Bali Video

Motor Biking around Bali with Michael, Sara, Rai and Larry.

Gecko, Gecko – who's got the Gecko?

Upon arriving at our Bungalow at the Alam Sari resort in Bali Sara informed me that the bathroom was already occupied. By a twelve inch long Tokay Gecko who was clinging upside to the ceiling. I ran and grabbed the camera but then he was gone. The rest of the week I stalked our reptilian friend trying to capture him for posterity.

Here is our guy after dropping off the ceiling onto my head, floor then rushing up the wall to disappear outside through a crack where the ceiling meets the wall.





This is the ceiling beam that our gecko hung out on – I have a whole lot of pictures of this ceiling beam with no gecko clinging to it. Now there was gecko on it when I first entered the bathroom but by the time I got back with my camera he had flown the coop.





Here’s out guy clutching to to the top of the beam as if it were a rolling log. By the time I could squeeze off another shot he was gone again. I obviously had to come up with another plan. I took our camera and set the focus for the beam then I set the flash and I began creeping into the bathroom at night, in the dark hoping to catch him unaware.





This almost worked but he obviously heard me coming so my next attempt would be even stealthier. I refocused the camera for the general area where he was hanging out and took a couple dozen practice shots.





Almost got him! Next time I will aim a little further to the right and I should get the shot.





The little bastard tricked me – the whole time we’ve been here he has been hanging close to his escape hole and this time he is further into the room. maybe he is getting used to me and the camera.


Well now he disappears for a couple days and I am afraid that my chance to get his portrait may have been squandered. Then one afternoon when we come in early to sit out the daily thunderstorm he is there. Sitting like he is posing. I calmly and quietly walk into the bathroom and click the shutter button a couple time.





Then later that afternoon he posed again – this time for a close up.

Nice getting to know you Mr. Gecko.

What’s the buzz?

The wasps here in Bali are approximately the size of a ballpark frank. After visiting the volcano Batur we got hopelessly lost for a few hours but finally managed to find our way back to Ubud and then to our bungalow in Keliki village – just before the daily rainstorm hit. Sara went to sit out on the porch to wait for the rain and left the sliding doors open inviting the cooler air from the approaching rainclouds in.

Along with the cooler air came the aforementioned wasp buzzing like one of those Cox model airplanes. He zoomed around the room a bit and then bounced a few times up against a glass pane next to the open doors. After hitting the glass a few times though he settled in and began walking on it. The totality of his reality had shifted and he was going with it. Most likely for this insect’s entire existence if he could see through it – he could fly through it, but all of a sudden boom – this portion of the air was solid. So he adjusted, instead of continuing to literally beat his head against it he stopped trying and began walking on it until we walked his way to the other side of the door and then flew away.

That’s how it is travelling to these far flung destinations that Sara and I find ourselves in. When we hit an obstacle seen or unseen we could pound our heads against it or we could just calm down and go with the flow. Here in Bali it has been pretty easy to go with the flow, whether we are motor biking up to the crest of a volcano, following behind Larry and Rai through city traffic on one of their professional shopping excursions, popping that deep fried bit of pork stomach in my mouth at a roadside Babi Guling joint or simply waiting out a thunderstorm in a mountainside wood shed - all is an adventure.

We wrap this stay in Bali up today and get ready to pack up and head to Jakarta in the morning. We fly out of here like a wasp through an open door – but something tells me we’ll be back.

To the Bat Cave!

Now – starting the day by finding a scorpion in your shoe may not usually be an auspicious start but I think it may have forebode the excellent adventure that was in store for us. The alternative to not finding the scorpion before putting on my shoe would have been much more disastrous. Okay, the scorpion wasn’t really IN my shoe – seeing as my shoes are flip flops here – but it was underneath them when I moved them to put them on – and it was a real live scorpion – so that should count for something.

We continued our motor scooter assault of the Island of Bali today under the adept tutelage of our friends Larry and Rai Collins (pronounced rye – like the bread.) We buzzed through the rice fields of Keliki Village and met up with the dynamic duo  in Ubud at 7:30am and headed for the coast. Kids in school uniforms, two and three to a motorbike whizzed by and a steady stream of folks were headed into the city while we headed out.

Along our way we made several stops – some because there was something especially interesting other times merely to combat motorbike butt during our ten hour odyssey. One of our stops was Gua Lawa – a Hindu shrine that comes with the extra special complement of a cave which serves home to several thousand long nosed fruit bats all chattering and basically just hanging out. What we didn’t notice, but I discovered through a bit more research is that the guano slick floors of this bat cave are populated by pythons all fat and lazy, their bellies full of unfortunate bats.

After walking around the temple grounds in our rented sarongs we headed back out on our scooters stopping by a roadside Babi Guling joint. Babi Guling is BBQ pork with the whole thing roasted on a pit after being rubbed in spices and filled with various goodies – here’s a recipe if you decide to try and cook it yourself.

After our snack we headed a couple hours further down the coast  during which we weathered a thunderstorm in a woodshed followed by a rather fancy lunch in a seaside restaurant. On our way back to Ubud we made a side trip to talk with Larry and Rai’s incense supplier – remember these two are the proprietors of City Buddha back home and it has been the serendipitous meeting up with them that has made this trip to Bali a complete success for us.

Anyway – the whole process of incense production was pretty cool. The stuff City Buddha sells is 100% organic and made from natural ingredients, flowers, spices, natural oils and the perfumey concoctions are trade secrets to the woman who manufactures them by hand. Sara and I received some free samples and got a first smell of a cinnamon scent that was pretty darn good.

How Larry finds these folks is a mystery to me we were so far from the beaten path that the local kids came out in throngs to see us, testing their few phrases of English and squealing like Babi Guling candidates when we responded. Sara taught the throng her shortest poem by first rubbing her hair and saying “Shampoo” then rubbing her eyes and saying “Boo Hoo”. The kids chorused it back and we all laughed and laughed.

In fact, pretty much, the whole time here we’ve had a smile on our faces. Tomorrow we ride up to the volcano.

Follow the Leader

So we drove our rented motorbike home to our Bali Bungalow in the dark for the first time tonight. The place we’re staying – the Alam Sari is about 10km outside of Ubud – which by Balinese terms is the boonies via unlit twisting and turning roads, hills, bridges, expanses of rice fields and choruses of chirpy things calling from the jungle that reaches toward the roadway.

Hence, even though my belly was full of a great Japanese meal suggested by and enjoyed with Larry and Rai – I approached the adventure with a bit of trepidation. The early part of the ride was no trouble through the well lit streets and with the traffic of Ubud. But, as we got further from the city the darkness became a canopy and the sporadic oncoming traffic blinded me with bouncing beams of light. Then, just as we made the turn near the temple that prefaced the most daunting portion of our ride another magical Balinese event.

A duck whisperer leads his weed and bug eating flock through a rice paddy.

It seems there was a festival going on at this particular temple and a procession of several dozen folks on foot attired in traditional dress were headed there. In order for the folks to safely make the journey a team of sarong attired men with torches was keeping traffic at bay. So we cued up behind the parade, first one, then three then a dozen or two motorbikes all waiting until the procession turned into the temple courtyard them we were flagged on to continue our journeys. Here’s the magic part. As we took off, the string of motorbikes stretched forward like a strand of Christmas lights extending before us. I could see every twist in the road before me as if candles floating down a river. Then one after another a bike would pull off until one lone rider was before us, and he carried on as we safely arrived home.

Coming home from school.

Today we motor biked south to a village known for its silversmiths where Sara picked up a few things and then to a batik co-op where I scored a couple shirts. We navigated via map by finding our intended destinations and then discerning the general direction, putting the map away and using a compass to keep us on track as we wended our way. We are so enjoying the freedom of traveling the side roads and alleyways.

Women doing batik at the co-op

While walking around the silver village we both accidently stepped in some dog poop. I don’t know why folks say they accidently step in dog poop – I doubt anyone steps in dog poop on purpose. But anyway, after doing so we headed down an alley to look for some water to wash off our flip flops. There are aqueducts all over the place that feed the water from the mountains into the rice fields. As we wandered down this alley we came across a tiny little silver shop that we would have never found otherwise and Sara got some great prices on some earrings and a ring – plus the proprietor fed us some of her home made rice flour bread.

Sara and the Jewelry maker.

Tomorrow we meet up with Larry and Rai again – this time to motor to a black sand beach. I’m sure something or other will happen and by the way things have been going it’ll most likely turn out good.

taiwan on

cooling my heels in Taipei airport waiting for a flight back to the states - 5 hour overlay.

I have a bunch of stuff to post - most is still in note form and will take awhile to get organized. internet access was intermittant at best and usually dial up quality in Indonesia.

But here are a couple pics:

Rice paddy in Kaliki Village, Bali and flags used to scare away birds.

Some kids playing with masks and cymbals in their yard in Ubud, Bali.

It's been a pretty amazing trip - I have at least three or four long posts and a buttload of pics!

Next stop LA.

well hello Bali

On this island the inhabitants make offerings to appease the evil spirits. It's not that the malevolent gods are held in any higher esteem than the "good" deities it's that the flavor of Hinduism adhered by the Balinese (our driver from the airport – himself a practitioner- says it is heavily influence with Buddhism and an even older belief system called Anamism) believes that the best one can hope for is a balance between the two forces. This is how it is explained to me by our hosts at dinner, stepped rice fields and setting sun over their shoulders. So, when the women proffer their gifts to the gods they put one up high in a niche built into a small shrine or atop a stone wall and the second is placed on the ground. The higher offered to the respectable gods the lower for those rakes of disrepute.

I am told that everything Balinese is infused with allusions to this balancing act, religion, art, dance, and not knowing the language I can only assume their literature. It has been written that all Balinese are artists; shopkeepers, airport limo drivers, waitresses all leading duel lives as dancers, musicians, painters, and perhaps even poets. Indeed, we bought a pen, ink and acrylics drawing of Ganesh, the elephant headed Hindu god, from the young man waiting on us at the café where we lunched after our visit to the sacred monkey temple.

You want to talk about a personification of duality? One need only have the twelve pound long tailed macaque that was looking so cute sitting on some temple steps suddenly launch herself onto your head and shoulders to better deduce the possibility of fruit in your backpack. One second you've a cute cuddly photo opportunity and then suddenly a miniature mugger hoping to roll you for bananas and lychee nuts is clutching your neck. Then, once you've acclimated to these little vagabonds to the point that you are scratching the one in your lap behind the ears it will inexplicably jerk its head to you and bare some pretty businesslike canines and hiss. Monkeys got that whole Yin Yang good evil thing down with the nonchalant balance of an acrobat. Not that a native Balinese would describe anything as evil per se, the darker side of the duality is described as not so good – so ya got yourself good and not so good.

We are staying a short walk from a small village called Kaliki which itself is a thirty minute ride up and down hairpin turns through rice fields and past dozens of temples from Ubud, the island of Bali's acknowledged artistic heart . Motorbikes carrying anywhere from one to three passengers, baskets full of livestock or other goods for town are grumbling up the hill along side our little villa then just around another hairpin, honking their approach, they head downhill to Ubud. Here a horn honk doesn't shout get out of my way, rather it announces, "Here I am" or "here I come!" with staccato bursts reminiscent of tree frog or gecko.

Our vista is coconut palm, banana and the incredulously fast growing balsa trees along with an infinite coagulation of extraordinary lush green vegetation pollacked with color splashes of aromatic flora. Across the valley terraced rice paddies imitate temple steps climbing to the top of a ridge past which Mount Agung is playing hide and seek behind a miasma of humid clouds. We are inland away from the beaches and night clubs. Gamalong music mixes with dogs' barking, and birdsongs wafting up from below. Roosters crow throughout the day with no regard to their traditional morning duties as avian alarm clocks. They, as the rest of those folks indigenous or fully acclimated to this island, work according to their own chronometer – a system known as "rubber time."

The Kecak pronounced Ket-check both syllables equally emphasized and in rapid progression, does start pretty close to the time promised on the tickets we bought from a young man dressed in sarong and headscarf on the main street of Ubud though. The version of the Kecak Ramayana dance that we see is one half traditional sacred ritual and one half entertainment for the audience sake. Actually Kecak is the vocalization that accompanies the dance produced by one hundred men chanting in intricate and multi layered patterns most evocative to my western mind of the sound of trains clattering down the track. That is of course assuming that these trains could syncopate poly-rhythms intermixed with long tones, and shouted asides while performing mass Bugsby Berkleyesque choreography. The basic refrain sounds like "check- check- check." This show is also known in English as the Monkey Dance. The chorus, sitting cross legged, forms a large inward facing circle wherein the principle dancers perform the story that is the Ramayana to the rhythmic chanting and synchronized movements surrounding them.

The Ramayana is a Hindu tale involving Rama and Sita, monkey generals leading monkey armies, giants, jesters and your general Hindu caste of thousands told in four parts. The story is as complicated as it is enthralling to watch and is best when allowed to wash over one like a Bali cloudburst accepting the fact that the drenching one receives is refreshing, cleansing and probably just what you need. In the end, as I understood it, the vanquished giant antagonist's lifeless body is prepared for acceptance in heaven by the heroes of the saga. See, the giant wasn't bad – he was just in his nature to be not very good, so his acceptance into the afterlife is presupposed since he was only doing what he was meant to be, and more importantly doing it well.

To be cont…