Settling in a Surprising Destination

I survived my first week! And feel like I haven't had a single moment to slow down. So much has been done in less than a week that I'm finally itching for a lazy retreat. 

There really is such a specific sensory trigger in Southeast Asia. A specific and very distinct smell, along with the climate, that instantly brought me back to my first time to this side of the world. Smells of constantly burning incense and steamed rice specifically. Also visually, motorbikes everywhere, plus the sounds of their engines, and on quieter streets the sounds of dragging flip flops with every step. The sounds of hello's in hopes that you will visit the shop you just walked by... my first stop was Kuta. 

Denpasar/Kuta

I landed in Denpasar last week and went directly to Kuta to spend one night, so not so much was seen here. It is known as a party town though, for both tourists and locals. The only thing I had time to do was visit the beach at sunset -- WOW! surfers catching the waves and really young locals wanting to talk to you and give you a nice ice cold glass-bottle coke.

Surfers waiting for the best waves

 I befriended 3 really nice Indonesian guys Luis, Amad, and Diego who sat with me on the beach. They begged me to go out and party with them! Alas my jetlag got the best of me and I went to bed at 8:30PM before heading to Ubud, the main cultural hub of Bali.

Ubud

Ubud is the cultural center of Bali. WOW! This place is sooo different than what I had imagined!! It is so lush and purely EXOTIC. How did I never know of this place before? It is an artist's haven. It is so rich with different arts here, I could easily settle in and make things all day. I can also completely see why this is a top choice for honey-mooners. Temples (Puras) everywhere, with such a jungle feel with exotic plants and humid air, mixed with tiny streets. It completely feels like I'm in a set for Tomb Raider.. I feel like Ubud is like Angkor Wat times 10, modified for people to live within it. 

So many things were done here. So many that I feel like I've been here for 3 weeks already. I visited this amazing temple complex that had an extreme Indiana Jones feel to it, Visited a museum nearby, and then decided to take a silver smithing workshop !!! 

Jewelry & Silversmith workshop 

Silversmithing and metalwork are very popular here, as silver is very easy to get. I can't believe that with barely $30 USD, I was able to get 5 grams of silver and give myself 3 hours to make jewelry on my own. It was amazing and the owner of the shop said he had been making jewelry for 30 years. End result:

I made a midi-ring after one I lost, a regular curved ring, and an ear cuff that goes behind the ear - with a bezeled square moonstone and teardrop citrine on the ends. I am so pleased!!!

Monkey Forest

I then went to this Sacred Monkey Forest in the southern part of Ubud, where there are hundreds of Macaques. These monkeys are too clever. They know how to get what they want, by taking something of yours and waiting for something they like better before returning what they stole (thankfully I didn't have anything easy to grab).

Amazing bridge found within the Monkey Forest

Balinese Cooking Class

I jumped on the opportunity to take a Balinese cooking class, where we learned how to make EIGHT different dishes!! Even better, we got to take home a cook book of everything that we learned. It was in the middle of ride paddies that we actually had to walk through to get to the cooking area. Balinese gamelan music was playing nearby. I felt completely removed, with new friends from France and Poland, and our cooking coach! 

But before we started cooking, we had to give an offering to the gods. Balinese do this every single day, every family gives one offering and either places it on a high platform for the gods, and on the ground for spirits of the underground. 

This was different than any other cooking class I've taken abroad - here you cook communally, taking turns in all of the steps. In other places, they've made everyone cook for themselves in 1-portion instructions. It rained while we were cooking, but it made for a beautiful setting being surrounded by young rice paddy fields that reflected so much water already.

8 dishes lined up in a row for buffet style in center pic

As we finished cooking, we were greeted by a rainbow. It was a lovely and really busy day, finished at the hostel's pool with a couple of cold Bintang beers.

Shadow Puppet Workshop

(Maman, this one was for you).......... I took a shadow puppet workshop, which is an art form originally from Indonesia that has been used for hundreds of years. I was intrigued to try this out also as part of a professional enrichment goal, which my school encourages teachers to take. I was RELIEVED when it was finished, it's really special to actually have one, but I can't say it gave me any new art lessons/projects to be inspired by for school/teaching.

I still cannot believe how many HOURS this took, I don't know if I would have decided to go through with it had I known beforehand. However, I have a newfound respect for those who create these magical works of art for a living. This took place at Puri Lukisan, a huge cultural arts center and museum on the main road. It began at 9AM and I was greeted by this cute woman who sat with me under a hut with all tools and materials ready.

There are several gods to choose from, and you have to first draw the God on a dried up piece of flattened leather, after which you have to carve out all of the holes and the outlines with special metal carving tools that have different blade curves and sizes. This part alone, without the painting, took me 3 hours (she said normally for people who take her workshop need 4 hours!)

me getting impatient

Finally after 3 hours I took a break and had lunch which was thankfully included. Upon returning I had to now paint the damn thing. This part I slowly lost control of my hand with after all of the hammering so the nice lady (her name was Ketut) helped me out in the final brush strokes. The end result:

In total this ate up 5.5 hours of my day!!!!!!!!!!!! Crazy. But a nice part was getting to know ketut, as she told me she has been making these since she was 10 years old. She admitted that she has probably made about 1000 different ones now, each one takes 5-7 hours to make, and that sometimes it can be boring, but that it's her job. She burst out laughing everytime I repeated "sooooooooo much work" as I was hammering away. 

A turn of events...

By the time I finished, it was already 2:30PM...  I thought my whole day was gone and tried to figure out how to spend that strange time in the afternoon. I wanted to hire a motorbiker to take me to the famous rice paddy fields, but got discouraged when my hostel said hiring one would cost 200,000 Rupiah (about $15). I got so discouraged in realizing my dependence lied on someone else to drive me (renting my own would have cost only $5). I thought maybe I'll do a short hike instead. In walking towards the hiking path, there was a motorbike guy sitting on the sidewalk saying the standar, "hello, moto-bike? waterfall? rice terrace?" -- as soon as I heard rice terrace, I turned back and asked him how much he is charging to go. "Normally, 200k. But for you, 100k." WHAT! That was half of what my reputable hostel said it would cost. Instantly I thought there was a catch. I was in for many surprises...:

The Journey

His name was Madé. I was instantly suspicious and from that point on kept my guard up and fully paid attention to my entire surroundings. My first suspicion occurred when he took a "shortcut" to avoid traffic. Suddenly, the route that my hostel friends told me - my only point of reference - was gone. The only comfort I had in that journey was following the sun's orientation, which told me that at least we were going the right direction (northeast).

As tourist crowds ebbed and flowed while driving through different villages, we finally reacdhed the Tegalalang rice terraces. WOW! I was so incredibly stunned. Amazing steep plateaus of rice crops in winding hills, surrounded by palm trees, hay-stacked roofs and side-lit by the late afternoon sun.

I thought that would be the end of our tour. That is all I paid for, after all. Madé seemed trustworthy here, telling me to watch my bag, take my time, etc. And then suggested he take me to another one nearby. So we went, because it was not too far. Then he took me to yet another one... my suspicions still high and mind still cautious. But WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This, this was one of those special moments, where you have no idea what surprise experience you're about to live, but you just go along with the ride the person is bringing you on and you still don't really trust the person yet. It was just like in Aladdin, when he asks princess Jasmine, "do you trust me?" before pulling her onto the magic carpet to experience a magic carpet ride for the first time. This was exactly like that, and I was blown away.

We make the turn to newly-cropped rice paddy fields that reflected water, and then he rides his motorbike INTO the fields by riding along their narrow cement dividers. Looking left to right, you can't see these dividers, so it was the same sensation as gliding across water. All we could see was water, fields, open air, and the reflection of clouds beneath our feet. Amazing... and I thought to myself, "my trip has officially begun."

No photos will do it justice. But this is an example, and we drove across those narrow strips in between with reflecting water on all sides of us

I had a euphoric feeling witnessing and experiencing this. Still being mindful of where he was taking me... At this point we were at the other end of these reflective rice fields -- if I had to flee, would I be able to redirect myself back to safety? A more populated place? He then took me to a "coffee plantation." How could all of these extra add-on adventures equal HALF the price of what only the first tegalalang rice paddy tour would normally cost? Something's not right here. We get there, it's not well marked but not totally sketchy either. He introduces me to this guy who is apparently our "tour guide" yet didn't say anything. I just kept thinking this all sounds too good to be true and I need to watch my back.

Madé was showing me more than the actual "coffee guide" himself. It was just me, and these two men. I was on high alert. That's when they told me I can sit down to try 14 different samples of coffee and tea... for free. 

No.

All ounces of vigilance and street smarts within me told me "They're drugged, don't drink them." I insisted no, no, but as we made a turn that's when I finally saw other tourists there drinking the same samples. Oh thank god. But then they took me to a seating area far removed from the other tourists and the relief I had went away again. The coffee guy disappeared to go and get them. Once he brought them over, I made sure Madé had some with me (which I chose for him at random). He gladly did and said "ting!" (the Indonesian "cheers"). 

I felt fine but got more nervous the more I drank. It sort of put a damper on my enjoyment of the teas and coffees but oh my god they were delicious. Suddenly I started to feel weird. Something in my body felt different and uneasy, like I was becoming more wired but also disoriented...

It was just the caffeine. Ah!

There was one final rice paddy field he wanted to take me to after. He said, "this one, only for locals. No tourists know. I show you." My eyebrow raised again and that's when I paid close attention to the setting sun's direction again, just in case. He took me far, through different quiet villages until we reached one called Manuapo -- I can't even find it in google maps. And it was so far removed that not even my hostel's receptionists knew what I was talking about.

"How much further is it?" I asked while he was driving. 

"Not too far, 2km," he replied.

The sun was setting soon...

In passing through more fields, we rode through this water bank where tons of local kids and their fathers were bathing and playing in the water naked. And then, we were there. This was vast, spread across acres of land. "Just for locals," he said again.

He waited for me and kept telling me, "watch your balance, careful," as I walked in between these rice fields, this time tie dividers were only mounds of dirt that created deep moats on both sides. I walked to the edge of this rice terrace --where the edge showed more descending rows below my feet and expanding further and further across the field. The sun was low now, giving everything a golden light. It was all ornamented with occasional coconut trees, with a few farmers gleaning.

As I'm still standing on the edge,my eyes scan the horizon, slowly, left to right. Accompanied by the sound of loud crickets, I looked above me to see hundreds of dragonflies sprinkling my view of the sky. No picture could ever capture this moment, this experience, with justice. 

The magical moment with crickets and dragonflies

Madé!

I looked behind me on the other end of the rice field at Madé, who was still sitting there and patiently waiting. Maybe there was no catch. Maybe this was just a real experience he wanted to give. Did he really want to do all of this for only 100k rupiah? Why? What an incredibly nice guy. I couldn't help myself and took a picture of him, and he threw the peace sign up. I felt immense gratitude, and absorbed my final moments facing the edge of this field before walking back to Madé.

"Time to go back to Ubud."

"Yes," he nodded.

The sun had only a few more minutes left before setting. By this point I knew that the sun should be on my right-back side. And it was. I sat on the back of his motorbike enjoying the cooler air, still intermittently checking the GPS on my phone just in case. We reached the main road and my worries about there being a dangerous "catch" were gone. He happily accepted the 100k rupiah, not asking for more. My vigilance was so high all day long and there was nothing to be afraid of. I soon came to find that Balinese people are all like this, and this vigilance will be far more necessary once I arrive in places like the Gili Islands and Java. 

I didn't tell Madé enough how grateful I was and that he needs to get himself a business card. There was no catch, just pure kindness, luck, and blessings. An experience I won't be forgetting... And to think I had already done enough on that day, I decided to watch a traditional Indonesian dance performance once it got dark.

Indonesian Dance

WOW! this completely exceeded expectations. I watched 7 different performances. The first was ust music, with gongs and the famous gamelan instrument. Wow... just like our spiritual balinese CDs back at home. Then the dancers... costumes adorned with gold lamé accents, their faces acting like puppet masks, eyes wide and never blinking, only looking left and right, moving their heads subtly but sharply like mechanical dolls... All of this, paired with the sounds of spiritual gongs and the gamelan, everything brings you to a different world, you forget after an hour that you've been uncomfortably sitting on a wobbly plastic chair. The backdrop was also a real temple - this show was at Lotus Pond, behind "Cafe Lotus," and cost me 80,000 rupiah (only $6 USD) to see.

Everything about the show -- I was completely and utterly transfixed. And, I actually caught myself thinking, "papa, are you seeing this? How amazing is this?!?" "Papa, you agree don't you, this is really something spiritual, out of this world." "Papa, can you believe where I am, where we are, right now?" All I could feel and see in my mind was his twinkling smirk, with a possibly softly-spoken, "oui ma fifille..." suddenly I had a lump in my throat the rest of the e perfomance. My day had started with so much hard work, continued with so much discovery and surprise adventure, and ended so beautifully with the most spiritual music, and my father.

***

*Due to time, I'm going to have to write more later -- 3 more days followed the one above. I am still in Ubud now and will be headed to Gili Trawangan (a small island) tomorrow morning. The next time I make it to a computer I will finish up writing about my final days in Ubud and the many thoughts I've gathered since my arrival...

:)