A bike ride through rural Bali

Back in early February, Lynn and I took an eco-tour bike ride through rural Bali.

We started at the foothills on Mt. Agung, the large volcano in the north-east of the island that dominates the Bali landscape.  We then spent the afternoon coasting downhill through villages and fields, stopping occasionally along the way.

First we went to a demonstration garden filled with dozens of different types of plants, from cinnamon to banana trees.  We tasted mangosteen and jackfruit for the first time.  We learned about traditional Balinese coffee-making, and the laborious manual process of separating the small female Arabica beans from the larger (and more flavorful) male beans.

Three civets roamed in cages.  The highest quality coffee apparently comes from coffee beans that have been eaten by civets, locally called "luwaks", and mysteriously transformed by their passage through the civet's digestive tract.  Locals search the forest floor looking for the civets' deposits, which are then collected and processed.  Not surprisingly, Luwak coffee is very expensive.  The garden center had demonstration bins of arabica beans and luwak beans.  The luwak beans are lighter in color and lighter weight. We bought a packet of luwak coffee, but didn't try any so we can't say whether it deserves its mystique.

A prime example of terraced rice paddies, and a frequent stopping point for tourists.

Entrance to the family temple

In one small village we stopped in front of a house.  Our young tour guide, fresh out of high school, explained that the bike tour company had an arrangement with the family who lived in the house which allowed them to visit in order to show their clients a typical Balinese house.  It was our first time inside a Balinese home, which is a small compound laid out according to specific guidelines.

Each house has its own temple, with shrines to various gods and to the family's ancestors.  It is one reason why it is almost taboo to sell a house, because that would mean abandoning the shrine that honors deceased family members.  The photo above shows a 'bale', a covered meeting area used for family ceremonies.

Family temples are used for a variety of life cycle and other ceremonies throughout the year.  When a child is born, an elaborate ceremony is performed.  This photo shows a stone with the red wrapping, which marks the spot in the family compound where a placenta is buried as part of this ceremony. 

Most families in small villages keep pigs.  Pigs are an important source of income, with a large pig selling for over $100, and important for a couple of the major ceremonies which require the sacrifice of a suckling pig.  Dewa told us of one village that had a ceremony that required that one suckling pig be sacrificed for each adult member of the village.  He witnessed the more recent ceremony where over 700 suckling pigs filled the temple.

The families in that area also work weaving bamboo to make roofing material.  Our guide told us that they earn 7,000 rupiah per square meter and in a typical day an adult can produce four square meters.  That's the equivalent of around $3 per day.  This is the job with lowest daily earnings we've yet learned about, even lower than the $5 per day earned by farm laborers.  It is sobering to think that to us the trivial expense of a bottle of Coke bought at a restaurant costs as much as one of the family members earns from a full day of labor.

Cock fighting is widely practiced, and even plays a role in certain ceremonies.  As explained to us, the blood spilled during the cock fight distracts the evil spirits that live in the ground and prevents them from disturbing the ceremony in the temple.  The Balinese seem to be split on the subject of cock fighting.  Some call it a social disease, and the gambling that goes along with it has ruined many a family.  But there are many men who have a passion for cock fighting and with its deep roots in Balinese culture it likely isn't going away anytime soon.  The rooster in the photo above is almost certainly being raised for cock fighting.  Dewa says that most of the time the fighting birds lead a pampered life, being fed choice feed and even receiving daily massages by their owners, that is until it comes time for them to fight.

A young boy was running around the compound naked and splashing in the water tub.

At the temple across from the family compound, women were arriving with ceremonial offers of fruit.  Once the gods have tasted the essence of the fruit, it can then be brought home and enjoyed by the family.

The main road of the village looked lovely adorned with the Penjors from the Galungan ceremony.

Lush rice fields stretching off into the distance.

A truly massive banyan tree.  If the dangling roots aren't cut, they will sprout new banyan trees that will damage nearby homes.  So the roots are kept well trimmed.

At first I didn't know why we pulled over at this nondescript building.

It housed master wood-carvers who crafted doors with exquisite details.

Swastikas (the good kind not the bad kind) are everywhere, but still take some getting used to.

The banyan tree by the river where we ended our ride.

The truck driver in the river washing his truck.

Photo credits:  Lynn and Nat, Edited by Lynn, Bike trip arranged by Lynn.

Gran and Papa Joe are here!

Gran and Papa Joe seem no worse for wear after the long flights and the time zone changes.  They are set up in a two story bungalow overlooking a swimming pool in the B&B across the alleyway from us.

Le petit dejeuner en plein air

It's good to have family here.  We don't feel as far away as we did before, and can enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting down to a meal together.

They have hit the ground running.  This morning Gran joined an informal group of painters for a live model painting session.  For lunch, they were game for the half mile walk in the hot sun through the rice paddies to Sari Organic.

We're enjoying showing them around our new town.  We're also looking forward to sightseeing together and just hanging out and catching up.

A Master Maskmaker in Mas

On Thursday, we visited the village of Mas, which borders Ubud.  Mas is the center of woodworking on Bali.

The output of the village is prodigious, with dozens of galleries overflowing with wood carvings.  We stopped by one of the largest galleries which had huge showrooms filled with towering carvings.  The gallery employed a dozen or so woodcarvers on site.  The work ranged from very fine, almost filigreed, detailed carving, to large chimps, a Komodo dragon, and nude figures, to enormous demonic characters out of the Hindu epic tales.  They clearly hoped to satisfy every taste.  One display had large statues of Buddha, a Hindu deity, and Jesus side-by-side.

We then went in search of a well-known mask maker, Ida Bagus Anom Suryawan.  Thanks to Lynn who had saved a clipping from a Washington Post travel piece from last year, we had read a short profile of Anom which spoke glowingly of his work.  After some searching we located his gallery.

Anom is an ebullient, outgoing man of around 40 years old.  He welcomed us in, invited us to have tea and rice crackers, and chatted with us for over an hour.  He had recently returned from Santa Fe and San Francisco where he had been invited to participate in arts and crafts shows.   He had left behind a dozen masks which had been selected by local museums for their collections.

Anom is a Brahmin, a member of the highest caste, and one of the leaders of his village.  His father and uncle were also famous master craftsmen.  He started carving wood at nine, even though he protested because he preferred to be running around playing soccer.  He became a skilled Balinese dancer, performing in roles that required the traditional masks, because his uncle told him he could not successfully carve the masks until he understood the characters they expressed.

Outside a young Briton was sitting cross-legged carving his first mask under Anom's tutelage.  He was an art major back in the UK, had seen Anom's work, and had decided to apprentice himself to Anom to learn mask-making from the master.  It was his third day and he already was showing a lot of talent.

It was somewhat awkward to turn a charming social call to business.  The Washington Post reporter hadn't managed it:

[A]fter an afternoon drinking tea with Anom, I couldn’t find a graceful way to turn our conversation to business. I was even more daunted by the fact that I’d have to bargain with him, arguing over what the hundreds of hours he’d spent carving the mask and applying 40 layers of paint was worth in dollars. So I bade goodbye to my new friend and left without buying the Garuda mask.

But I was covetous of some of the masks, and Anom had dropped some hints that although money isn't the most important thing in life, one still needs money to live.  He didn't take offense when I brazenly asked about the possibility of purchasing his masks.  He quoted prices that seemed quite reasonable, and which he said were much cheaper than the masks had sold for in Santa Fe, so I didn't feel the need to make an awkward attempt at bargaining.

We eventually settled on three rather plain masks (above Lynn's head in the photo below), which although unadorned were quite expressive, and a painted half mask of a monkey face decorated with a horsehair fringe (Anom is removing the mask in a photo below).  We also agreed to return for a matched pair of masks representing the sisters Onion and Garlic from a Balinese folk tale, that Anom had finished carving but still wanted to paint.

Lynn with Anom

Obama in a Balinese headdress.  A commission from a Canadian, who is three years late in paying for and retrieving it.

A fine example of Anom's work, with gold overlaid leather ornamentation.

Anom removing the Monkey face half-mask from the displays of his work.

The British student's first attempt at a mask (top) and Anom's work (below)

Anom's gallery is located in his family compound.  Outside his gallery other family members were working at a large table assembling mass quantities of offerings for the Kuningan festivities.  Kuningan is one of the most important of the Balinese holidays, and Mas was hosting a large festival that weekend.  Anom would be performing the traditional dances wearing masks he had created.

Dishes for the Kuningan festival

Preparing the offerings

Showing the bags of flowers and other items needed to assemble the offerings

Masks hanging on the entrance way to Anom's family compound

We felt fortunate to have been able to get to know the gracious and charming Anom, and to see his wonderful masks.  Anom is a highly talented man producing beautiful works of art.  I had no such talent, but had some rupiah in my wallet.  It seems wrong that masks that required so much talent and effort to produce can be acquired for an amount of money that on my part required so little talent and effort to obtain.

I asked Anom if he ever becomes attached to his masks and regrets selling them.  He said he occasionally grows attached to a mask that he had made, but that he is usually happy to sell them.   I left feeling somewhat less guilty, and with the pleased feeling of now being in possession of works of such high quality craftsmanship.

Photos by Lynn and Nat

Beauty and Destruction in the Rice Paddies

We'd been hearing a lot about Sari Organic, an organic restaurant located a half-mile walk off the main road in the rice fields.  So on Monday, we decided to go there for lunch.

One surprising thing about Ubud is that you can walk a few yards off of a busy, congested street and abruptly find yourself in a calm oasis of rice fields.  It would be as if you walked behind a building on Pennsylvania Avenue and discovered a large meadow stretching off into the distance with cows contentedly grazing.

The path to Sari Organic starts on a small side street off the busy main road in Ubud.  A narrow path leads westward for a hundred yards with buildings on either side, then turns northward.  A few steps later we were in an open vista of rice fields with mountains in the distant horizon.

On the way to Sari Organic

Quickly the idyllic view was interrupted by a sidewalk cutting across the rice paddies leading to a large, newly built villa.

The long sidewalk leading to the villa

It continued like this the whole way to Sari Organic- stretches of rice paddies interrupted by villas, new villas under construction, and signs offering land for sale.

large construction site in the midst of the rice paddies

another view of same site

a large building under construction at a different construction site

view of the rice paddies

farmer at work

                                                           short video of the farmer at work

selling the rice paddies

One of the problems with building in the rice paddies is that not only does it destroy productive farm land, but it also disrupts the system of irrigation that has been in place for generations where water flows from one rice paddy, to an adjoining rice paddy, using an elaborate system of channels and terracing.  When a villa is built on a former rice paddy, it disrupts the flow of water, making the adjoining rice paddies less productive, which means that they in turn are more likely to be sold for development.  In this way large sections of rice paddies are turned into rows of villas.

Another problem is that the rice paddy that has belonged to a farming family and provided them a livelihood over many generations is gone for good.  The sudden windfall from the sale is often unwisely spent, and what was once a self-sufficient family can be left impoverished.  As we were told by a young Balinese man who comes from a family of farmers, the money from the sale brings bad luck.  In his view, nothing good could come from selling the family rice paddy.

The issue of building villas in the rice paddies is emblematic of the larger problem facing Bali - how to benefit from new development and the surge in tourism without it destroying the beauty that attracts people to Bali in the first place.

Bali has very little infrastructure for handling waste and almost no recycling programs, so the countryside is filling up with trash and every rainstorm washes huge quantities of plastics and other trash into the surrounding ocean where they float in the water and wash up on the beaches.

Tourism has brought huge, oversized tourist buses that are much too large for Ubud's narrow streets and cause awful congestion.  Traffic is growing ever worse, but there is no plan in place to manage the traffic or to create parking areas outside of town with shuttle service to help unclog the roads.

I hope that Bali can find the elusive balance of preserving its traditions and its natural beauty while improving its quality of life thanks to tourism on what is still a largely impoverished island.

On a happier note, our trip to Sari Organic was a success as we enjoyed a delicious meal prepared with organic food grown in Sari's nearby garden.  I don't know whether Sari Organic itself is located on a former rice paddy, but it is right on the main path where other local buildings are located and it is providing a valuable service by demonstrating organic farming methods. (Update:  the land for Sari Organic was donated to the restaurant by the local village.  It is also the only restaurant we've found that doesn't charge a sales tax - perhaps another pro-development tax incentive from the village?)

entrance to Sari Organic

Lynn and Alexa enjoying lunch

view of a farmer's house from our table

another view from our table

cutting grass beside the path with Sari Organic in the background

we passed boys fishing in the stream on our walk back

We Love Gili Air!

Green School is on a six-day break, so we took a ferry with about 15 other Green School families to Gili Air.  Gili Air is a speck of an island a few hundred meters off the coast of Lombok, the next sizable island east of Bali.  (Confusingly, "Air" means "water" in Indonesian.)

The pace of life is much slower on Gili Air.  It has a tiny "port" where you disembark directly on the beach.  It has only about 1500 residents, and is dotted with cottages and beach-side restaurants.  There are no paved roads, no cars, no scooters -- no motorized transportation of any kind.  Small horse-drawn carts are used for moving goods and transporting tourists.  Otherwise everyone rides bikes or walks. 

The joke among the Green School parents was that we came to Gili Air because we needed a break from the stress and bustle of Bali.  But there is truth in that joke; it is relaxing to have a break from the chaotic traffic, motorbike noise, and constant hum of activity on Bali.  The only noise here is the crowing of roosters and the occasional jangle of bells on the passing horse-drawn carts.  The beaches are gorgeous stretches of white sand, with views of the lovely green mountains of Lombok.

We spent a day snorkeling from a glass-bottom boat in coral reefs that teemed with colorful fish.  After a lot of messing around with their equipment, Alexa and Charlotte really enjoyed snorkeling.  The day included a stop on an even smaller island for a lunch and a visit to a locally-run turtle hatchery.  The kids had a chance to feed the baby turtles, which was a hit with everyone.

The rest of the days we spent hanging out on the beach or the pool and eating at the beach-side restaurants, with the most vigorous activity being a bike ride around the island.  The restaurants served surprisingly good meals from very basic kitchens.  Freshly caught fish barbequed over burning coconut husks were delicious.  The girls enjoyed pizzas made in a wood burning oven that was located right next to the main street.

Alexa said "It is nice to get out of a car and to ride around the island with the wind in my ears feeling free." 

The girls were both brave, riding bikes on bumpy, muddy streets with deep puddles, often in the dark and in the rain.  Alexa had an encounter with rambunctious tourists playfully blocking the road when she was trying to ride her bike home from a restaurant on a nearly pitch-black stretch of road.  Luckily she was able to avoid a collision.  Charlotte tried out a mountain bike that was too big for her; there were almost no kid-sized bikes available for rent.

Gili Air is just a couple of hours by fast ferry from Bali, but it has a different indigenous population (called Sasak) and different flora and fauna.  Like the rest of Indonesia, but unlike Bali, it is Muslim.  Most people greet you with hello (or "hey Rasta!" if you have dreadlocks), but the residents seem more wary and reserved than the Balinese.  The folks selling sarongs and jewelry on the beach are amiable but very persistent.

We had several sighting of five-foot long monitor lizards here, one crossing the path just in front of Charlotte while she was on her bike.  Cows lazed about small fields munching grass.  Hens, roosters, and cats scurried by our breakfast spot.

The kids in our group ran in packs.  Alexa and Charlotte spent hours playing with their school mates on the beach and in the pool, even in the rain.   We extended our stay for an extra day to have another day on the beach, but it then rained non-stop for 24 hours.

For us, it's been a good chance to get to know other Green School parents.  The Managing Director and Acting Principal are here with their families, along with other faculty members.  In our little cluster of bungalows we have the new Upper School Maths teacher from Australia with his young family, and a family of five from England.

Posted by Lynn & Nat

We left Bali on Galungan, a major holiday, where beautiful "penjors" lined the streets

Even the motors on our ferry received offerings for good luck

the harbor at Gili Air

another view of the harbor

fishing boat in the harbor

A horse drawn cart like the one that took all four of us and our luggage from the port to our bungalow

Behind our bungalow

Charlotte with buddy in the pool

Alexa in the hammock in the crow's nest atop our bungalow

The crow's nest of the adjacent bungalow

the scene on board the glass-bottom snorkeling boat

the turtle hatchery

a useful correction on a sign seeking donations at the turtle hatchery

A gorgeous day at the beach

Charlotte on the beach

A five-foot monitor lizard shortly after it crossed our path

waiting to pick us up for our trip back to the harbor

the English family who had the bungalow next to ours

view of Lombok from our cart

from the ferry, returning to Bali