3. Dressing up Craig "Mr. Bali" (by Amy, 11/24/06)

At this moment Craig and I are in Ubud, Bali, and we again want to encourage anyone who is thinking of traveling to come here or back here.

At this time all the Balinese are preparing for one of the big celebrations of the year, the ten day period of Galungan through Kuningan, which is a family and community holiday that happens every 210 days, a time of special contact between the spirit world and the family world, celebrated by the whole community. During this period, harmony is encouraged, blessing are provided at the temples, and the duality between good and evil is celebrated and illustrated by parading the two mythical creatures who repesented them, the lion Barung and the witch Rongda, dancing through the streets.

We arrived about 48 hours ago and have had a very pleasant time re-acquainting ourselves with Ubud and its environs. The first day we spent wandering the town without any real agenda - - we started by walking out at dawn from our hotel, the lovely Pande Permai, up through the rice fields behind it, up a ridge, into the upper town. We passed the day having small meals every few hours, and iced ginger lemonade or iced coffee about every 10 minutes as we got adjusted to the heat. Local Balinese were laughing at us and at the heat, and trying to persuade us to take them up on their particular adventures or hotel or restaurant or driving expertise. We liked checking out the main shopping streets for about 2 hours, then got overwhelmed by the amount of junk, as well as quality items, for sale. We had some special discoveries, like the Ubud water palace, the temple to Saraswati, the goddess who embodies intelligence and skillful practice, where we got to talk to one of the women whose family temple it is as we reclined by the temple and its lily ponds. We loved being back, it felt very homey.

But in the evening we connected with some new friends we have made in Berkeley, Jerry and Ketut, who run a stone carving store in Berkeley called Ring of Fire, and our lives were completely changed. Suddenly we got made part of the community in a new way.

Part of this was because just before we met with them, Craig tried on his first Balinese headdress, the udong, and we couldn't take it off until I had a chance to sew it to keep it from wrecking, and immediately he started getting lots of approval and smiles on the streets and calls of "Mr. Bali!!!" from just about everyone. At dinner with Ketut and Jerry, the laughter continued, as Ketut and I sipped rice wine on the rocks ("brem", pronounced more like "rum") and Ketut joked with all the folks who run the restaurant we were in. Then in the morning, we went over to their house, met Ketut's 2 kids and her brother, had breakfast, and set out for a day of exploration together with their friend and driver, Made Kepler.

We went in a large ring about ten miles outside of Ubud, starting at the Sukawati morning market, where a lot of the wood carvers bring their wares to be bought by merchants who take it to Ubud to sell it to us tourists. This time, we were with Ketut and Jerry, so we learned how and where a Balinese shopkeeper would be shopping and bargaining. As a young woman, Ketut sold hats during the heat of cremation ceremonies, and she is a real master of the art of closing a deal. Sometimes when Ketut or Jerry see a quality item they want to buy, that's expensive, they tell us they will often be bargaining for it over a period of weeks or even months or years. The people who are selling are also master bargainers. And everyone seems to enjoy it. It's not just a matter of the local price versus the kama`aina price-- They set the original prices by who is buying - the foreigner price, the good luck morning price, the price for local Indonesians, the balinese local price, the price for family. Then they do a verbal ballet from there to arrive at the "correct" price that makes everyone happy. For Ketut and Jerry, the merchants they were buying from were often old friends, sometimes, and if not, they were often connected through family or village connections. So it was really fun. It was nice that we seem to have similar taste to our friends - we really saw some lovely things. They helped us buy some things too, since we'll be sharing some of their shipping container with them, which works out well for all of us I think.

After a few hours in the wood carving section of the market, and after a tasty snack at a local warung eating 'nasi campur', which is savory rice with about 10 different small unidentifiable tasty fried or barbecued foods, washed down with sweet cold bottled tea, we all decided to go to the stone markets in the town of Betubulan. In about an hour and a half we visited 4 or 5 of their favorite contemporary stone carving merchants. Hindu gods and goddesses, Balinese semi-deities, frogs, mermaids and even the Hawaiian god Ku were carved of Balinese black basalt, Balinese greenstone, grey volcanic, white bali sandstone, and even poured concrete. Many of the stones and even the finished carvings come over from Java so there are many styles and designs. Some are old designs, some new, some are in pieces, some are freshly carved. We have started to get a feel for the richness and variety of the stonework.

After this we went up with them to a village high above Ubud, where a couple sell old carvings that have been replaced from temples where the soft sandstone was starting to wear. So these were quite different in style and content - many more original Balinese legends, and unusual painted stone styles from the north part of the island. Their yard is filled with mossy statues. It's on a rural lane, across the street there was a fruitstand selling fresh lychees and durian.

We have been invited to spend Galungan, next Wednesday, with her family in the small village of Singakerta, near Ubud. Since this will be our first time as participants in the ceremony, we needed special clothing, so while we were in Sukawati market, they took us to the stall which they use to buy their own sarongs and outfits. I got to buy the lacy kebaya, a long sleeved shirt with completely open netting that you wear over a bra, and a nice traditional pattern sarong. My kebaya is a soft pink. I feel very exposed with this over just my underwear. With the help of Jerry and Ibu, the older auntie who runs the shop, Craig got a very handsome outfit, an orangey-brown batik sarong which goes down to his ankles, then a golden overskirt which goes to about 3 inches above that one, and a sash; and a white shirt that hangs gently over this; and the special head dress that all Indonesians wear, this time in white with a little golden brocade woven into it. He will look really nice.

We will send pictures after we return.

Meanwhile tomorrow we go up to the green highlands, on the slopes of one of the volcanoes that has 3 lakes in its crater, to a place called Pacung Mountain Resort. More later....

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See Craig's first entry in this trip's blog at CraigAmyIndonesia@blogspot.com