"Just Back" Report
by
MikeL
February 2001
WEATHER: One wet day in seven.
AIRLINE: Garuda modern & professional
ARTIFACTS: The usual bargains, plus a few villages now making wonderful mosaic mirrors in an art-nouveau style. Cheap, unique gifts with flair and flat to pack. 15-CD holders can be packed around in a rigid suitcase or large hand luggage.
HIGHLIGHTS: The friendliness of the people, including their willingness to pose and be photographed, gratis. (I’ve tried same in Morocco, S. America etc. Different ballgame.) How locals chip in to build a little platform shelter, just so they can sit and chat with their friends and neighbours; the tolerance of drivers towards each other and the calmness of our driver in chaotic traffic where roundabouts have no priority rules and U-turns in front of speeding trucks are the norm; tiny village kids in uniform walking miles alone, unafraid and unmolested to and from school; groups of same clambering onto the low, uncaged flatbed of a truck –the school “bus”; orchestra of gamelan instruments left permanently unlocked and unguarded in village temple complexes; elaborate, colourful, musically noisy, public cremation ceremonies with joyous participants, as death is but another phase of life; old people still part of the ebb and flow of everyday life instead of mouldering away, isolated from their families and dying sad, lonely, unnoticed deaths. Who are the poor ones?
BEST OF: Best meal was BBQ snapper at Bali cafe, Jimbaran Bay, with sunset to match (don’t look too closely at the beach, where the plastic bag scourge is evident); best dance was at Swastika 2, Sanur. Meal +dance+gamelan for around A$8 each + free transport. Dance at Batubalan cost $10 and lacked atmosphere or setting; Best market was Birdmarket in Denpasar, which also has fish, snakes, monkeys and fighting crickets in season- Fruit/veg market nearby.
WILDLIFE: Acrobatic stealth-fighter bats take silently to the air around dusk, and scoop a drink from the swimming pool beside me, then chase insects in and out of tree branches without grazing a leaf with their delicate wings. Meanwhile frogs individually practise their bass or tenor lines then strike up their evening chorus. The feather-tailed squirrels are still on duty, as are the gecko lizards that are a mobile adornment of most walls. We sip our 1950’s priced cocktails in silent admiration and feel ourselves among the blessed.
HOTEL: Puri Santrian has a great beach location and hectares of wonderful tropical-forest grounds BUT DON’T MENTION THE WAR: Hotel was host of a large group of older Germans who must have been expelled from the Gestapo for cruelty. One literally growled at me when I said “good morning”, another tipped my wife out of a floating lie-lo in the pool as he wanted to use it, while yet another bunch forced their way to the head of the queue for a henna tatoo, saying to our kids “I’m more important than you”. One of my grandfathers was German- perhaps this is why he emigrated.
UNUSUAL HAPPENINGS: In an out-of-the-way village we happened upon a medieval scene -a man wandering the street stark naked, his wrists handcuffed into wooden stocks and his feet likewise in separate stocks. He appeared well fed and healthy. It transpired he was crazy, and this was to prevent harm to himself or others. He was cared for by his family, and fancy drugs and hospitals were beyond their means. Several others, including the lady hacking bricks from volcanic tuff rock for 10cents an item; stories of the aboriginal people of Bali in Tenganan, who killed their own people when they got old, and chose a wife by throwing a flower over their shoulder and seeing which girl it landed near.
RECOMMENDATION: Get a good driver/translater/guide. They will save you more than they cost, and you will learn that the greatest delights of travel are in the journey itself, not the destination. You may also make a friend, such as our guy, I Ketut, who we have used on a couple of trips, and who takes us home to meet his family, shows off his songbirds and fighting cocks, and spends a day’s wages buying us beers and softdrinks and feeding us. You’ll find more of the real Bali in the backroads and villages than with any large tour or tourist-trap destination. He will even collect you from the airport and help you find accommodation if you contact him in advance. Speaks good English and charges around $40 per day, all included.
Email me for more info. His details are-
I Ketut Sulatra
Jl. Nangka Gang Nuri V No. 12
Denpasar 80231- Bali_- Indonesia
Mobile: 08123941359