Field Report 4:
Bali - January 9, 1999

By Jeff Bell
 

Hello folks!

Well, surfing isn't all that Bali has been about for me, but today's chapter of my travels was all about walls of seawater, some of them larger than others.

But let me take a couple steps backwards first. I've had a number of special experiences on this island since arriving on the 30th of Dec., but two stand out. Two times when I was surrounded by Bali people, on a special occasion, and not a non-Balinese person in sight. Once was on the beach at Kuta just before midnight on New Year's (where were the tourists?), and the other was at an evening ceremony at a temple in Ubud. Looking around to see face after face, all Indonesian, all in a special state of mind. You feel a bit invisible, but every bit of your senses are heightened, wondering about the moment that just passed and wondering about what is next.

Ubud, at the heart of Bali both physically and culturally, has been my favorite place so far. I just spent one day there, but am planning to go back for a couple of days if possible. Bali is a very artistically inclined place, evidently has been that way from very far back, but when you go to Ubud, it's as if the quality level of the artistry that you come in contact with goes up a big notch. I hadn't expected that. And so many ironies, the place I stayed there was my favorite so far, and the cheapest—$19! Beautiful lush gardens with beautiful moss growing on the elaborate stone carvings which are everywhere here in Bali.

Perhaps going to the ceremony at the temple in Ubud put it over the top for me. To go to a ceremony, you need a sarong and I noticed that all the local men and women were meticulously dressed in the finest sarongs, shirts and head dress, I felt that I had to upgrade from the beach-like sarong that I had with me and ducked into a shop and spent $35 or so, a walked out with a sarong that I believed was one of the finer pieces of cloth I've possessed. It was a dark colored silk piece with a beautiful overlaying pattern in a color that was either orange, brown or yellow depending on how the light it. It evidently came from Java. I think that one of the things I've learned from this trip is that just when you think you've seen something really fine, there is something finer around the corner.

Anyhow, I hiked the kilometer or so to the temple and it was otherworldly for me. The outside and inside was lit up in bright lights but the surrounding darkness gave it a look which, well, I'm flashing on some of the scenes in "Apocalypse Now" as a parallel experience.

But these was a peaceful, pure if you will, experience which gave me an incite into the tremendously strong spiritual side of the people here in Bali. These people are bombarded by influences from all over the world that are visible to them almost everywhere they go, yet they devout time to carefully dress and attend these traditional ceremonies. After spending time on my knees with a hundred other Balinese, not another tourist in the group, raising flowers to the sky in a series of prayers, putting the bits of flowers behind your ears, and finally being showered with bits of water from the senior members, leaving a few bits of rice pressed to your forehead, believe me— it felt strange to walk back into the "Westernized" world of the main part of Ubud. What contrasts!

To put Ubud in a greater context, this was part of a tour of the island that included a night at edge of an enormous ancient crater which was pure magic and a hike the next day to the red mouth of a blustery, heavy breathing active volcano. The next day included a pre-dawn boat trip out to see some dolphins and a dawn that was not to be believed.

But traveling alone has it's worrying moments. Being an American, I'm afraid of being ripped off often. Sometimes it's warranted, in Kuta and group of three kids tried to snatch my wallet, but the girl who was the key distracter didn't quite get a grip on my arms the way she intended and I escaped. But Kuta would bread a few kids like that, with it's high pitched, pub crawling atmosphere. Most Indonesians are evidently very honest. I tend to worry when I step out of a cab for a moment, afraid that the cabbie will drive off with my things, or when I leave things in my hotel room, afraid that the room service people will rifle through my things. But that hasn't happened. And the conversations I've had with Balinese seem to indicate that there is a strong and difficult to corrupt streak of inclination towards goodness. (Everyone seems to be able to converse in English to some extent, one Australian told me he'd been coming here since 1969. Think of Mexico, but...better. Few Americans her, curiously, but we're definitely the country that symbolizes all the modernization they are experiencing.) But in general, the exchange rate is so absurd (was almost twice as absurd evidently last year) that there are two price levels, those for the locals and those for the tourists, and in general they will try to take you for as much as they can, all the time. And there are a million schemes that get pulled on you to test to see just how much money you are willing to part with. Everything is either negotiable or priced in dollars.

"Where are you from?" is inevitably the first question you get here. At first you think it's a question intended to see just how much they can fleece you for, but actually they meet SO many foreigners in their daily lives that this seems to have become the de rigeur opening line to get a fix on you and start up a conversation. Both here and in Thailand, people smile with incredible ease and very rarely do you encounter angry or mean faces. Once when looking for a hotel, I ran into a young guy who was working there and had the look of someone from the downtown of one of our cities and it shocked me until I found out that the hotel was used as a place to take prostitutes and then it seemed to make sense. Forget about the people that are having a hard time making ends meet here (Bali is worlds better off than Java by the way), we have plenty to work on in our own backyard with people that somehow fall into pits of unhappiness in a country where the scale of wealth is overwhelming.

So after a great trip around the island (one of my guides came to me the next day with his wife in tow telling a weak story about how his wallet was stolen and could I lend him some money? Having got to know him, I knew that he had blown the money on either girls or gambling or drinking or more likely all of the above. With a straight face I told him no and got to another hotel ASAP so he wouldn't track me down anymore.), I rented a surfboard for a week and made a point of checking out some of the well-known spots. Got a couple of small wave go-outs at Kuta which were fun, then rented a motorcycle and buzzed over to the reef at Nusa Dua.

Well the first day of surfing was fun, not too intense, except for the 1km paddleout, but today was a monster day. I took a boat out to the lineup with a couple of Aussies and as one said rather understately, "looks pretty clean". Well, yah, from the backside of the waves they looked pretty clean. And pretty big. The shore would disappear as these waves were at least 5-6 feet from the back. If these waves went backwards, I'd think they were big.

I got exactly two rides. Good ones, but once I was inside, there was no way to paddle back out. In between the rides I had to deal with getting "dragged across the reef" which wasn't too big, but a little scary, and then paddle the 1km back to shore to get the boat again. I finished the day up by getting a taxi over to Padang Padang (flat) and then Uluwatu, where I got a good hour of 5-10 foot faces, with not too many people out. A famous spot, the paddle in and out is out of this tiny grotto between some rocks which almost resembles a cave.

All in all, good fun, and this is a place I hope to come back to many times!

Bye,
Jeff
 

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