboo poles outside the front door. Each house decorates their pole differently, with pink leaves, tinsel, christmas lights, paper machet, you name it. I'll think of this as the Bali Christmas Tree. It's cool.

First we stopped at  another large temple on our way up, which Szuyin had heard about. I’m honestly forgetting its name right now, but it was great. Taman Ayun! And it was Awesome.  It was the family temple of the kings of the local city, at one time, and is surrounded by a very impressive moat.  We had brought with us out formal garb from Odelan, Sarong, Kebaya and sash, and at the front gate, we put them on. A nice old lady passing by was so delighted with out attempt that she hung around and helped us out! Sarong tying is deceptively tricky. But once we had it all figured out, we proceeded into the temple. As we went in we got a lot of smiles and nods form all the Balinese ladies leaving the temple after delivering offerings. One lady, after passing the gaggle of booty-short wearing tourists ahead of us, saw us all dressed up, and gave us a big wink and a thumbs up!  Despite our success, we were not let into the temple itself, but were able to wander through the gardens, and look in over the chest-high wall. As we were ding so, marveling at all the (many) temples, a group of ladies came over and … to our utter surprise, asked if they could take a photo with us. This is a bunch of headscarf wearing, middle aged ladies on a sight-seeing tour with their mosque group, and all of a sudden they are clumping around us, gesturing to “scoot in closer” and “everybody smile!”  We were so amazed; we forgot to get out own photo documentation.  They were super sweet about it, and I was totally confused.  (This was the first of many many such requests that I have to field whenever I’m slightly off the western tourist path.)

Anyways, then we headed farther north. We wanted to avoid the big city traffic and see more of rural Bali, so, map in hand, we left the main roads behind. Hijinks ensued. Secondary roads on the map are all uniform thin red lines. In real life those thin red lines can either be a small-town’s main street, a gravel track through a rice field, or 5 km of potholes occasionally interrupted by patches of pavement.  At one point I was sure that all my teeth were about to rattle right out of my head. But eventually it payed off, as we found ourselves in the middle of unending rice terraces. of course this is when my camera battery ran out, so Szuyin has all the pictures. I'll post some later. The point is, it looked amazing, like bright green velvet covered stairs running the whole height of the mountain.

Eventually we got to the Pura, still (miraculously) with all our teeth. Hundreds of people were wandering through, delivering offerings, and participating in one part or another of what was to be ten solid days of ceremonies.  There were two complete gamelan orchestras, predominantly made of wiry little old men, so that one group could rest and smoke, while the other group played... and smoked.  Seriously funny to see a white-mustached wizened old man play gamalon with one had and take a drag from his cigarett with the other. He absolutely could play this music in his sleep.  No one was in any particular rush. Everyone was just hanging out, chatting about the most fashionable way to tie a sash, and texting away on their blackberries.  These two matching ladies were adorable.

We stuck around, took photos, ate more satay (I love satay. Have I mentioned that?) and eventually headed back. We took an even more rural rout back, hoping for fewer potholes, and got lost, winding up at yet another temple. This one mostly deserted, and covered in dragons. Eventually we figured out which thin red line we were supposed to be on, with the help of many ladies hanging out at many warungs along the way. In one town we even saw a troop of little boys acting out the Barong dance! Look at that awesome costume! Plus another dozen little kids with gongs and gamelan-pieces.

We made it back to Sibang at about 10 pm, exhausted, but super proud of ourselves. Szuying is a champion bike-rider, and I got significantly better with the practice. 

A couple days later, I headed off to Australia, for my first visa renewal, and to visit Shan!  So the next post will involve kangaroos.