Bintang DiarIES: Bali

Thursday, 3.31
It was one mountain after another and so peaceful at the bottom: cows grazing, mothers clattering pots and pans inside their darkened kitchens while half-clothed children loitered on the doorsteps. Mainly a restful day: spent the morning exploring on the MOTO. What thrill, what freedom! I wish I’d discovered such a love earlier. Tried to go to Dreamland Beach and it was a pleasant, rural, out-of-the way tour, but I couldn’t get down to the beach with the rocks and mud going so steeply down. Collected the boys and we left the gorgeous bungalow overlook of a diamond drape, with the driver I’d been talking to all week. His name is Wayan, like 45% of the Balinese population (another 45% is named Made, and the remaining 10% are other names collectively). With backwards wistful glances we left somewhat regretfully for Ubud, the sleepy, hippie-art village in Bali’s center. Our hotel is like a temple: large, looming, stone, and cool inside. It has a pool where we spent most of the afternoon, even throughout the rainstorm that came and hammered glinting diamonds on the blue filtered top of the chlorine puddles. After showers, and naps, we roamed the streets and eventually found delightful dinner (I asked a local cabbie and he recommend): French roasted, pineapple-glazed duck with spinach ravioli and red wine. Post dinner, I immediately crashed and slept for ten hours.

Friday, 4.1.
I wish I could transmit the burning coconuts smell: unlike another burning smell I know, first tropically exotic, then something akin to soured nuts. Coconut shells burn fast, but their smell lingers longer than the flames.

Or describe how black his feet were and the sparks that flew: embers like angry entrails from a splintered dragon on his death mattress.

I wish I you could hear the “kecha kecha, kecha kecha” sound and toneful chanting of the men, their gleaming upper bodies heaving, their sarongs and sashes moving to their acapella beats.

I wish you were here to share in these experiences: the wonder, the anticipation, the disappointments, the exploration. Walking tour was nice today: seeing rice fields, monkey forest, temples, having a snack at a roadside warung, seeing an artist’s home and the “suburbs” of Ubud, then a lunch of papaya salad and marlin baguette sandwich (ty’s) before making it home just in time for a quick swim to beat the rainstorm. Tonight was the kechek performance which was a fascinating performance depicting a scene from the Ramayana. Dancing is less graceful, with harsher and bolder movements than in Laos. It was awesome to watch, and the “trance dance” hobby horse rider at the end was quite impressive with his bare feet running back and forth through blazing coals...


We walked all day through Ubud area: rice fields, monkey kingdom, more temples, artists, beggars, and a fried peanut snack under the shade of a roadside stand, where the girl picked a flower for my hair. Ty ate marlin for lunch and I had a delightful papaya salad. Yet we still feel like something is missing from Ubud. We haven’t felt complete since leaving the beaches. We’ll try again tomorrow.