Chiang Mai - land of temples

In Bali, the girls are learning Hindu ceremonies.  In Chiang Mai, they learned to be good Buddhists.

Charlotte devoutly joined other worshipers in walking around one of the holiest shrines in Thailand, Wat Phrathat, located on a mountain top overlooking Chiang Mai.

Alexa also did many circuits around the shrine, and in addition received a blessing from a monk at the temple.  Charlotte made the donation- she loves putting money into donation boxes - but was too shy to receive the blessing.

Later, back in Chiang Mai, the whole family made offerings at a nearby temple and received a blessing from a monk.

Shortly after we received our blessing, a senior monk gave his blessing to a new car.  We don't know whether the car received a better blessing than we did.

Chiang Mai was the first stop on our twelve-day trip to Thailand and Laos.  It is the largest city in northern Thailand and a major tourist destination.  It is popular with tourists for its many temples and for providing an accessible way to get a taste of Southeast Asian culture, see elephants and visit the nearby hill tribes.

For us, it was a bit of a reverse experience, giving us a taste of a large, bustling, fairly modern city after living near a small town in a rural area of Bali.  Chiang Mai is like a much bigger brother to Ubud.  It is the center of a metropolitan area with over one million residents, has the largest university complex in northern Thailand, and receives millions of foreign visitors each year.

We stayed at a lovely hotel called Tamarind Village, in a tranquil spot near the center of the old town.  It had a large tamarind tree in the main courtyard, which was lit up beautifully at night.  The breakfast buffet featured an almost dizzying array of delicious western and Asian foods.  The hotel was a big hit with the girls because the staff was very friendly and led organized activities each afternoon.  The girls learned how to make ceremonial flower arrangements and flag banners.  The hotel also organized the visit and gifts to the monastery above where we received our family blessing.

We whizzed around Chiang Mai in tuk-tuks - motorcyle taxis.  Our first day we visited a couple of temples located within Chiang Mai.  In addition to the many gilded images of Buddha, one of the oddities were the many tiny figurines that looked like children's toys on shrines and temples.

our first tuk-tuk ride

figurines at the feet of elephant statues at a large temple

carving on exit doorway

The next day we hired a driver to take us to nearby attractions.  We visited a royal palace in the hills in the midst of a rain shower.  A large pool with swirling fountains was a highlight.  The shrine next to the pool had more of the tiny figurines.

Then we visited Wat Phrathat, mentioned above, taking a cable car up the steep mountainside to the temple on the top.  We spent a couple of hours exploring the many fascinating aspects of the large temple complex.

the golden chedi

Alexa ringing one of the many bells lining the temple

Buddha figure protected by seven Nagas

Charlotte signing her name to a golden cloth that will be wrapped around the shrine

Buddha seemingly looking at a worshiper

ornaments around the central shrine, with a signed golden fabric wrapping the shrine in the background

temple garden

After returning from the temple, we drove on to visit a "demonstration" hill tribe village, where several highland tribes live in a small village conveniently set-up for tourists.  The biggest draw are the long-necked Karen women.  I'll write up a separate post on this visit, which left us with a somewhat queasy feeling since it felt like visiting a human zoo that exploited the vulnerable economic and political position of these ethnic minority groups.

a woman used to having her photo taken

We spent our last full day in Chiang Mai visiting the local markets and taking a boat tour of the large river that flowed through town, the Ping.  The morning market stretched for blocks and was for local residents of Chiang Mai and surrounding areas.  We wandered through stalls dripping with flowers, every variety of dried fish, rows of stalls selling similar clothing, the meat area where the butchering was done out in the open, and other sections for prepared foods and household items.

After lunch we took a scorpion-tailed boat ride along the Ping.  Our guide benefited from having us as a captive audience as he regaled us with the umpteenth telling of his lame jokes. 

our guide claiming that an ingredient that was used to make 45s came from local trees

local alcohol with a venomous bite

the local version of an outboard motor

That evening we visited the large outdoor market.  Several blocks are closed off and turned over to the market.  It was a combination of shopping, street food and carnival.  Entertainers and beggars lined the center of the street.  Stalls were selling all types of food.  Mini-amusement parks had sprung up on side streets.  It took us a couple of hours to walk the length of the market taking in the endless variety on display.

A group of blind musicians.  They were quite good.  Charlotte contributed to many of those who were asking for donations.

on-the-spot glass blowing

Charlotte trying her luck at tossing darts to pop balloons.  The darts often bounced off the balloons.  Charlotte did better than many of the adults who gave it a try.

Slideshow


Photos:  Nat, Lynn, and Alexa

Living in a country where people make $3 a day

We recently learned that Ibu Made and Dewa Putu, our pembantus, or household helpers, earn less than $90 per month for working six days a week, eight hours a day - or less than $4 per day.  We knew that they didn't earn much, but we didn't know it was so little.

We didn't hire them, we didn't select them, and we don't pay them.  They were hired by the property manager and are paid by the landlord.  They were working at the villa before we arrived, and will likely continue working here after we leave.  In other words, it isn't our doing that their salary is so low.

Their work is general care of the villa and cleaning: sweeping, doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the pool, doing food shopping at times, some light cooking, and catching the occasional bat.

It is hard for us to get our heads around the fact that they earn so little.  But this is a standard wage in Bali.  The majority of Balinese live on this much or less.  I assume that both Ibu Made and Dewa Putu are staying at this job because it is better than other alternatives available to them, even though Dewa Putu can speak Japanese and once worked as a salesman in an art gallery.

Dewa Putu making an offering poolside - perhaps to the spirit of the water

We feel qualms when purchasing small indulgences.  A pint of Haagen-Dazs costs $8.  Yes, it is expensive, but sometimes we want to splurge on decent ice cream, especially when we have guests over.  But then we think that we just spent the equivalent of what Made and Putu make in two days on a pint of ice-cream, and then that small indulgence feels excessive.

One long-time expat told us that she hides receipts and cuts the price tags off of items before bringing them home, so that neither she nor her pembantus have to confront so clearly the extreme differences in wealth, nor how the pembantu's labor is valued so little compared to the trinkets the expat is purchasing.

Back in the U.S. it is easier to be sheltered from the ramifications of a decision to spend a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars on some nice bauble.  Here where the person who is helping you unpack that bauble is only making $3 a day and can't afford life's necessities, the ramifications of the choice are clearer.

Living in Bali as an expat requires a form of double-think.  When interacting with Balinese, I often translate prices into day-wages equivalent.  If I am buying a wood carving or a piece of fabric, and learn that it took three days to make the piece, then I'll assume that paying anything over $10-$15 would be overpaying.  Since bargaining is a part of every transaction, I'll use that as a gauge in negotiating and when the seller asks $30 for that piece that took three days to make then I will think that the asking price is too high and will try to negotiate the price down to no more than $15.

Often I will bargain hard to save $1 on something that is already inexpensive and but then I'll go out to dinner and order a drink that costs $8 without a second thought.  I know that I'm being a jerk for depriving an artisan who is making barely a subsistence wage of an extra dollar that means so much more to him or her than it does to me.  Yet on the other hand I don't want to pay well more than the standard price just because I am a tourist, and it also feels like it is more of genuine interaction if I try to negotiate like a local.

Another consideration is that newly arrived expats paying inflated prices can distort the local economy, increasing prices, and making it harder for locals or long-term expats to buy what they need.  Long-term expats often grumble that newcomers who don't know the local pricing often overpay.  This leads to pockets of inflation, as prices rise to what the newcomers are willing to pay, making costs rise for everyone else.

Many long-term expats are not independently wealthy and need to watch their rupiah.  They may have spent years abroad in the Peace Corps or working for non-profits, or are working in Bali at local wage scales, so are trying to stretch a tight budget.  Land prices and rents on rental properties are skyrocketing as new arrivals pay the inflated rental rates which in turn is forcing some long-term expats out of homes they have lived in for years. 

Is the correct response for us to try to 'meet in the middle'?  Should we be willing to pay much higher than local rates, but still well less than DC rates, in an effort to help pull more Balinese out of poverty?

The rates paid for babysitters is an example of a pocket where wage rates are highly inflated compared to standard wages.  We pay our babysitters $5 an hour.  Coming from DC where the standard rate is $15 an hour, our first thought was that this is quite a bargain.  The babysitters are warm, patient women with their own children who speak English well, are experienced and come highly recommended.

When we come home from an evening out, we'll pay the babysitter $30 for giving the girls dinner, playing games with them, putting them to bed and sitting around for an hour.  But then we'll realize that we just paid them more for that evening's light duty than Ibu Made or Dewa Putu make in a week.  So did we just grossly overpay? There are almost certainly cheaper babysitters, but we are using ones that have an expat seal of approval and have leveraged that into a fairly substantial hourly rate compared to local wage scales.

But other experienced English speakers who work with tourists make much less.  Tour guides make around $6 a day according to our driver, Dewa, and rely on tips to make up the rest.  Even with many tourists in Bali flinging dollars around, wages are held in check because there is a huge supply of labor.  There are hundreds of thousands of people making less than $4 a day doing hard manual labor, or working in shops, who would gladly jump at a 25% pay increase to earn $5 a day working with tourists.  So employers don't need to increase wages that much to attract quality staff.

Before when Bali was uniformly poor and agricultural, prices for everything were low, and it was possible for locals to survive on very little money.  But now prices are rising as tourist dollars trickle into certain segments of the economy.  The cost of rice is a multiple of what it used to be.  Land prices are much more expensive.  Before very few even had motorbikes, now they are seen as a necessity even if one can't afford them, so many people take out loans at 2.5% interest per month to buy a motorbike.  Many can't keep up the payments so the motorbikes are repossessed.  The local population of Bali is starting to split into an island of "haves" and "have-nots" which makes it even harder for the farmers and fishermen to survive.

So paying the Balinese who work most closely with tourists much higher wages helps those Balinese, but can disadvantage all those who don't benefit from the tourist economy.

I suppose the answer is not to try to single-handedly solve the problem of wealth disparity.  Simply by participating in the local economy, and helping to support local jobs and local merchants, we are in a small way helping the local standard of living to slowly increase, even if we try to only pay 'local' rates.

Living here makes me wonder even more about disparities of wealth.   How is it that the U.S. is so wealthy and Bali is so poor.  Is it largely self-inflicted?  What can the Balinese do to improve their standard of living?

I've watched a carpenter who was helping put up an addition at the most popular yoga studio in town make small square-shaped pieces of wire by laboriously forming those pieces of wire into a square shape by bending them against a crude frame of nails hammered into a board.  When all you have to offer is manual labor, especially if others have figured out how to automate what you do manually, then you are in rough shape.

Ibu Made helping Charlotte make frangipani wands

We periodically give Ibu Made and Dewa Putu tips of about $10 apiece.  It is a small gesture and we are glad that they appreciate it.  But it is also hard when I see how deeply appreciative they are, and how much it means to them.

We don't have any answers.  We take our cues from expats who have lived here many years.  They behave much as a local would, I suppose, paying a fair, perhaps even generous wage, but not greatly overpaying.

We heard a story of how a well-meaning expat family who when the time came for them to leave Bali gave their motorbike to their pembantu, only to have the pembantu ostracized by her entire village for receiving such an undeserved windfall.

So we contribute our dollars to the local economy.  I still often bargain hard, and we give periodic tips to our staff.

But no matter what approach I take, it doesn't quite feel right.

Driving in Bali

Schoolkids walking and biking and vendors pushing pushcarts on one side of you, while cars and trucks whiz straight at you only to duck back into their lanes at the last possible split-second.  When passing, Dewa drives straight at oncoming motorcycles forcing them to the side of the road to avoid a collision.  You'll experience more near-miss head-on collisions in an hour of driving in Bali than you would in a year of driving in the US. 

Here's a short clip (minus head-on collisions) of the view from the car while driving along back roads on the way to taking Lynn and the girls to a horse riding class.

It's like a video game where things are coming at you from all directions, but the consequences of a mistake are serious.

I recently drove in Bali for the first time.  I had been looking for an excuse to drive.  I was feeling a little wimpy for not driving in Bali, especially since many expats did, and wanted to try driving myself.  The opportunity came when Dewa told us he would be unavailable for two days because of ceremonies for his father-in-law's mother who had recently died.

Rather than hire a different driver, I asked our property manager, who has a side business renting cars, to rent us one of his cars.  He arranged for a Toyota Avanza minivan to be dropped off at our villa.  It is the same car that Dewa drives and that many expats drive.  It comfortably holds 7-8 people.

Less than five minutes after pulling onto the main road on my initial practice drive, I broke the side view mirror.  I banged it against a tree growing alongside the road as I hugged the shoulder too tightly to avoid oncoming traffic.

I was driving with several strikes against me-

1.  Aside from a couple of days of driving in Australia, I hadn't driven for over six months.
2.  I was driving on the wrong side of the road.
3.  I was driving in Balinese traffic on narrow roads.
4.  I was unfamiliar with the dimensions of the minivan.

The last one was the biggest problem.  I felt very uncomfortable driving without having an intuitive feel for the dimensions of the vehicle when constantly needing to navigate situations with only inches to spare on either side.  With time I would have developed that feel, but by then it may have been too late.

I didn't want to risk anything more serious than a broken side-view mirror, so handed the keys back and requested a smaller car.  The next car was a battered jeep without seat belts, so that went back too.

Finally I rented a small Suzuki Swift "city car" from on online car rental site.  The owner claimed it was the only one of its kind in Ubud.  He lived in the next village and the car was sitting in his driveway.  So I motorbiked over, rented the car for a little over a day, and was charged the rate for two full days.  The owner said that I should consider myself lucky as the standard minimum rental was five days.

Our 'just right' car

We drove around Ubud for the rest of that day and the next in our little car.  It felt good to experience that sense of normalcy that comes from being able to drive my family around myself.  I felt comfortable with the dimensions so wasn't anxious every time I passed a bicyclist that I was either going to kill the bicyclist or run into an on oncoming car.

We survived the couple of days of driving without injuring anyone or damaging the car.

I gained a sense of confidence that I could drive in Bali traffic.  But I was also relieved the day after returning the car when Dewa showed up.

Driving is stressful, dangerous and exhausting.  But the main reason not to drive, as mentioned in a previous post, is that there is too high a chance of an accident, and as a foreigner any accident will be my fault and is likely to be extremely expensive.

I hadn't even saved any money driving myself, as I had to pay for a day of the Avanza rental and to replace the broken mirror and had to pay for two full days of the Suzuki Swift, which was an expensive car, and to pay for gas.  It would be somewhat cheaper to drive if I rented a less expensive car long-term, but not by that much. 

While I miss the freedom of driving our family in our own car, and was glad to have had a taste of driving in Bali, the right decision for us is to continue to use a driver.

Sanur Kite Festival

We spent the day at the Sanur Kite Festival which takes on the beach in Sanur. The festival attracts large crowds who come to see kites flown by teams from across Bali who compete for bragging rights and cash prizes. 
Charlotte bought a small kite and had a lot of fun running along the surf as she tried to keep it aloft.

Slideshow

Update: An eight-year old boy died the day that we attended when one of the large fish-shaped kites (shown in the top photo) crashed to ground.

Cockfight in Silungan

We returned from our trip to north Bali to find our street blocked by a large table holding offerings for a ceremony and a group of men huddled together nearby.  "Cockfight" said Dewa.

After we unpacked, I wandered over to see for myself.

A cockfight was just finishing.  Money was changing hands.  A losing rooster, still alive, lay in the gutter.

Watching the cockfight

the loser

a bet is paid off

butchering the loser

We'd been told that cockfights often occur during temple ceremonies.  I was struck by the contrast of the beautiful, painstakingly arranged offerings with the brutal violence of the cockfight.

table laden with offerings

Dewa Made Putra was there.  He owns the field next to our villa and often hangs around the front of the neighboring villa talking with one of his friends on the staff there.  One evening I had joined them in a dinner of roast chicken that they had cooked on a spit over a fire of coconut husks at the entrance to our driveway.  Another time I had bought coconuts from him that he had climbed a palm tree to cut down.  I had seen him on a few occasions holding his fighting rooster so wasn't surprised to see him there. Another cockfight soon began.

cockfight preliminaries

waiting to fight

A man wandered through the crowd holding a case filled with many small blades.  He would select blades to tie to the feet of the roosters who were fighting next.

It was getting dark, the flash on my phone stopped working as the battery was too low, I didn't know whether my photo-taking was welcomed, and I had seen all I wanted to see, so I left.

Seeing the cockfight was a reminder that we live in a poor, gritty, agricultural village.  Even though Silungan is only a few minutes from Ubud, it has an altogether different character and no services or shops for tourists. 

Our villa and the adjacent villa are plopped down in the middle of the grassy fields and palm trees on the outskirts of Silungan as if from a different planet.  We may be in their village, but we certainly aren't of their village.  So far they seem to tolerate our presence, and I hope they continue to do so.

These men around the cockfight are our neighbors in the village.  Not all the men we knew from the village were there.  Based on a few conversations we've had, opinion on cockfighting seems fairly evenly split, with roughly half participating and the other half staying away.  The reasons for staying away are a combination of distaste for the violence and not wanting to lose money gambling.

This was a small, informal cockfight.  Much larger fights are held in the Ubud area, and throughout Bali, in dedicated cockfighting rings that can hold hundreds of spectators.  A video taken by an expat living in Ubud at one of these cockfights can be found here.