Back in November, I had asked my son Reid if he would be
able to take time off to join me somewhere in Oceania.
He was happy to get out of the Portland rain
in January, and we made plans for him to arrive in Indonesia on the 14
th.
I was waiting with the taxi driver at the airport and we
headed back to Ubud for the instant immersion in Balinese culture. We had a lovely guesthouse right next to the
monkey forest temple, which I knew that my son the animal lover would enjoy.
Conversation between me and the porter as he showed me my
room on the balcony two days before Reid’s arrival:
Porter: When leeb room, make sure close balcony. No feed monkeys because if no food next day,
monkey remember and they come in room.
Me: OK. I won’t
feed the monkey. Do I need to close
these windows also? (there were windows on the side of the room)
Porter: Yes.
Monkey can climb in there too.
Me: OK. What about
at night? Can I leave the windows open
at night? Or will the monkeys come in
when I am sleeping? (I wanted to
have fresh air in the room)
Porter: OK to open
window at night because monkeys all sleeping in forest.
Reid recovered quickly from jet lag and we spent our time in
Ubud visiting the monkey forest temple together, attending a Balinese dance
performance, sampling Indonesian food, and taking a bike tour of rural
Bali.
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| Could not resist this shot |
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| Reid and friend |
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| The monkey grabbed someone's drink |
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| Monkey forest temple sample |
The bike tour was the highlight of our time in Ubud – we
were driven to the crater of Bali’s biggest volcano, and boarded bicycles for a
(mostly) downhill cruise through rice fields and village lanes, including a
visit to a Balinese family compound. Our
guide was a charming and enthusiastic Balinese young man who told us that he
had grown up watching the cyclists go by his village and decided that he wanted
to be a bike trek guide.
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| Inside the family compound |
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| The family kitchen |
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| The laundry room |
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| Family members all contribute as they can |
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| Biking among the rice fields |
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| Rural lane lined with family compounds |
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| Add caption |
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| 1500 year old banyan tree |
Balinese culture is very community oriented and he explained
how families live, work and pray together.
Seeing the village explained why all Balinese I met were astonished to
hear that my son and I did not live together.
Another interesting tidbit: there are only 4 traditional names in
Bali. The first child is typically named
Wayan, the next Madé, the next Nyoman and the fourth Ketut. With the fifth child the sequence begins
again. For this reason I met many
Ketuts, Wayans, Madés and Nyomans!
We finished the day with tickets to a Balinese dance, held in a local temple.
From Ubud, we flew to Yogjakarta (alternatively spelled
Jogjakarta, Djogjakarta, Yogyakarta…..).
The difference between artsy, charming Ubud and the bustling big city of
Yogya was striking – it’s a sprawling landscape of tin and tile roofs, concrete
block and back alleys, where taxis, motorbikes, buses and becaks, weave among
each other in a constant stream.
I was
pleasantly surprised when our taxi pulled up to a very modern hotel (I had made
bookings sight unseen) where we had a double room that would be considered
deluxe by US standards, although it cost less than the hostel dorms I had been
staying in in Australia!
It had a lap
pool and a buffet feast for breakfast, all for less than $30.
We opted to ride in a becak on our first day, as we had
several stops along the inner city. The
becak drivers speak pretty good English and ours was quite informative, waiting
for us at each stop and giving us tips on good local places to eat. We would come out from our stop and find him
sitting in the ancient becak checking his cell phone for messages – Indonesia
is even more wired than the US, and EVERYONE has a smart phone.
Our first stop was the Biology Museum, which Reid had seen
mentioned in a tourist map. The museum
was not mentioned in my Lonely Planet guide so I didn't expect to find many
tourists there. Sure enough, when we
arrived it was locked (by padlock).
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| He looks a lot less ferocious with so little fur |
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| Reid and elephant skeleton |
But,
sitting outside was a guy who had the key and let us in to wander as long as we
liked through the 8 dusty rooms filled with tired taxidermy of Indonesian birds
and beasts.
I am sure when the museum
was opened that it was a sensation, but it had definitely seen far better
days.
The stuffed tiger’s fur had been
lost in so many places that they had resorted to plastering and painting over
the straw stuffing.
It was an
interesting insight into the meager resources available to budding Indonesian
zoologists.
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| Sultan's batik potholders and utensila |
From the Biology museum we visited the sultan’s palace,
where the personable guide lead us through the museums dedicated to the current
and previous sultans, including a display of the batik potholders used by the
current sultan’s father (he liked to cook).
Inside the sultan’s compound is a complete village, including some cheap
local restaurants where we were the only westerners eating rice with jackfruit
curry and chicken.
We were half through
our rice when we realized that the wandering guitarist was playing “Country
Road” as a tribute to our visit – he was quite proud to know an American song.
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| Bird market vendor |
A visit to the main market and to the ‘bird market’ rounded
out the day.
Of course, the becak driver
had to take us to a batik shop, and we went along for the ride and bought a
small piece for the whopping cost of 70,000 IR (about $6).
The next day we were up at 3:30 a.m. to join a bus heading
for sunrise over Borobudur, a massive Buddhist stupa that is often compared to
Angkor Wat.
The pictures cannot capture
the scale and scope of the carvings and design work covering the stonework,
which was erected over 1300 years ago.
Thousands of bas reliefs based on Hindu and Buddhist legends, as well as
Indonesian life and hundreds of Buddhas.
This is one of Indonesia’s largest tourist attractions, and
school kids from all over the country come on field trips.
Consequently, Reid and I were stopped at
almost every turn by a cluster of darling Indonesian children with
notebooks.
Our next adventure is to head to Medan and then to Ketambe for
a trek to see orang utan in the Sumatran jungle.
