Weekend in East Bali

In mid-November Green School had a four day weekend, so with a rotating mix of four other Green School families we booked up most of a small boutique hotel along the beach in east Bali for a long weekend getaway.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant that caters to locals for a lunch of ikan lilit (fish satay) and fish soup.  We asked for a menu but they didn't have one - this was the only dish they served.  It was spicy and delicious. I fully expected us to get sick from this meal as the food was not prepared with the purified water used at tourist restaurants, and was happily surprised when none of us did.

After lunch, we took a detour to visit the village of Tenganan, the only place in Bali that makes the exceedingly difficult and time consuming double ikat weavings called geringsing.  According to our guide, and as described in Wikipedia, "in geringsing, both the cotton warp and weft threads are carefully dyed and cross-dyed before weaving; the finished pattern only emerges as the cloth is woven."

Tenganan is one of only a couple of villages in Bali that retain the ancient customs of the Balinese that date to before Bali came under the sway of the Majapahit kingdom in the 1300s.  The Majapahits brought with them the Hindu-Javanese culture now practiced throughout Bali.  The village used to be very isolated but now welcomes tourists.

No outsiders can live in Tenganan.  Villagers must marry within the village.  If a villager marries an outsider they must leave.  With only around 300 villagers that is a challenging requirement.

The dead of Tenganan are buried, not cremated.  Tenganan is also known for ceremonial fights using the spiky leaves of the pandanus plant as the weapon.  While the battles aren't that dangerous they are bloody.

We and our friends, another Green School family that we were traveling with, were met in the parking lot by Nyoman, our guide from the village.  He took us to his family compound where he showed us the single ikat and double ikat, geringsing, weavings made by his family.  Weaving a geringsing is painstaking and is done on a very simple handloom.

A new geringsing weaving can only be started during a new moon or during Kajung Kliwan, when the moon is halfway between full and new.  The geringsing are worn in all the major life ceremonies.  Nyoman explained that the geringsing has magical powers.  Doctors told him that his wife would have a difficult child birth and would need a Caesarean operation, which he could not afford.  Instead he gave his wife a special herbal drink and covered her each night with a geringsing cloth, and she had a normal delivery without problems.  We bought a geringsing that we liked very much, but only after Nyoman asked his mother, the weaver, for permission.

Nyoman demonstrating the weaving technique

Our friend Michael draped in a geringsing

the main ceremonial and gathering area

view along one of the village streets

Then it was on to Seraya Shores, the small hotel that came highly recommended by our friends for whom it is a favorite spot in Bali. We now understand their attraction to it, as you can see from the photos.

Our room was on the second floor overlooking the pool

The kids ran in packs, and even turned our bathroom into a water theme park.

The adults managed little bits of relaxation and even some grown-up conversation at the delicious, healthy dinners which were served family style.

Most of our days were spent at nearby White Sand Beach, one of our favorite spots in Bali.  It's where we went with Gran and Papa Joe back in February.   Charlotte spent hours on a boogie board waiting for the incoming surf to give her a short lift.  We returned to Cakra's warung and had freshly caught grilled fish for lunch.

On our last day there we were surprised to find a group of road bikers trying to navigate their way down the heavily rutted and pitted road to the beach.  A sign on the beach shed some light on the mystery as they were taking part in a 100 km "Psyclo" ride around Bali and were wrapping up the ride with a party on White Sand Beach.   We took up a spot at the far end of the beach away from the party and had another fun day jumping waves, playing in the sand and relaxing on the beach.

 

 photos by Lynn and Nat

Sports at Green School and Beyond

When we were planning to move to Ubud, I expected to find an abundance of yoga classes -- Ubud being a world-renowned yoga hot spot -- but I wasn't sure whether more traditional athletic opportunities would be available.  Green School doesn't bill itself as a sports powerhouse.  But when we arrived, we found that the school offered a wide variety of sports, with year-round inter-school competition.  Even first graders can join a team and test their skills against their counterparts across the island.

Alexa and Charlotte eagerly jumped into the sports scene.  They've had fun donning their green-and-white sports kits and playing against Bali's other international schools.  The Green School teams are coed at their level, but they typically play against all-boys teams.  Alexa and Charlotte are vastly outnumbered by boys on their teams but are undaunted.

Some of the parents grouse about the lack of top-notch professional coaching and the poor showing by some of our teams.  It's true that a number of other international schools have superior coaching and facilities.  If we were staying longer in Bali, it would certainly become a concern for us.  But the Green School kids manage to hold their own and, more importantly, display great sportsmanship.  And at the end of the games, they put away impressive amounts of watermelon.

One of the highlights of the inter-school competition is riding the "bemo," a rickety old minibus, to and from the games.  It's about a one-hour ride to Sanur, where most of the away games are held.  The coaches go along for the ride.  Alexa reports that the bemo rides are a bit of a sweaty, smelly
free-for-all, except for the "no heads or hands out the window" rule, which is strictly enforced.

In other sports news, I've been spending a lot of time this year trying to improve my tennis game, which was virtually non-existent when I arrived.  I have been taking weekly lessons with a guy named Harrison who, as mentioned in an earlier post, is a 55-ish New Yorker with a big heart and a big mouth.  He's a talented coach and I find his style highly motivating.  He peppers his lessons with entertaining pop culture references from the 1970s.  He offers blessedly few war stories from his brief stint on the pro tour.

I managed to lure Nat into my weekly lessons half-way through the year, and we've enjoyed playing together.  Nat also plays regularly with Nyoman, the Balinese guy who manages the tennis court we use.  Nat's putting together a respectable game.  He has a wicked serve! 

I also play doubles every week with some of my GS mom friends. This is my group (minus the blue-capped woman):  http://mayaubud.com/about-maya-ubud/tennis.  We entertain ourselves and occasionally play something bordering on real tennis.

The girls have also taken tennis lessons from Harrison.  Alexa shows some talent, and with more regular playing time I'm sure she would improve quickly.  Charlotte has a good attitude but little patience for the hour-long lessons, despite Harrison's efforts to amuse her with various props and tricks. 

Charlotte trying out the ball machine - of Harrison's own design

The tennis court is surrounded on two sides by elementary schools.  The kids wave at us and shout out "hello" in English.  Sometimes they stick around to watch and form a spectator's gallery.  They like to imitate Harrison's more emphatic exclamations.

One morning the kids were dressed in their traditional costumes for a ceremony.  Even tennis is colorful in Bali.

I spent a lot of time biking when I first arrived in Bali. One of the GS parents organizes challenging group rides on single-track trails, motorbike paths and back roads around the countryside. The water intake required to bike in Bali is not to be believed! The views can be astoundingly beautiful -- that is, if you're able to look up from the narrow, rocky paths with steep pitches down into the canal or the rice paddy on either side.

I took a couple of spills on some muddy, uneven paths on my first couple of outings. So I decided instead to take up horse riding.  The girls attended a couple of weeks of pony camp at the Bali Equestrian Center this summer, and I started taking lessons during their camp time.  The facility, horses and instructors are top-notch.  They have 40 horses from all around Indonesia and Australia. The lead instructor is an Olympic-level rider from the UK.  Here is Charlotte with her friend King.  I'm riding (well, in the photo, just sitting on) Malibu. 

Another popular sport among the Green School set is ultimate frisbee. There are pick-up games for adults and kids at school every week; Nat joins them occasionally. Nat and I have also played from time to time in weekend pickup games in Ubud. It's a friendly, relaxed scene; the smaller kids play on the sidelines of the village green while adults and older kids sweat it out on the field. Some Sundays I find myself craving a bit of playing time but can't get myself there because it is so punishingly hot.  This is where we end up instead:

 Posted by Lynn.

Cambodia: Floating Village

Among the top attractions of the Siem Reap area are the floating villages on the nearby Tonle Sap Lake.  The lake itself is remarkable, as it expands in size fivefold during the monsoon season when the river that normally drains the lake reverses direction due to overflow from the Mekong River and instead fills the lake.

As described in Wikipedia-

The Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is an ecological hot spot that was designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. 

The Tonlé Sap is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake.

Floating villages have sprung up on the Tonlé Sap lake.  According to our guide, Len, the villages are populated by the families of ex-Vietnamese soldiers.  When Vietnam ended its occupation of Cambodia after overthrowing the Khmer Rouge, many soldiers didn't want to leave.  Instead they shed their uniforms, and with no land holdings to call their own in Cambodia, formed communities living on house boats on the lake.

On the drive from Siem Reap to the lake we saw little slices of rural Cambodian life.

delivering blocks of ice

Once at the lake we rented a boat.  Shortly after we set off, a faster boat drew alongside our boat and without permission someone from the other boat jumped onto our boat.  Fortunately it was not a pirate but a young girl trying to sell some food and drinks.

executing a well-practiced boarding maneuver

It was remarkable how the villagers were able to fulfill all the necessities of life in the absence of dry land.

hotel/restaurant boat

floating store

a common sight of fishermen and women beating fishing nets to dislodge the tiny fish caught in the nets

boys jumping into the lake from a small boat

it's hard to see, but this is a floating pig pen

a family collecting the day's catch

cell phone tower and communications building

our guide, Len, said that in Cambodia kids know that it is time to start school when they can touch one of their ears using the opposite hand.

Charlotte checking whether she is old enough to go to school

vendor

basketball court

We stopped at a floating gift shop/ restaurant/ marine zoo/ tourist trap.

boy with snake at the tourist trap

catfish feeding frenzy

crocs on display

Charlotte about to feed the catfish

girl with snake asking for money from the tourists

 We had a view of nearby homes from the second floor restaurant.

this little boy was floating along in a metal tub.  later he came alongside our boat and very persistently asked for money.

Len told us that the village is quite poor and that the children often don't get a decent meal.  An enterprising family had set up a store selling boxes of noodles, pencil sets and notebooks, and bags of rice to tourists so that the tourists could then donate their purchases to the villagers.  It seemed somewhat scammy, but we went ahead and bought a box of noodles which we took to a school and handed out to the students.  The students seemed genuinely grateful- the school was apparently not usually visited by tourists - and when they received a packet of noodles would abruptly hop up, crossing their arms in front of them locked at their elbows in a gesture of thanks.

one of the primary schools

Charlotte with the box of noodles

handing out the noodles

I was impressed with the resourcefulness of the families living in the floating village that they could survive living entirely on the water.  It was a fascinating place to see.

The visit was somewhat depressing however.  Although living on the lake had its pluses, such as the boys who treated the lake as a vast swimming pool located out their front door, the families were clearly poor and the opportunities for the children limited even by Cambodian standards.  The boats of tourists, including us, snapping photos were turning the villagers into a floating spectacle for our entertainment.  Their use of little children to beg tourists for money, undoubtedly for long hours every day, was also discouraging.