Day 28: Puri Saren, traditional Balinese dance

We attended a performance of the Legong and Barong dances accompanied by a 20 piece gamelan orchestra. The Barong is a magical creature danced by two people in a costume, and frequently accompanied by a monkey. But in spite of its being a powerful benevolent spirit, the borong didn't have much more success in getting the monkeys to behave than we did.

Day 28: around Ubud

Slathered in sunscreen and repellent, we took to the streets of Ubud, Bali's cultural hub in the center of the island and mecca of craft-wood and stone caving, textiles, leather, woven goods, jewelery, dance, painting, art, antiques, and whatever else I'm forgetting.

They may have embraced capitalism but their religious duties are not neglected. Bali has more practicing Hindus than other Indonesia islands so there are many ancient temples, rituals performed, and evidence of offerings and talismans in town.

Except at our bungalow's little shrine. I'm thinking this is why our bungalow struggles with evil spirits so.

Day 28: monkey sanctuary in Ubud

On our loop around Ubud center, we stopped in the Monkey Forest Sanctuary to escape the heat. We declined to buy bananas from the vendor inside since it seemed less provocative. We had been warned that the monkeys are not just curious but rather snatchy when it comes to visitors bearing snacks. Not only that but you sit down long enough, you're bound to have a monkey on your back. Yeah, really. By the end of our tour, both J and I had close encounters. It seems that the hairy buggers have figured out that if you puncture water bottles with your teeth, you get sweet tasting purified water. Store bought bottles are easy but check out their work on J's cycling holster bottle.

There are some beautiful temple structures in the forest and a carved bridge best imagined in a Tolkien. Wait, that's New Zealand.

Day 28: Hallowe'en in Ubud

Happy hallowe'en everybody! We arrived at our spooooky little bungalow in Ubud yesterday afternoon. The bungalow has 2 levels. The top bit, where we sleep, is like a giant wicker picnic basket with a thatch roof, but the downstairs part, where the bathroom is, is made from hand carved stone blocks, and marble tile, which gives it a mausoleum type feel. So there you have it. A wicker basket atop a mausoleum, overlooking some rice fields.
When we checked in yesterday, the porter told us that we should open the window so that we could hear the songbirds singing. Instead, we found one of the little fellows on his side on our patio hyperventilating-clearly about to expire, which seems like a much more appropriate thing to do on hallowe'en than singing...

Day 27 : the Agung Raka Bugalows in Ubud

Before the Bali bombings, there was 40% more staff working here at Agung Raka. It is off season now but still, you get the sense that this compound has suffered from the decrease in tourist flow since the first incident. The USA gov advises travellers not to come to Bali, which one would gather given recent events, our nation's doings internationally, and that Indonesia is over 80% Muslim. But our hosts here openly talk about the bombings and how they do not associate themselves or condone the acts. The Indonesians practice religious tolerance, just as other god-fearing people do, and they feel acutely how it affects their bottom line.

So, you can imagine a more magnificent time here at Agung Raka, when the outdoor bar wasn't shuttered, the pool was less furry, and the bungalows less...gone-to-seed.

The bungalow is nonetheless a character with merits--the building's foundation is made of hand-chiseled volcanic tuff, the tables have wooden butterfly joinery, there are blooming lilies planted in the bathroom, the floors are made of solid wide planks of locally milled tropical wood, and the balcony overlooks the neighbor's rice paddies.

But, J and I are no doubt outnumbered by the bees, geckos, wasps, and birds in the thatch and mortar, the occupants with whom we truly negotiate our stay. It seems if having no choice, a property maintains its grounds since its degradation would outpace that of the interior spaces. So, it takes 15 minutes for the hot water to heat up, the thatch routinely sheds on the bed and buzzes, chirps and chortles, the toilet tank chain snaps, and so it goes.

Day 27: back to Bali, to Ubud

There was a request to see how we're traveling i.e. what sort of baggage are we carrying around with us. Childhood traumas aside, I think we've abided by the one bag, one day pack charge fairly well.

Since we've departed Gili Trawangan today to return to Bali after our diving stint and we're all packed up, here are our bags' 15 minutes.

Day 26: J gets his certification

So I've been a bit remiss with the blog posting in the past couple of days, because I've been busy learning to dive. The rest of the pool work went off without a hitch, and then yesterday, we went out for our first open water dive.
K tells me that I'm getting totally spoiled diving here, and I believe her. The conditions are really pretty much perfect-warm crystalline water, flat 10 minute boat rides, and an incredible assortment of fish. We saw a cuttle fish (changing color and texture) on my first time out. That and a few lionfish, a couple different types of moray, etc. And that was just the first time out.
I'm still working with a cold, so I had a bit of trouble clearing my left ear, but managed to work through it each dive and had a great time.
So now I have my temporary open water diver card, and all of the paperwork for the real one, but we'll have to wait for Singapore to mail it in, because there's no post here on the Gilis and apparently the postal service on Bali is less than totally reliable.
But anyway, hooray, and I'm looking forward to Ko Phi Phi in Thailand where K and I will do some dives together. We're told that November is the perfect time to go.

Day 26: diving day 3, Gili Trawangan

I've seen Sasquatch! 6 Bumphead Parrotfish! I wasn't expecting these fish to be quite so huge but they were probably three feet in length AND two feet in height (this is with the magnification that occurs underwater, mind you) with flat vertical foreheads that they bash the coral to bits with. Sizable teeth plates, too. The current was absolutely ripping so I had to grab a hunk of something dead to get a close look. Someone made a great spot of an octopus in a coral head but again, because the current was screaming, I had to crawl along the sea floor to get a topside view of it. Other notables...a giant resting turtle with 2 remora on its shell, a photo-worthy close up of a banded shrimp and my first cuttlefish.

1. Shark Reef, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
75 feet for 43 minutes

A frogfish! Rare and very hard to locate. This guy was a little smaller than my fist, a pale putty color, and completely inverted. Another giant clam but this time Herman the divemaster took my hand to gently touch the mantle. I did and as you would expect the clam would close up quickly at the touch. Felt like the inside of a mouth. Go figure. 2 more cuttlefish, another Scorpion Fish, a sizable moray, and a goby and shrimp duo. The little sand goby is a lousy hole digger and the shrimp, well, he doesn't see as well as the goby. So they have this arrangement where the shrimp digs and tends the hole and the goby serves as the shrimp's first alert system when predators approach. If you spot the goby first and then his hole, you wait just a little bit to see the shrimp emerge with a shovel or two of sand.
2. Hann's Reef, Gili Air, Indonesia
73 feet for 59 minutes

Herman was my buddy this week while J took his certification course. He's a Lombok native who has been diving Trawangan for 15 years. In spite of being a smoking fiend, he's fantastic on air, and has the gift of finding the good stuff. He also liked to make me laugh and flood my mask and would joke and try to make me think that I had been bitten by a snake eel.

Day 25: diving day 2, Gili Trawangan

A baby reef shark, a ribbon eel, banded boxer shrimp, schooling trevally, a shark, a turtle, oh yeah, and many lionfish. Bumphead Parrotfish are the Sasquatch in these waters, rarely seen and only around at the full moon and a few days after. Although I didn't see them, we were told that my buddy scared a pair toward the other dive group for a good look.

1. Shark Point, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
80 ft for 52 minutes

An octopus in a coral head, a free-swimming feather star, the divemaster made me hold a sea cucumber, attacks by a nesting trigger fish, turtles, twin lobsters, oh yeah, and lots of lionfish.

2.Halik, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
73 ft for 56 minutes

-The baby reef shark was unique. He was nestled in a hole for safety just pumping water over his gills.

-The divemaster makes a point of identifying triggerfish as we approach. Evidently they buzz you aggressively if they feel you're getting too close to the nest. This particular type is not a small fish and I didn't expect to see them bare their teeth, but they do.

-Holding the sea cucumber was like holding a very dense 1 1/2 foot loaf of rum cake.

Day 24: nighttime on Gili T

On our ride over to the island on the fast boat, J and I made our passage with an Indian couple from London visiting their ex-pat daughter and son-in-law who purchased one of the restaurant/bungalows about a year ago. They've updated it and opened an Indian restaurant, which J and I thought would be a nice change from the copious amounts of Indonesian food we've been eating. It was a solid choice, and a pleasant way to dine and pass the evening reclined on on-the-sand bolster divans. Many were out to take in the honey moonrise.

J and I noticed one of the peculiarities of this little island no more than 1 mile in length and 1/2 a mile across. No doubt from a small pool of genetic donors, certain cats have a crooked nubby tail. They are docile and vocal for scraps but largely just around.

Now here we had just completed our fine Indian meal on the restaurant's small patch of sandy terrace. Low teak tables with hurricane candles, bamboo mats with the divans I mentioned, and a huka on every table for a soothing smoke. The moonlight diffuse in the moist air...and I turn...only to see one of the broken tail kitties squatting over a freshly dug latrine in the restaurant's sand terrace.

He was a gracious little mutant. He kindly buried his business and unhurriedly exited cat box right. I don't feel the experience was marred. I was only reminded of the charms these remote places have, that one must see the humor in life's ID, and of course, of the charms of the domestic felines with whom we share our villages.

Day 24: diving day 1, Gili Trawangan

Numerous lionfish! A giant clam! An anemonefish in an anemone (not sure it was actually a Clown Anenomefish)! Turtles everywhere-feeding, napping, free swimming, a moray, an assortment of neon-colored slugs, garden eels, scorpion fish and on. Glassy calm, visibility was farther than my eyes can see, and when was the last time I haven't gotten cold? I can't remember but I didn't think about it once. Divine. I've never seen a lionfish, an anenomefish or a giant clam since this is my first time out diving in South East Asia so you'll have to endure my glee with the conditions and the wildlife, having cooperated so beautifully to give our boat one of the most amazing dives I've had. Diver loser friends - I do wish you could have logged this one with me.

Day 23: Manta Dive

I had my first day of diving instruction today at Manta Dive, which is also the hotel we're staying at. As K alluded to in her last post, the place appears to be run by a pack of 20-something British slacker expats. (Right now we're sitting out on the patio having a drink, and they're playing Pearl Jam on the sound system.) Fortunately I have cold medicine to help me get into the pace of island life...

Anyhow-the dive instruction. I spent the morning sitting in a little room with my 2 classmates going through a series of instructional videos, and doing some pretty casual 'quiz' things, and then they geared us up and put us in the pool. I have to admit that when our instructor described what we were supposed to be doing down there, it sounded pretty creepy. For instance, sitting at the bottom of the deep end of the pool with lead weights around your waist while someone shuts your air off, just so you can see what it feels like. On the face of it, this sounds like an awful idea to me, especially since I'm a lousy swimmer. But I'm happy to report what all you diver types out there doubtless already know-that it was surprisingly easy and intuitive. Tomorrow I finish up the pool work, and then it's out into open water for the next two days.

Day 23: Gili Trawangan

The island is distinct from Bali. Lombok is largely Muslim so no sooner had we arrived on the island could we hear the call to prayer. There are no cars on Trawangan, only horse drawn carts with tires and bicycles. However, the town center is so small that everything is walkable.

The heat of the day is punishing but come evening, the island pulses with the thump thump of bars playing loud music. It's known as the party island of the Gilis. This may explain why the expats here are roughly ten years younger than me and 15 than J.

We are staying at the bungalows of a dive center. They are constructed like traditional Sasak rice barns, made of teak and stacked reed or bamboo. And the bathroom? It's outside. Inlaid stone and decorative concrete.

Day 22: Lombok, Gili Trawangan

We lapped up the last bits of hedonism in Sanur before our next scheduled leg. Cabs, planes, and fast boats today to deliver us to one of the Gili Islands off of the western coast of Bali's sister island, Lombok.

The cab ride on Lombok was quick immersion in driving Indonesian style. Designated lanes are only loosely abided by and right of way is more about preserving the flow of traffic vs. avoiding a crack up. You also better get used to some hairy passing on the mountain roads, especially up the western coast because as the driver informed us, "the road broken." Rag tag crews were pick axing the road on any number of hairpin turns. Queues of trucks and mopeds and taxis like us would form and the jockeying for position would commence. The horn, the hazards, and the turn signal are essential tools in making your location and intentions known, though I couldn't quite decipher how the blinker was used to communicate with other drivers. But it sure was used a lot.

We sped along for 40 minutes listening to a compilation tape of love songs with the likes of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Madonna crooning. I avoided eye contact with J for this portion of the medley. And then that was abruptly stopped in favor of a "classics" tape.

Maybe you can parse out the many sounds -- soundtrack, horn beeping, blinker use...

Day 21: Bali

We intuited some critical decisions in the sequence of our stays. Staying at the pampered westerner Bali Hyatt was a sweet respite after the enterprise of getting from New Zealand to Indonesia. My freshly painted toenails and massaged calves agree. Plus, I know there's vigor in the hot days to come.

Bali is all in the details. Heavy carved stone and fragrant sun-warm wood, teak and mahogany. The grounds are harmonies of texture and height. The thatch is exquisite. There is no particle board that I can discern. Everything's a little worn here but like good shoe leather-has a patina, weathered with use but not yellowed or separated like the plastics and laminates of America. Regardless of what you're looking at it is some amalgam of craft and art and function and prayer and beauty.

There are little surprises in the details. I didn't know lotus were a foot off the water. The pool water feature is an entranced visage with a gaping cave and waterfall for a mouth. The boats on the beach have painted eyes. Religious statues on the grounds wear hibiscus behind their ears.

Day 21: Hiding out at the hotel in Sanur

Yesterday was a long day of travel. Christchurch back to Auckland to Melbourne to Denpasar, then a half hour cab ride to our hotel in Sanur. We ended the day with some surprisingly good room service, and then sacked out.

We decided to take today to recuperate, and never left the hotel. This wasn't a hard decision, because this hotel is huge, spans many acres of very impressive landscaping. 3 restaurants, 2 pools, several temple looking things. K & I both got fancy pedicures at the spa, and then I went for a swim. We finished the day at the hotel restaurant, ordering the rijsttafel.

Now, I've had rijsttafel before at various Indonesian restaurants, but this was something else entirely-about a dozen dishes, arriving in four courses, everything beautifully prepared. Basically a mid-sized feast. We finished the day well mended, and happy that we'd skipped lunch.

Day 19: more of Christchurch's cultural offerings

I still crack a smile when I think of watching the restless kiwi harumpf about his enclosure. It was set up such that you felt like you were going to see a mythical beast upon entering the darkened chamber. Instead, it was like viewing the pacings of a grumpy man looking for his keys in the same place over and over. I hope J's right and that his jailbreak is imminent. Free kiwi.

After musing over our kiwi friend, we headed off to the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch's natural history museum. There were many exhibits specific to regional and national history, of greater interest to me, along with the requisite dino bones, mummies, and taxidermy. J says he likes the quirky hodge podge these museums offer-like say the spinning dolly of uranium that when passed in front of a Geiger counter would crackle to life.
So we learned about such things as the prehistoric NZlander Moa (mondo sized flightless birds) hunters and the first research stations on Antarctica. For example- Did you know that it only took the body heat of six people to keep the researchers' plywood shacks at a comfortable temperature?
Abutting the museum are the city's Botanical Gardens. It seems evident by my postings that I am somewhat enamoured of NZ's trees. I think they are deserving and deliciously scary like the trees in the Wizard of Oz. But trees aside, the gardens' gorgeous springtime display trumped any spring ever in Boston's hyped up Public Garden. Tulips in October!We ended the day by walking the entire loop of the park along the Avon River. Love the Japanese tourists on a punting ride. Collective ahhs whenever they passed ducklings cruising on the current.

Day 19: Christchurch Redux

Yesterday, we made the drive back over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch, and we're taking the day today to rest up in preparation for our long day of travel to Bali tomorrow, and to fit in everything that we didn't catch in Christchurch the last time.

So far, this has mainly consisted of walking around in the beautiful sunny weather, getting a cheap haircut from a woman wearing scary amounts of lipstick, and visiting the tiny aquarium right in the town center.

In spite of its diminutive size, the aquarium was actually pretty neat, since it features only animals native to NZ. After 2 weeks in NZ, we finally saw some kiwis in the kiwi room today. Little known fact: kiwi eggs are the 3rd largest of any bird, after ostriches, and another one that I can't remember. And since the egg is so big, and the shell is so hard, the kiwi chick can't just peck its way out. Instead, it pecks and pecks until it makes a little tiny hole, and then it kicks the shell open with its powerful legs. The whole process can take a few days.

Since kiwis are nocturnal animals, they keep them in a very dark room, so you can just barely make them out, but one of the 2 kiwis resident at the aquarium spent a lot of time bobbing back and forth right in front of us, which was cool. Intermittently, he'd bob his way back into a dark corner, and make a strange scraping noise. After we got out, K asked the guide fellow what the kiwi was doing back there. The guide got all shifty, and said something about how he was sharpening his beak, or maybe trying to get the attention of the other kiwi, but we're thinking that he was probably trying to make a small hole so that he could kick his way out with his powerful legs...