Meander: Bali

Bali seems to be a wondrous island, hot and sunny, or hot with sudden violent tropical storms. (It is the rainy season). Although I have been here a week and a half, I feel as though I only have a kaleidoscope of images and impressions of the place. Everywhere is abundant greenery, verdant gardens offering patterned shade beneath the lush ferns and palms, in between the urban chaos, even in the smallest places are gardens or rice paddies, in every stage of cultivation.

The beach

Sun Set

Procession for new years

Street scene

The streets are filled with low powered motorbikes driven by men, women, teenagers the elderly, most without helmets, and many bikes with three or more passengers including small children. Often the young children are hiding inside their parents obligatory large square biking pac-a-mac which is flapping behind them. Some bikes are laden with huge baskets or panniers or small display stands obscuring the driver completely from behind. The roads are narrow and windy and filled with vehicles and people. The shops are a mixture of very western shops with glass fronts, air conditioning and high prices, or small stalls with dirty tarpaulins in front to obscure both the sun and the wares. There are workshops too, and it seems that everything is sold somewhere, there is such variety. I have seen woven mats for floors or walls, bamboo blinds, place mats and baskets of every description: small ones for fruit, big ones for laundry or ali babas men, and bird cages. Clothes of every description, although mainly skimpy beach wear and board shorts here in Seminyak. Carved wooden doors, stylish pinnacles for your roof made from tile, fruit stalls smelling of pungent banana and selling exciting and exotic fruit. (We bought some small round fruits with blueish brown leathery skins, on opening they have five segments of soft white flesh the size and shape of large garlic cloves, one of which has a stone, tasting so sweet and a little like lychee.) There are scrawny cockerels everywhere and organised cockfights are common. The cows, dainty honey coloured creatures like Bambi are tethered with blue nylon rope through their noses.

Everywhere one looks there are religious statues, temples, offerings, or merely decorations. Small square baskets filled with colourful flowers and fruit are everywhere, many of the statues are covered with black and white checked fabric skirts, and the temples are enticing buildings within high walls covered with decorations. The people, all smiling and polite are so welcoming, so far we haven't seen any beggars, and those offering services accept the first, no thank you, with a smile. Bali seems to have much of the exoticness of India, but without the chaos, the mess, and the poverty.
This week is the new year here, so we have seen many big processions of villagers dressed in white walking to the beaches with decorated carts carrying religious icons, accompanied by music: symbols and bells and I believe parts of the Gamelan. Tonight we hope to go out to see the huge grotesque wicker and papier mache and painted figures of the ogoh ogoh carried in procession and then burned. Tomorrow is the day of silence when everyone in Bali hides indoors, no music no lights, no sign of life so that when the demons visit they believe the island is uninhabited and leave it alone for another year. Even tourists are subject to these rules and severe punishments are metered out to those caught out.

So far we have been at 'surf camp' a hotel which is focused around surfing, so there are two trips out everyday to different beaches, and the local surf school collects from the hotel for lessons. The whole set up seems bizarre and full of contradictions. The hotel is beautiful with a lush green garden, thatched roofs and a lovely swimming pool, but the restaurant has been out of action for a week, and every time it rains (everyday almost) the rooms are all flooded, an inch or two of water across the tiles, wet feet when you get out of bed is normal, and in one of the storms one of the gazebos fell down completely! Surf school is great but sometimes reorganised and the cars aren't always on time meaning I am never totally sure what I am doing that day. Surf trips too this week, due to the bad weather have been unpredictable, and sometimes I will try to do something but the trip gets changed so that as a total beginner it is less appealing and I find myself slightly bored at the hotel all afternoon with a beautiful swimming pool- such a hard life! Also I hadn't realised that we would be based at the German speaking surf camp- which this week has turned into the Finnish speaking surf camp, Christof who is better at surfing so abandoned surf school and has done lots of trips and speaks German and is less shy than I, seems to be fully integrated, whereas I seem to have a friendly conversation and then find myself back reading my history book! (Thank goodness for my kindle, I'm reading a fab history of Britain and have greatly enjoyed the murders, intrigues, squabbles and misdemeanours of the English monarchy from the 400's onwards. I'm approaching 1066 today). The hotel, deliberately chosen to be quiet is very rural, which means one has to get a car to go anywhere, and sometimes the traffic is so bad it takes hours.

Surfing is hard! I can stand maybe half on my runs and have learned to turn, its great fun and the water is so warm its wonderful! I am hoping that learning to snowboard will be easy compared to surfing, there is so much to get right, and so much relies on the speed and agility with which one can stand up- I feel like I'm at the clambering up stage! It is so nice learning here because you can stay in until tired instead of getting out numb with cold. The instructors are great too, and I find it amazing watching them convey their ideas in English- not the native tongue, to native German or Finnish speakers, it works- and I am full of admiration.

We have also been to some art galleries, a small holding growing coffee with what seemed like a small zoo- we were introduced in turn to the python, the owl, the rabbit, some other furry creatures, a bat the size of a large cat and then, much to my amusement, the 99 year old granny. We visited a sacred monkey sanctuary, an amazing place rather like an Indiana Jones film set, with ancient stone carvings, bizarre sculptures, temples, a river with gated bridge, all set amongst an ancient forest with enormous trees with curtains of dangly branches, which in turn form roots. Everything was covered with bright green moss. To Christof's delight and my anxiety, the place was filled with monkeys. Big monkeys and baby monkeys, the place was littered with them. It was an amazing place.