Rains in the Distance

The Kraton, Yogyakarta

2008-10-23T17:09:00.001-07:00

Due to our time difference, it seems like every other time I talk to 'Tut, he's at our fave nasi campur warung. So since we speak several times a week, several times a week I end up with a craving for nasi campur made just the way I like it. I would love to have some right now, as a matter of fact. This place is outside Ubud near Pengosekan and has absolutely nothing to do with this post, except when he called from there yesterday, 'Tut mentioned something about our trip to Yogya a couple months back. That reminded me I had not posted about the Kraton, which I've been meaning to do.

Yogyakarta in general kind of struck me like a bigger Denpasar; not sure what I was expecting. The Kraton, of course, is the palace complex where the sultans of Yogya lived - and there is still one in residence when he's not busy other places.

We got there early in order to beat the heat ("mad dogs and Englishmen" and all that) so the exhibits were not quite open. But no surprise that some shops right in the Kraton were. We ended up in this kris shop where the owners live in back.

The two photos above are 'Tut examining a couple of the kris, checking them for beauty, and much more importantly, power. As it turned out, the more attractive ones that day were not all that powerful, so he did not make a purchase. 'Tut comes across so westernized I forget sometimes that at his core he's Balinese.

Finally the various exhibits opened, and I snapped a few photos in a building of carriages owned by the sultans. The one above was one of the oldest - 17th century, I think. Seemed like from a fairy tale.

For some reason 'Tut wanted me to snap him in front of one of these carriages, and then I noticed most of the tourists there were also positioning themselves for photos where the horse should be. No idea what's up with that, but I took the photo above. I see now 'Tut looks tired with red eyes, because he's so exhausted from all the cremation ceremonies he had been part of in Bali for the preceding month and a half.

Later in the day, we took a becak (basically an Indonesian rickshaw) over to the Water Palace. 'Tut loves these things. I prefer the little horse-drawn carts myself.

Borobudur, Yogyakarta, Java

2008-08-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

The day after we went to Pranbanan (July 2008) , we visited the famous 10th century Buddhist temple site of Borobuduer near Yogyakarta. It is so big, I could not fit it into my lens view - not having a wide angle lens.

Ketut looks up the steps

'Tut sits on the steps waiting for me. We arrived shortly after sunrise.

Just a few of the many. many stupas. Under each is a statue of Buddha.

Peeking through to Buddha

Buddha uncapped

These Japanese tourists were pushing everyone out of the way, yelling at people to get out of their frames and climbing all over the statuary - throughout the temple! I began giggling uncontrollably, the British woman next to me followed suit and 'Tut tried to shush us to no avail.

One of my favorite views

'Tut

Pranbanan, Yogyakarta, Java

2008-08-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Yogyakarta, Java, rather than stay in Ubud, Bali, for the Coq's cremation (the Coq was Ubud royalty if you haven't read previous posts), but watched part of it on Australian tv from Yogya. They said there were 300,000 people in the tiny streets of Ubud. What blew me away before I left was the Media Center sign on the quickly constructed gate around the soccer field/playground off of Monkey Forest Road in Ubud. Media Center? In Ubud? Friends who attended said it was an unbelievable crush of people.

When we returned the night before the big Padang Tegal cremation of 87 people, of which Tut's grandfather was one ( a second cremation for a different banjar), I was sick with a bad cold. I always get sick when I get exhausted. I slept two days while 'Tut stayed up most of the following 48 hours, as he had a lot of duties to perform for that cremation.

So instead of cremation photos, I'll give you some from Yogya. In this post, are photos of Pranbanan, the 10th century Hindu temple complex built about 50 years after Borobudur. It suffered a lot of damage in the earthquake that rocked Yogya a few years back, and there are still some scaffolds up as repairs continue.

Preparations for Royal Cremation in Ubud, Bali

2008-07-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Some photos taken of cremation preparations for Coq Suyasa of Puri Ubud . Ubud is planning a royal send-off for the King of Ubud and also a second member of the royal family. Look closely and you can see there are two bulls (the sarcophagi). These photos were taken July 13 and the cremation is July 15; there is still a lot of work to do.

See more on cremations going on near Ubud right now.

It takes a village...

Checking the progress

Hard at work by the palace.

This tower will carry the remains to the sarcophagus. Many people will be needed to
support it, and this is a much bigger tower than is used for people who are not royalty.

Tourists aren't the only ones taking photos. Note the Balinese man from Ubud with cameral at the lower left. These bulls are much bigger than the sarcophagi used for non-royal people.

Cremation Preparations, Padang Tegal

2008-07-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

Some photos taken of cremation preparations in Padang Tegal follow. Padang Tegal is the area of the Monkey Forest and also on and about Jln. Hanoman (which is considered to be Ubud in casual speech and tourist guidebooks).
See more on cremations going on near Ubud right now.

Making offerings on Jln. Hanoman

Structures built in the Monkey Forest to house individual places for each deceased where ceremonies take place before the cremation. Inside are a photo of the deceased, clothes, and other objects. This is not where the remains are cremated.

Sanur, Bali, Kite Festival

2008-07-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Before I start posting photos for cremation preparations, I'd like to post a few from the Kite Festival I attended in Sanur yesterday. Kite flying is a competitive sport here in Bali, and there is something about that I just love. No tackling people, no knocking it into the goal, just kite flying. Though I found it is a bit dangerous, when we had to dash away as a kite threatened to fall on us. Some of those kites are 100 meters long, so being clobbered by one is no laughing matter.

Hey, I told you this is a popular sport. Check out this crowd.

The front of a 100 yard kite.
More kite flying hopefuls from a different village.

My silversmith, Dedo, is also a buddy. Here he's buying us some roasted corn. I chose the chili sauce, he chose the sweet sauce. Dedo was flying a kite competitively here with his friends from Batubulan the day before. And they won! Because they kites are so large, they require several people to operate them.

Kids on the beach, just to the side of the kite flying field in Sanur.

Cremation Season in Bali

2008-07-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

I generally avoid going to Bali when I know there are a lot of cremations going on around Ubud, which is my base. As anyone with even the most passing acquaintance with Bali knows, cremations mean about two months of intensive labor before the big event and a month of ceremonies after.

The time the banjar (community group) requires of its members to prepare for cremations is no less than the time required by a full-time job. For those who actually have full-time jobs, they are run ragged. So that is why, despite the pomp, ceremony and undeniable photo ops, I try to avoid visiting Bali when my close friends are in the middle of cremation preparations. Unless I am close with their village and actually helping in those preparations myself, I know my friends will barely have time to see me during the month ir two preceding a cremation. .

Because cremations are extremely expensive, bodies are normally buried, and every five years or so the entire village digs up their dead for a fiery send-off. People of stature may enjoy their own cremation after only a month or two in the ground – or possibly awaiting the event above-ground by the benefit of preservatives

But whichever is the case, the final fire and smoke is the least of the labor. There are offerings to be made, multitudes of baskets to be woven, huge towers to transport the remains to be built, and of course, sarcophagi to be built in the shape of animals, such as lions and bulls. These are hand-painted in detail and hold the final remains when the torch is lit. The bodies are transported to the cremation grounds in the towers with much fanfare, ceremony, music and excitement. There the remains are transported to the sarcophagi. In villages near the tourist eyes, it is, in fact, a huge tourist attraction.

I remember when I was living with friends in a distant, hidden village preparing for village-wide cremation of 20 people.. As I shopped for an appropriate sarong and black lace for my kebaya, cunning vendors tried to pry from me where the cremation was taking place – so they could charge tourists to transport them there. I’m not much of one for a circus, so I demurred to give this information..

But in Ubud, a tourist town, there is no getting away from the fanfare. A Balinese friend from the area recently told me that when important royalty is cremated, filming rights are sold to big news stations. The last big royal cremation in Ubud, he told me cost over $1.5 million U.S. – this does not include labor, because of course the men and women of the village are not paid for their work, it is part of their civic duty. The rights were sold for over $ 2.5 million U.S .- A tidy million dollar profit for the very rich banjar of Ubud.

After I bought my ticket to Bali, I was sad to hear that the “king” of Ubud had died. I did not know him personally, but just about everyone I knew around Ubud did. The Coq (a royal title) was a sociable and popular man. There was to be a cremation for him two months after my arrival. Of course, this meant that any friend from Ubud I normally hung out with would be too busy to do much but go to work and go to banjar. It also meant a lot of traffic jams as work was done at the palace right off the main road.

The main reason I was going to Bali was to see ‘Tut anyway… and he is from Padang Tegal not Ubud. (Casual tourists think Padang Tegal is part of the same banjar as Ubud, but in fact Jln. Hanoman, the other tourist drag that runs parallel to Monkey Forest Rd. and, indeed, the Monkey Forest itself is all the Padang Tegal banjar.) So you can imagine how I looked up to the heavens when Janna told me Padang Tegal had decided to hold a huge cremation for 87 people June 17. That meant the entire time I was in Bali Janna would be deep in cremation preparations and we would be lucky to catch even a few minutes together here and there. There go the travel plans around Indonesia. Well, I went anyway, and the cremation date was extended to July 19, partly because they needed to get more wood from Java.

So in the next few posts, I’ll put up a few photos of cremation preparations around Ubud.

Ketut Soki, Balinese Young Artist master

2008-06-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, some people I met in California were here in Bali for the first time, and I suggested they hire my old and dear friend Wayan Subawa as a guide for a day. I tagged along, and suggested to Wayan that before we went on our way, we drop by the artist village of Penestanan. I had noticed one of the women seemed to be drawn to the Young Artist style of painting.

Wayan said we must go to Ketut Soki's. Well, Ketut Soki is quite famous and is internationally exhibited. He was at the very forefront of the Young Artist movement, one of the first two young boys who studied with Ari Smit in the 1960’s. (Check him out on wikipedia.com or just google him.) I had more of a no-name, much cheaper artist in mind, as I did not think any of us could afford the works of this master. But what the heck, I figured, let's go see Soki. Always fun to meet a celebrity.

Soki, now in his late 60's, greeted us himself as we came into the compound and led us to the room that houses his paintings - the few that aren't in museums, expensive galleries or on their way to far-flung parts of the world. He was charming and friendly with a ready smile. He spoke little English, but with my very little Bahasa Indonesia (plus Wayan) we were able to communicate.

After my companions spent a lot of time looking, I pointed out a medium-sized painting Soki said he favored. It represented scenes from the market, rice fields, ceremonies, barong, lots going on. Yet it was cohesive and very well done. I was considering buying it myself, though I’m usually more of a fan of the Batuan style of painting. We took so long that I was feeling a little guilty, because I thought we were wasting the great master’s time.

Then, suddenly, one of my friends started crying. She was moved by the sense of community represented in the paintings and the affability and graciousness of Soki himself. This surprised us all, and especially her. Wayan asked Soki if anyone had ever cried in his studio before, and he said many times. Once an American man cried in his studio from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.!

When we finally asked for prices, Soki named a fraction of what his stuff goes for in the galleries. I almost fell over, because they were quite affordable. I told the women they were being given very good prices by a well-known artist and should buy one. The woman who was so moved bought the one I had my eye on (I figured I’d give her first dibs as I could come back) and also a second marketplace scene.

You can see from my recent posts that I have become a bit jaded regarding Bali. But meeting this man went miles toward renewing my faith. Before we left, he and his charming daughter also showed us around the compound, full of orchids and positive energy. I liked the daughter quite a bit, and Wayan told me later she also paints. Lovely people, and I hope to see them both again.

I’ve posted a photo of Soki here (as well as one of a tree in his family compound). He was smiling the entire time we were with him, but put on a stern, professional face for photos. When I return, perhaps I can capture his smile.

The devil in 10 cent beads

2008-06-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

I met a couple women at a travel book reading in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live; they were friends of a friend. When we found our trips to Bali would intersect, we decided to get together. It was their first time to Bali, and I wanted them to really “see” it.

Because Bali’s economy revolves around tourists (and also handicraft exports), it is quite possible to go to Bali and never see it, only seeing the false, sometimes overly soft and sometimes overly harsh world created for tourists. It’s not difficult to find Bali underneath the tourist trappings. Back in the villages, away from the tourist towns and the tourist traps, it’s still Bali. But you do have to make a bit of an effort.

I met up with my acquaintances in Lovina where I was visiting some friends I had not seen in years. They had spent a week in Ubud taking batik and cooking classes for tourists and learning to tie sarongs. They had gone on bird walks and generally seemed to have made good use of their time. I introduced them to some of my friends, took them to dinner at a local friend’s house in a nearby village and suggested quiet, nature destinations. Back in Ubud later, I arranged an introduction to a famous painter, took them to temple in an out-of-the-way village where another friend taught them how to pray, and went along with them when my friend Wayan Subawa (who I had recommended as a guide) drove them through the villages where they saw wedding preparations and visited some ancient ruins. In return, they let me come along on some of the jaunts you really have to make the first time you are in Bali, but probably don’t want to do again. I wasn’t all that busy, so I thought, what the hell.

That is how I recently found myself at GitGit to see the waterfalls once again, GitGit, that enclave of women waving sarongs at you and children of tender years running after you in hordes, frantically pushing junk necklaces in your face and chanting the prices in a deeply disturbing, monotone – many too young to understand what they are saying. The mothers train their children from toddlers to run up the hills and through the jungle to cut tourists off at the pass so they can not get by without fighting their way through outstretched hands filled with cheap beads. GitGit is always like this, even at the so-called “quiet” waterfall. (There are three different waterfalls at three different locations in GitGit.) The mothers themselves stand at their vendor stalls on the upper path of the long way down to the waterfalls, demanding outrageous prices for other junk, and when you keep walking, of course those prices suddenly drop to 1/20 of the original price quoted. Hey, I’m all for bargaining, but don’t insult me.

Cut to Denpasar. Yesterday I went to the lavish opening parade of the huge, internationally famous, annual Bali Arts Festival. I’d gone to performances there before, but never the opening parade, so when my friend Ketut A. asked me to go with her, of course I went. I’ve known Ketut for years, and had not seen her for a few weeks, not since I brought her a letter from her sister in the States. We decided to go in style by car rather than motorbike, so my buddy Wayan Subawa drove us down. He always goes every year to the parade anyway, so we made it a party.

The Bali Arts Festival is probably the biggest yearly event in Bali. Dancing and musical troupes from all over Indonesia and even the world perform there. In addition, there are exhibitions of painting, wood carving, cooking, clothing and every kind of art. In other words, it is a very big deal. It attracts a primarily local crowd. The westerners you see there are mostly expats (trust me, you can tell) with the occasional tourist who is usually an arts connoisseur.

There were thousands of Balinese lined around the huge, beautiful green square in Denpasar to watch the parade of dancers, musicians and floats go by. Picture the Macy’s Day Parade, Bali style. Vendors walk through the crowds selling drinks, peanuts, lumpia and even pizza. Other vendors grill babi (pork) sate along the sidelines. After about an hour there, shuffling for a place to best see and photograph the parade, something struck me. Not one person had run over to me shoving any trinkets, drinks, sarongs or anything else in my face because I am “tamu.” (Literally, “tamu” means “guest”, but it often really means anyone from outside Bali with what might locally be considered big bucks.) In Denpasar, at the biggest event in Bali, I was just one of the crowd.

And that is the difference between visiting a tourist trap and visiting anyplace or anything at all away from the traps. I remember the same thing in Jamaica. In Negril, being the target of annoying beach boys trying to pick up “rich” white women, and in Mandeville, being treated like a human being, because Mandeville is a working city, not a tourist destination.

Heavy influxes of tourists who are substantially richer than the local population always mean a devastating corruption of the culture. The result? The mothers at GitGit shamelessly teaching even four-year-olds to run after tourists and shove necklaces at them even when they are told “No” repeatedly, even when it is said in Indonesian or Balinese. Poverty, you say? Most of those people own land, luxurious vegetable gardens and rice fields. These are not desperate people, yet they exploit four-year-olds for the price of a 10 cent necklace. What life lessons are these children learning? Of course, I can't speak for the Balinese, but many I know are also truly horrified by this.

There’s a lesson in this someplace, but I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

Bali beauty regimen

2008-06-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

Upon returning to Bali after three years, I'm aware I've put on weight and I'm definitely feeling older. I was a bit concerned about this, because they pull no punches in Bali. They'll tell you to your face you're more "gemuk" (fatter) than you were last time they saw you. But, as it turns out, no worries! It is the general and unanimous (and, of course, unasked for) consensus here, from the mountains of Ubud to the beaches of Lovina, that I look "younger and more beautiful" than I did before. Why you may ask? What is my beauty secret? Well, it turns out that my "skin is whiter" (no tan 'cause I just got off the plane) and I no longer have "those dark spots." (Heck, I always thought my freckles were cute.) This should not have surprised me, I suppose, given the fact that every other ad on TV here is for skin whitening cream, and they go so far as to artificially lighten the film in most TV shows and all commercials so the actresses look paler than Casper. It's always a stark contrast when the news comes on showing people with normal, healthy Indonesian skin tones.

This preoccupation is not because Indonesians want to look like white people or due to vestiges of colonialism. On the contrary. I'm not sure about the rest of Indonesia, but I'm pretty sure the Balinese are completely convinced they are the most beautiful people in the world. (They have a good argument.) The roots of this pale skin obsession are older than colonialism, harking back to the distinction between royalty and the priestly classes and, well, just about everybody else. The bottom line is that lighter skin still equates with wealth here. Field workers and laborers who tan in the sun tend to be browner than Indonesians of means who loll about inside all day. Indonesia is extremely class-conscious, and in Bali, you can throw caste-awareness on top of that. There must be this same fascination with light skin in Japan, because I see 99% of the Japanese female tourists here wearing god-awful ugly sun hats that look like something my grandfather went fishing in. (Yes, yes, yes, I know it's good to protect oneself from harmful rays of the sun, but have you seen those hats?!)

Needless to say, I don't agree politically or aesthetically with this attitude. To me, the artificially washed-out skin tones shown on Indonesian TV commercials appear somewhat ghoulish. (Hey, I've never been into Goth.) But no one much cares about my opinions here, so I've put away the bronzer and slapped on the SPF 50. Still, my freckles accumulate in the Bali sun despite all precautions. Secretly, I continue to admire them.

An old flame in Bali

2008-06-02T19:45:00.001-07:00

I saw an old flame this week. I hesitated to stay in that section of Lovina, because I didn’t know if I wanted to run into him. But as I was moving to a different bungalow (one where the water actually worked) at the small family-run establishment where I usually stay. I heard him call to me, lounging on the porch of the bungalow next door, hidden by the lush foliage.

“Do I know you?” I said. Often people know who I am in Bali, though I don’t know them. Not that I’m that interesting – it’s just people in the village generally know everything going on.

“I don’t know, do you?” he said.

Smart ass answer. Could only be one person. Was he on that porch by chance? No, he would have heard I was here. I called his name as a question as I stepped away from the greenery in order to see him. He had cut his hair.

“I knew your voice,” he said.

I thought running into him would be awkward, but instead it was good to see an old friend. “I heard you got married.” I said.

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“Oh, we know everything in America,” I joked. He knew the lines of communication, who had told me.

“Any children?”

“A boy, two and a half,” he said.

I was glad for him. He had been having a lot of bitter family issues in the compound where his volatile older brother dominated. So when he married, he moved to a rented house with his new wife. He had met her at the Kalukbukbuk Hotel where she started working. I remember I used to call him there, and his friend would run down the beach to find him to take my call, years ago.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Four years. A long time,” he said.

Yes, he was right. It was three years since I had been to Bali, but four since I saw him. It was about six years ago I met him, about the same time I met ‘Tut. It could have gone either way, but due to a miscommunication, a misunderstanding, a chance of fate, I left him in Padang Bai, the eastern beach town where ferries leave for Lombok. He returned to Lovina. And I returned to ‘Tut. As I face him in the bright sun, it all washes over me. Fleetingly I wonder if I had made the wrong choice. But it is only wistfulness at the creak of a door swinging shut.

“Can I still talk to you?” he asks.

“Of course,” I smile. “I want to meet your son.”

Grown up in Bali

2008-06-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

It had been four years since I’d seen Putuh. Then, even after recently having her second baby, vestiges of girlishness remained. I’d known her a few years before that when she visited her Balinese brother and Irish sister-in-law in San Francisco for a year, helping them after their first child was born. Now I look at her face, and see small worried lines around her mouth. She is a woman now, not the girl I first met. She talks about the same thing she discussed when I last saw her, four years before. They have trouble with their mechanics shop in northern Bali because they don’t have the money to buy proper inventory for a full-service operation. I hand her the envelope and the baby clothes sent by her sister-in-law in America as she rocks her third baby, who has begun to fuss.

Bali changes

2008-06-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

It was so beautiful when I first started coming to Bali… the long-haired boys in their sarongs, casually slipping flowers behind their ears, smiles flashing. Now, it seems most of the guys in Bali have cut their hair and traded their flowers for Harley t-shirts.

As I drive my motorbike through the villages after a few years away, I suddenly notice almost no one is wearing a sarong. In Denpasar or Singaraja or even Ubud, of course, younger people had never walked down the streets in sarongs except for ceremonies in the years I have been going to Bali. But back in the villages, I used to see a mix, some wearing Western clothing, but certainly a lot of people comfortable wearing beautiful batik sarongs as they went about their days. Women carrying water on their heads as they swayed down the street, men working in the fields, and grandmothers cooing to babies. Today only the very old women seem to wear sarongs outside of ceremonies; everyone else has adopted ugly synthetic K-Mart clothing.

It is so changed.

Swimming in Penestanan

2008-05-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

I've moved to Penestanan to a great little place Luhde recommended. Killer bungalows; I negotiated a great long-term price and am well ensconced. Luhde and Wayan bring the kids by to go swimming. When I last saw Ayu at age 7 she was very shy - "malu" in Indonesian. Well, no daughter of gregarious Luhde was going to stay malu, and when I saw her yesterday she wanted to pose for the camera and give me a kiss. Little Agus is not so little anymore - he will be eight in November.

Ayu and Agus

Luhde

Wayan

Bali: On seeing 'Tut after three year absence

2008-05-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've told 'Tut to come by the next morning. I've been traveling 27 hours, and I know I'll look it. I also know I'll just want to fall into a dreamless sleep as soon as I get to my room in Ubud. Wayan drives me to a hotel where I know I won't stay more than a few nights, and we go through the de rigeur price negotiation. I almost fall asleep in the middle of it. I end up with a room at the end of south Jesus Land, down and up and up and up so many steps. My knee hurts after so many hours on the plane, and these steps will do it no good. But it’s too late and I’m too tired to look elsewhere. I know I'm paying too much for the room because it's in the middle of Monkey Forest Rd.

Tomorrow I'll see Putuh to rent a motorbike and get the hell out of Dodge - I want to ride through the rice fields, past grandmothers in sarongs on their way to bathe, past temples and family compounds. I go into Ubud for entertainment or the occasional dinner. I can't stand living there even for a few days. But here I am at this smug, dingy hotel.

The next morning I'm sitting on the porch in front of my room reading a book about some journalist’s adventures in India when I see 'Tut mounting the steps, his lanky gait, his familiar laugh. He looks good. We hug and it feels right. He is as I remember. Years of talking on the phone. Why does it seem a week? Bali has always left me feeling a bit confused. And so has 'Tut.

Friends at the Bali Airport

2008-05-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

I walk out of the airport, into the hot, wet, early evening darkness lit by the tall lamps of the Ngurah Rai parking lot. As I walk past the railing dividing me from those who are waiting for arrivals, only one taxi driver jumps up at me - he backs off quickly at my dismissive look. Usually five of them pull at me. Even they can tell it's different this time. I'm looking for Luhde and her husband Wayan. They are, I guess, my oldest friends in Bali. I spot Luhde, and we greet each other with smiles, squeals, hugs. She looks younger than ever; she looks fabulous. She cut her bangs and straightened her hair, she says, She wears light colored, trendy jeans and low, pointy, high-heeled shoes.

We look around for Wayan, who is looking for me in another spot. I've known Wayan forever, longer than I’ve known Luhde. Even though opposite sex friends really don't hug in Bali, we do anyway. Wayan knows all the skeletons in my closet, even more so than Luhde. Wayan looks the same. The kids aren't with them. When I see the kids, of course they won't remember me after three years. They will be bigger and more knowing; when I see them, the feeling I have of it having been only a few months since I've been away will be shown to be a lie.

Arrival in Bali after a few years away

2008-05-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

I think of the many, many times I’ve made this same trip, over 20 certainly, waiting in a plane on a Ngurah Rai airstrip to begin my stay in Bali. Always before, as the plane landed, as it rolled to a stop, as I bounced impatiently on my toes waiting for the plane door to swing wide, as I ran down the airport corridor to get into the line at customs, as I picked up my luggage, declining the help of the ever-eager porters, as I changed a little money to have something in my pocket, as I careened my luggage cart outside, and as I scanned the crowd for my ride, I was so excited I could barely breathe, my heart pounding, ecstatic at the first whiff of the clove cigarettes that signaled I was in Bali.

This time wasn't like that. I'm not sure why. After 14 years going back and forth to Bali, two of those years living there and struggling with the sometimes unfathomable obstacles of doing business, and after seeing friends both in Bali and America struggle with their inter-cultural Western/Balinese relationships, maybe it’s because my last illusions are gone. But I prefer to think it’s because I have become so comfortable here it is a lot like home, warts and all – it’s lost the lure of the unexpected and the foreign. It's the longest I've ever been away... before it was never longer than six months, usually less. This time it has been 3 years. Maybe I'm just happier in the States than I used to be.

There was a time Bali pulled me as the earth does the moon. Now I find that irresistible pull to spend a great part of each year in Bali is gone. Before making this trip, I had even toyed with skipping Bali all together - going to a Mexican beach for relaxation, or India for excitement or Greece for both – I sigh when I remember the blue and white landscapes, the conviviality, the history, the sensuality of Greece. Yes, there was an appeal in going someplace other than Bali – a place where I am unknown, where I have no past, where there are no constantly prying eyes, no gossip about every move I make. I've become so indescribably bored with that... high school sophomore year all over again.

I have a friend with a more intense history with Bali than my own, who has also lost her rose-colored glasses. But we both agree we will always go back. “Once Bali becomes part of you, you have to check in every once in awhile,” she says. Usually the most important truths are quite simple – and she’s hit it exactly. I’m here not for excitement but to check in with people and places that have become part of me. And of course, I’m here for ‘Tut. After so many years, it’s time to move forward or move on.

Pumpkin Carving with BooBoo

2007-11-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

Creative Director feeling the muse

Challenge of carrying the finished work home

Gabriel does Berkeley

2007-11-03T21:22:00.001-07:00

I would have posted this last couple weeks, but this week I'm catching up with work I missed last week. Gabriel came to visit last week, up from LA. Yes, the little Boo Boo is growing up and stayed with me five whole days while his mom was at a think tank conference in Oaxaca. (Yeah, right, sounds like a lot of work!)

We ran all over the place from Pier 39 sea lions to Fairyland to various Halloween parties. He had play dates with his Bay Area cronies and generally raised 4 year old hell. This is a photo of him over the summer at his aunt's house in L.A., so as you can see, it was not a dull week!

Malaria Breakthrough

2007-10-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

Anyone who spends time traveling in tropical third world countries is (or should be) aware of the devastation caused by malaria, a disease that kills a human being every 30 seconds. When I was in Kalimantan, everyone I met had contracted malaria at some point, and many had horror stories to tell. Sub-saharan Africa is the hardest hit.

That's why I was so heartened this week to come across a breakthrough in the fight against malaria. The Reuters article, New Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise in Infants, explains that a new anti-malarial vaccine under development can be given to infants and is 66% effective in preventing malaria. The vaccine is certainly not perfect, but potentially can save millions of lives. Of course, this is not a panacea. The vaccine can have serious side effects, and increasingly resistant strains are emerging; there is much work to be done to rid the planet of this plague.

It's no surprise that a good way to start learning about and taking action against this disease is at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation web site, which gives specifics on how to get involved.

Cheerleading in Bali?

2007-09-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

I was looking through some old photos and and found this one of me on my first trip to Bali. This photo was taken some time ago during a ceremony at springs near Bukti. Now trust me when I tell you I have no musical talent, so it is a tribute to the good nature of the gamelan players that they allowed me to play with them for even a moment. (No, those are not cheerleading pompoms.) I remember I was so green to the local culture that when one of the gamelan musicians (a rice field farmer in his day job) asked me how much my video camera cost, I made the mistake of telling him. After seeing his horrified astonishment that it cost more than he would make in a year, I never made that mistake again. (I would like to point out however, that this gentleman owns a number of rice fields, and I'm land poor.) I generally prefer to be in the moment and not overdo taking photos, but they do bring back the time, the sound, the feel of the day. The photo of the little boys is from the same day at the ceremony. I guess these little boys are almost young men now...

I'm Back

2007-05-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

Some of you who don't know me well may wonder why I haven't posted since last August. Well, the simple answer is that my laptop died and with it the automatic password entry to my blog. I couldn't remember which user ID I used, my email account was canceled and the ream of red tape to try to figure out how to get back in was virtually insurmountable. After months of this nagging at me, I decided to make it my mission in life to break back into my blog. Ignoring all work deadlines, I spent the better part of a morning trying to figure out how to report the issue, even resorting to asking on forums. Finally, after close to 10 emails back and forth with my new buddy Karl over in Customer Support, I'm back!

So what have I been up to? No, I haven't been back to Bali, Vietnam or anywhere remotely close, but I have some plans in the making. And thanks to Joyfish for kicking me in the butt to hack into my own blog!

Hanging Out (Bali)

2006-08-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

There are many things the Balinese have refined to a fine art form; not the least of these is hanging out. It's one reason I never concern myself with whether or not it is rainy season when heading to Bali. So it's raining! We'll just hang out at the warung and talk to whoever is there, learn the latest gossip and drink bintangs until it stops.

One of my favorite places to hang out at night used to be in Andong at a little warung that no longer exists. We'd drink beer, play guitar, watch bad Indonesian soap operas on the little TV and yell out to everyone who passed by - and everybody I knew within a 10 kilometer distance of Ubud eventually passed by.

Neither does the bar Bulan exist any longer, where I once spent Nyepi with friends. Nyepi is actually enforced hanging out. On Nyepi, everyone must stay inside their compounds and not use electricity or cook. It is meant to fool the evil spirits into thinking Bali has been deserted so they leave it alone for another year. And woe to anyone the Banjar patrol finds out on the street on Nyepi.

Dogler and his staff and his girlfriend, Debbie, my buddy Abang, Dee, a flamboyant gay guy from South Africa Debbie had solicited to cook there, and other assorted characters, mostly Balinese, settled in at Bulan for 24 hours, stocked with food and videos. A couple of us had hotel rooms at the cottages across Monkey Forest Road, and we ran back and forth after we looked carefully up and down the street to be sure the Banjar police weren't patrolling. I'm not sure why I rented a hotel room, since we all stayed up all night and finally fell asleep on the pillows and mats at Bulan, but it gave us a place to go swimming later. Anyway, we'd watch videos, play some of Abang's house mixes, play cards, drink Coors (we had run out of Bintangs) and talk. Somebody up front would yell the banjar police were coming so we would turn down the lights (no electric light allowed) and turn down one of the many action videos Dogler or Wayan or somebody had brought along. Bulan was short-lived, but I helped them with their flyers and the spelling on their menus, and if I had nothing else to do at night and it was late, I could always run into someone I knew at Bulan.

Long before Bulan, we used to sit right on the sidewalk of Monkey Forest Road, playing acoustic guitar, singing and smoking Sampoernas. But they don't let us do that anymore; the local hotel keepers complained, so Ubud has lost just a little bit of its charm.

But no worries, there is no lack of places to hang out in Bali. There are still a thousand little warungs, still bars that spring up and close and spring up again with new names, still open roofed, open-air platforms in friends' compounds, still open-air pool halls and the temple courtyards, the temples that are alive with the socializing and gambling that accompany most any ceremony.

But this week, in San Francisco, I'm too busy to even think about hanging out. I'm about to start three marketing projects for three different clients, I have a job interview, I have a trunk show for my side jewelry business, I promised a friend I would help with her store opening and I promised another friend I would drive to San Mateo with three van loads of donations for a charity event. I dream of Bali, and I sigh.

Adrift in a Storm (Kalimantan Part VI)

2006-05-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

My guide, Agus, just looked at me, astonished. Sayid, who had acted as my guide to orangutan sanctuaries, had recommended this guy to take me up river to visit Dayak villages. I know this word is junior high, but I've got to say that Agus was the only dorky Indonesian I had ever met up that time. Heavy-set, black glasses, clothes that approximiated that of the worst stereotype of a programmer and an amazing affinity for finding boring topics to rattle on about in one of the most interesting areas of the world. Anyway, Agus could not believe what I was saying as we stood on the dock in Kumai.

I glared at Agus, at the small, battered motorboat boat and at the boatmen, and I repeated myself. "I am not getting into that boat!"

"But we have to go, I have already paid them!"

"Agus, he can't even get the thing started!"

"But, yes! See, it is running now!"

After about 57 tries to start the motor, efforts that required the efforts of three young men, the little motorboat finally emitted feeble "putt-putt" noises.

Agus looked at me pathetically, envisioning his rupiah going the way of the ever-shrinking rain forest. Finally, I bowed to the pressure, and, against my better judgment, I climbed into the boat. Agus breathed a sigh of relief, and the young boatmen all but cheered.

We started off up the river. I had decided to stay in Kalimantan for a couple extra days. The plan was to visit some villages, meet some people and see first-hand the devastation caused by gold mining along the river's banks. The river was wide and muddy and real. Very real. This was not the forgiving kind of body of water we used to cross in our little boat at home to go on picnics. It was a major thoroughfare. We headed out to the middle of it, Augus, me and two boatmen. As we reached the choppiest part of the river, the motor chugged twice, whined and sputtered to a stop. I would have glared again at everyone involved, but I was too busy hanging on to sides of the boat as the current tossed us about. There were the usual desperate, futile attempts to get the motor started, and in the middle of it all, it began to rain. Heavily.

Suddenly the river was all but deserted, as craft scurried for the shelter of the shore. I remembered all the news reports about sinking ferries in Indonesia. Well, I figured, drowning while heading for an out-of-the-way village in Indonesian Borneo was as good an epitaph as any; that is, if word ever got back to anybody I knew in the world as to what had happened to me. I could see the fear in the boatmen's face as one of them tried to fight the river with a tiny paddle. It was no use, and the river tossed us about more and more maliciously.

Since I am here to write about this, you will not be surprised to learn that another motorboat saw us and came to our aid. I clambered aboard, soaked through and thanking the gods I hadn't thought I had believed in. When we got back to Kumai, Agus said these guys would fix the boat and we would go the next day. I laughed, turned my back on him and walked back to my hotel. I did go the next day, but in a different boat and with different crew.

PHOTO is of some kids along a dock on the river on a different day.

One Small Moment (Bali)

2006-04-29T23:45:00.000-07:00

We raced the rain on that late afternoon, heading back to Ubud from Payangan. Finally, just as we came around the final bend of the Campuan road, the rain became a torrent and forced him to pull the motorbike to the side of the road. We ran for an overhang that sheltered a closed warung and sat on a white, wooden bench, elated and happy. I don't remember what we talked about. We laughed a lot, I know. We laughed and sat close together and thought how lucky we were to be here together in the rain on this day in Bali.

Missing Gabriel

2006-03-27T11:17:00.000-08:00

Two of my best friends, Shara and her soon-to-be three year old son, Gabriel, are moving to L.A. later this week. This is bittersweet, for Shara is moving on to a wonderful job opportunity, but I will miss them.

Yesterday I spent the day with Gabriel while Shara borrowed my van to move boxes out of her storage. I sent out resumes while Gabriel watched Shark Tales, then we set off to Little Farm in Tilden Park, his favorite place in the world. There he can see pigs, feed goats and sheep and pet cows. We wandered around the farm and a bit into the park; I photographed him and he posed. After that I took him for a chocolate ice cream cone, then home to where he wanted to watch Shark Tales again. In other words, it was a last chance to spoil him rotten before he and Shara moved to L.A., and I took full advantage of it. A couple days before this I gave him an early birthday gift, a Thomas the train video that also came with a train car. "Bertie!" Gabriel cried delighted when he saw it - all these anthropomrophized trains have names, and all the kids know them. (Marketing genius - this toy manufacturer has come up with a way for boys to play with dolls without the stigma.)

Anyway, Shara called me this morning and said Gabriel woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to watch the Thomas the Train video I had bought for him. (It had all his favorite episodes that he had come to love while watching On Demand cable at my place.) She told him it was dark and time to sleep, but he could watch it once it was light. Apparently, he clutched it all night long, even into sleep, and at the crack of dawn he woke Shara up, saying, "Mommy, it's light! Can I watch Thomas now?" Given his restraint until the dawn, of course she let him. Who else can I give a gift to and have it so appreciated?

A couple hours later, Shara was dropping Gabriel off at school. She told him it would be his last week at school. He understood he would not see these friends anymore. He said, "Will you always play with me, Mommy?" Shara assured him she would always, always be with him. She told him that his daddy would visit him, and his grandmas and Deborah (me), and that he could visit us. Gabriel immediately proclaimed, "I like Deborah!" How can you not love that? So, of course, I am already missing Gabriel.

Magic Turtles - A First Glimpse of Hanoi

2006-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

Previous Related Posts:

In Search of Vietnam

The Noodle Village

When I was growing up, watching the Vietnam War on television in the Cincinnati 'burbs, the name "Hanoi" conjured up images of what I imagined was bleak Communism: dark, concrete block buildings, grey city streets, a drab existence. What can I say, how was I to know better? I was a kid and there was no Internet, and it never occurred to me to send off for books. Of course, years later, I read about Vietnam before I traveled there, but I still ended up in Hanoi due to an accident of geography. I booked a hotel in Hanoi because of Hanoi's strategic location in the middle of a triangle made up of hill tribe country to the west, stunningly beautiful Halong Bay to the east and charming towns such as Hoi Ann just a bit further south.

Due to flight schedules from Bali, I flew to Saigon and bought a same-day plane ticket to Hanoi. Buying a Saigon/Hanoi ticket was difficult and expensive to do from outside the country, but quite easy once I was there; the planes went so often it was almost like booking a bus ticket. I had booked a hotel in Hanoi ahead of time, because I was traveling alone, and I knew it would be night when I arrived.

So just after dark, I found myself on an airport shuttle from the airport to the center of Hanoi near Hoan Kiem Lake. We traveled through broad boulevards lined with green foliage and elegant, quietly aging, two-story French colonial buildings, whose slatted wooden doors shielded secrets of not-so-long-ago intrigue. We left those streets behind for more narrow ones swirling with life and color. Here, in the center of Hanoi, street vendors sold French baguettes, families sat along the sides of the streets on low stools, barbecuing their dinners on small grills, and rickshaws pulled both locals and tourists intent on errands or an evening's entertainment. Hither and thither, women in traditional round, pointed coolie hats and "pajamas" carried goods in buckets balanced across their shoulders on long poles. I was so enchanted I forgot to breathe.

The next day, I awoke early to the sound of street vendors calling to their prospects over the hum of motorbikes. I stepped through the French doors of my balcony to watch the farmers from the country go about setting up their produce to sell on the street. I went downstairs to breakfast - a French baguette, jam and tea - and out the door to head for the lake. Hoan Kiem Lake is an oasis in the midst of modern office buildings and non-stop traffic. Hoan Kiem means "Lake of the Restored Sword", because in the 15th century it is said a nobleman successfully defended his country against Ming China with a sword given him by a turtle living in the lake. To commemorate this event, the emperor built a tower that still stands today on an island at the south end of the lake. Enormous turtles have always lived in this lake, and probably still do today, but the last one was spotted in the late '90's. I did not go to the south end of the lake the first day, but later I discovered a fabulous ice cream parlor at that end. (Okay, the ice cream parlor is of no historical significance, but trust me, in the oppressive summer heat of Hanoi, it was of huge personal import!)

I thought I knew Asian traffic from years of negotiating the streets of Indonesa, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong. I found out I was but a babe in the woods. Crossing a street in a Vietnamese city is a test of bravery and fortitude. I have heard Saigon traffic is even more frantic than that of Hanoi; I have tried to imagine that and failed. Traffic in Vietnam is mostly a solid wave of motorcycles interspersed with bicycles and some very large trucks. It doesn't stop for you; you just make your way purposefully across the street at a consistent speed and traffic swerves around you. If you try to avoid the traffic by dodging it, you will be hit for sure. I knew enough to wait for some Vietnamese pedestrians to cross the streets and just move with them.

Passing the test of negotating traffic without being killed earned me the right to walk along the walkway of Hoan Kiem Lake, and it was worth it. I was charmed by the well-kept grounds, the couples sitting on park benches and the serenity. I was early enough to see some older people practicing Tai Chi (though of course I was used to this same site at certain parks in San Francisco), and I walked across an ornate, red bridge to the small island at the north end of the lake to Ngoc Son temple, built during the Tran Dynasty (1225 to 1400). Later in the week, when I visited the southern part of the lake, I thought that the juxtaposition of high, modern office buildings looming on the shore behind 15th century Tortoise Tower pretty much summed up Hanoi in a nutshell.

I wiped my forehead; it was already getting extremely hot. With good reason, even the budget hotels in Hanoi were air-conditioned, and I quickly established a routine of going out in the early morning and the later afternoon, trying, not always successfully, to be back in my hotel in the middle of the day. Mad dogs and Englishmen, and all that.

To be cont...

Odalan at the Lake, Part II - The Ceremony (Bali)

2006-01-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

The day after the Meet and Greet I describe in Part I of this piece, we readied ourselves to pray. Aileen donned a new, custom-sewn kebaya made in the very latest style, and it perfectly matched her beautiful and expensive silk sarong. At that time, the height of style was a sheer, very delicate lace kebaya with a sarong of matching color. I myself was wearing a gold and white sarong with a new gold kebaya, which, even I have to admit, did fabulous things for my skin tone. Aileen wrapped a sarong around her almost two-year-old daugher, who loved it and started imitating legong (Balinese dance) moves. She screamed and cried when Aileen tried to adjust the sarong, thinking Aileen was going to take it away.

The ceremonies in Bali may seem half-hazard to the casual tourist, but in fact they are extremely well organized. (The exception to this can be the dates of certain ceremonies, which often shift at the last moment.) The Odalan for this particular temple was always a huge event, and we wandered around in the afternoon sun for hours, visiting people and waiting for our designated turn to enter the temple. Finally, it was time. As we were about to mount the steps to the temple, Leger turned to Aileen and me and asked, "Everyone okay to go into the temple?" What he really meant was, "Are either of you menstruating, because it would profane the temple for a menstruating woman or anyone bleeding in any way to enter it." We were used to this taboo, and Aileen and I nodded that we were good to go, glancing at each other in amusement that Leger had broached the topic even in this round-about way.

We went up the steps. Aileen was stunningly beautiful with her blonde hair pinned up in flowers and dressed in a shade of lavendar that had doubtlessly been created for her. She carried a very small offering on her head, nothing like the towering offerings of fruit, flowers and cakes the Balinese women carried (and I mean some of those offerings were taller than a large three-year-old child). I was tamu (a guest) with no Balinese family attachments; I did not carry an offering, nor was I expected to. Leger, usually joking and goofy, looked dashing and distinguished in his white jacket and brown batik sarong. Aileen and Leger's toddler was as pleased as she could be, feeling dressed up and important.

We seated ourselves in one of the many rows that were forming in the temple. For women, "seated" meant sitting back on our heels in a kneeling position, a position Balinese women can hold for hours, but which I have never been able to maintain for more than a few moments. So I sat on one hip with my legs drawn up as demurely as I could to the side. I didn't feel too bad about this, as Balinese are also practiced in not just casually squatting as an alternative to sitting, but squatting confortably back on their heels for long time periods, a stance I have never seen even one Westerner try. The men, who tied their sarongs in a different manner than women to give them much more freedom of movement, sat cross-legged. This was all par for the course, and I wondered what new rites I would witness at this ceremony that were different from the usual temple worship.

Before I could think about this for long, a young man sitting next to me said, very haltingly in English, "Hello, how are you?" Oh, no. I knew what was coming. He would want to practice his almost non-existent English. In deference to all of those who helped me practice my Bahasa Indonesia over the years, of course I obliged. Aileen and I waited patiently and smilingly as he formed his words, and we answered his questions. We actually managed to exchange a few pleasantries and some family information. One thing I love about the Balinese; there is very little false formality. Even on the most sacred occasions, I have seen priests laugh and joke, and at this Odalan ceremony, it was perfectly acceptable for us to chat as we waited for the blessing. However, I still couldn't help but wish that the people who wanted to practice their English actually knew a little English to practice.

We saw the priest and his assistant slowly making their way toward us; we lit incense sticks and put one in the ground in front of each of us, and readied our small piles of flower petals. Each of us waved our hands over the incense smoke and looked down as we pressed our hands together in prayer and raised them above our heads. We held this stance for a moment, then took a flower petal, passed it through the purifying smoke, and raised our hands again, this time holding a flower petal between them. We did this another time. We did this once more, this time putting the flower petal in our hair after we had used it to pray.

As the priest approached, we held our hands out palm up in front of us, accepting the holy water the priest sprinkled over us. Then he approached each one, pouring holy water into our cupped hands, the right hand over the impure left hand. We did this twice, and on the third time put the water through our hair. Finally, we accepted a little bit of rice from the priest in our left hands, and put it on our foreheads and temples with our right hands.

In other words, the blessing was the exact same thing that happens every time one goes to the temple to pray. Life, love, work and everything else you can imagine in Bali revolves around ceremonies and the banjar (community) obligations that support those ceremonies. So you would think after days, weeks and months of preparations, ceremonies would build to a dramatic crescendo. Sometimes they do, as with trance dances. But more often than not, westerners find themselves asking "When is the ceremony?" only to discover what seemed like just another small step in the perpetual lead-up was actually the culmination of the event.

But there were more people to visit, more bets to make, more dancers to watch, more babi guling to eat. We left the temple and made our way to the nearest warung, not far from the temple steps.

In Search of Vietnam

2006-01-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I take a sidetrip from Bali to some other part of Asia. I feel it almost as a duty, for going to Bali is no longer really travel anymore than visiting my relatives in Ohio is travel. I'm not quite sure why, about five or six years ago, I chose to visit Vietnam. I had thought about it for awhile and read various books on the country, including "Catfish and Mandala" and that book written by the young woman who road a motorcyle "alone" around Vietnam and videotaped it into a documentary. (If she was alone, who was taking all those shots of her riding off on her motorcycle?) Anyway, Vietnam seemed as interesting of a place to go as any.

I did not go to Vietnam to come to terms with the images of devastation that visited me every night on my tv screen as I grew up in the 1960's. I had no interest in revisitng the War; I wanted to see Vietnam itself. But, of course, growing up when I had in America had given me certain preconceived notions. Television and magazine images of hot,impassable jungles and stricken peasants had burned themselves into my psyche. I remembered America's fear of Communists, I remembered the war protests, I remembered wearing an army jacket with a sewn-on peace sign as a teen-ager. I remembered My Lai.

I debated between visiting Saigon (Nobody calls it Ho Chi Ming City in Vietnam, not even in the North, and I don't care what the travel books say) with a sidetrip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, or, in the alternative, visiting the North, beginning in Hanoi, which is conveniently located between the hill tribe country to the West and mind-bogglingly beatiful Halong Bay to the east. I decided on the North.

My long-time boyfriend in Bali seemed convinced I was going to Vietnam to meet a lover, for almost no one in Bali can imagine traveling alone for the fun of it, for no other reason than to explore and learn about another place, another people. His attitude was irritating and insulting, but expected, and I disregarded it. I do not take kindly to people trying to control me.

Vietnam was, like everywhere, mostly the mundane living of every day life: working, eating, visiting friends, depending on family. It was also astounding beauty, deep-seated pain, long history full of kings, palaces and invasions, and visions for the future. I had read that the vast majority of people living in Vietnam had not yet been alive at the end of the "American War". But, though no one was rude, I could see the memories of the War behind old men's eyes when they discovered I was American. And I could see the pragmatism and hope in the faces of the youth, for whom the American War was ancient history.

I read a lot about Vietnam before I want there, but it was not as I had expected...

To be continued

Odalan at the Lake, Part I (Bali)

2005-12-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

I just returned from dropping off a packages for Aileen and Leger to take to friends in Bali. Whenever any of my San Francisco Bay Area/Bali group friends go to Bali, we take gifts and mementos for friends and relatives of the others. Sitting at dinner with Aileen and Leger and their two children, I remembered the last time we were in Bali together. At that time their daughter, now six, was only a year and a half. Their son had not yet been imagined. What I particularly remember about those few months is the odalan at the lake.

Leger is from mountainous Kintamani, where every year there is a huge celebration for the anniversary (odalan) of an important temple on the shores of Lake Batur. Thousands gather from villages all around the lake for a three-day ceremony and festival. Everyone camps there for the entire time, building temporary bamboo structures from which they hang blankets and grasses, creating a Baliense Arabian nights village of tents. That year, Leger, ever adaptable, put up two large Target tents he had brought with him from San Francisco. Those tents were the envy of the ceremony.

I drove up to the ceremony from Ubud with my friend, Wayan, and when I arrived, I found Leger's family busily setting up their make-shift tents. I knew Leger's extended family very well from years of carrying letters and photos back and forth between San Francisco and Bali. Even when I had no letters, I often stopped in to visit Leger's parents, his stylish brother, Ketut, Ketut's beautiful wife and their little son. I adored Leger's charming, younger sister, Putuh, who had lived with Aileen and Leger in San Francisco the year after their daughter was born. She had returned to Bali not six months before, married her childhood sweetheart and moved to Lovina. Of course, they were both at the ceremony. It was like old home week to hang with Putuh and Ketut; I had known them both for years, long before either was married, and we had some catching up to do.

It was July, but it was very cold at night. I remember sitting by lantern-light in front of one of the dozens of little warungs that sprang up around the camp, sipping hot coffee to warm up. Ketut was so cold he wore a parka over his sarong, as did many, many others. Wayan, Leger and Ketut decided to go gambling, as there are always hot games going on at these things. I headed in the same general direction to buy a fleece-lined jacket from one of the many clothing vendors. If you are getting the picture of a large, vibrant community socializing in this city of tents, that's what it was, and what it is every year.

Aileen, her toddler daughter, her sister-in-law, Putuh, Leger's cousin, Buddhi, and I wandered about the gathering. I looked up now and then to the temple presiding over the lake on volcanic Mt. Batur; when it awakes, Mt. Batur can overflow with fire and death as it had just a few decades before. Natural disasters and tourists (who can impact like a naural disaster) come and go. But this ceremony, this celebration and this gathering were all part of an ancient fabric that wove the Balinese together from time that reached back until it dissolved in dreams.

Despite my study and extended stays in Bali, I don't pretend to have any kind of deep understanding of Balinese culture; I am suspect of foreigners who think they truly understand. Even expats who have lived in Bali for years and have Balinese spouses tell me they feel they are forever pulling back new layers of the onion. But Aileen and I appreciated that the structure of religious ceremonies and community obligatons had kept Balinese culture strong (yet changed) in the face of decades of tourism and a major war. We were startled when occasional frustrated tourists honked their car horns at the milling crowds, as they impatiently tried to drive on the road that ran from further up the lake, through the ceremony and out of the mountains. Where could they be going more important? And how could they have been so out of touch to not notice a tent city arising from the lake shore? Clearly, this was one of the biggest events going on in Bali at the time. But it wasn't in their guidebooks, so they rushed off to see some sight, missing this rich opportunity to share Balinese life.

We walked around, buying pisang goreng (fried bananas) and other treats. Aileen and I had to get Putuh or other Balinese friends to buy them, as the vendors were determined to overcharge us, since we we were "tamu". Usually I can get a decent price when I speak Indonesian while bargaining, and Aileen, with her obviously half-Balinese daughter in tow, even tried bargaining in Balinese, but these people were cut-throat. Batur has a rather hard core reputation for this. We stopped and gambled a few rupiah at simple little games, not as intense as the more high stakes games the guys were playing. The fact is that a lot, and I mean a lot, of Balinese men have major gambling problems, though, of course, others just indulge as occasional entertainment. It can be a grey line.

We came across little girls in red lipstick and golden headresses dancing legong, a performance that in this instance was meant for entertainment rather than temple worship. The refined, small movements, the calculated flashes of the eyes, the fingertip control were all so much more in place here than at the tourist performances, where the audiences jostled for photos. (My friend 'Tut, who I met around this time, had been poor as a child and been made to dance baris at tourist performances. He had hated it.)

We ran into many people we knew, mostly from Kintamani, but many from Lovina. It is not uncommon for people from Kintamani to find jobs in more heavily touristed Lovina, and there is a bit of a symbiotic relationship between the two places. So we talked with a number of people. In Bali, talking with just about anybody means hearing lots of gossip and often becoming the topic of gossip yourself. If you've spent any time at all in Bali, you know the Balinese have got to rank among the world's biggest gossips.

"Hey, I saw you with Wayan!" one young man called to me. I had no idea who he was, but apparently he knew me. "What happened to Made?" he asked leeringly, naming a boyfriend from years before and a different part of the island. I've spent a lot of time in Bali over a lot of years, but having two serious boyfriends over a 10-year period there is the social equivalent of having 30 flings in a one-year period in the States. If you have a boyfriend in Bali, you might as well marry him, because you will never, and I mean literally never, be allowed to forget that relationship. It can feel like the entire island knows your business; it doesn't take much to be scandalous in a society where the women are all but cloistered.

The good thing about Bali: It's community oriented and it seems like everybody knows everybody. The bad thing about Bali: It's community oriented and it seems like everybody knows everybody. Living in Bali is a lot like living in "Mayberry".

This day was for socializing and renewing old bonds. The next day we would enter the temple to pray.

To be continued...

Happy Holidays

2005-12-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

I have been receiving text messages and emails from Bali to add to the cards friends and family in the States have sent me. In honor of the holidays, I am posting a few Bali photos that represent the spirit of love and family.

Luhde and Ayu. Luhde and her husband, Wayan, are long-time, steadfast friends. (Spring 2005)

Wayan and Agus, who is incognito in his super hero identity (Spring 2005)

Luhde and Ayu (Summer 2002)

Leger's brother from Kintamani, Ketut, and his son reading letters and viewing photos from Leger and wife Aileen in the States. (Spring 2005)

Friends (1996)

'Tut trying on my motorcycle glasses and generally being dorky

Scopes Monkey Trial Revisited - It's 1925 Again!

2005-12-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are, more than 75 years later. Babies have been born, grown into old age and died. Yet school districts are still forcing U.S. courts to revisit the Scopes Monkey Trial. See CNN

A federal district judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday that "intelligent design" is religion, not science, and that teaching it in the public school district at issue is a violation of the First Amendment. Well, alleluia! Even this Republican Judge appointed by George W. couldn't swallow such a blatant disregard of the separation of Church and State. Yet proponents of "intelligent design" swear they will not be stopped.

It's common knowlege that "intelligent design" is a movement; many school districts are warning U.S. children that 1) evolution is only a theory and not science, and 2) "intelligent design" (translation: Adam and Eve myth) is science and not religion.

The San Francisco Chronicle quotes a physics professor at Case Western as saying, "U.S. children are consistently scoring behind those of other nations in...science." Is it any wonder?

Held Hostage by an Orangutan (Kalimantan Part V)

2005-12-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

My previous related posts about the orangutan preserves in Tanjung Puting:

Heading for Kalimantan, 12/05/05

The Klotok (Kalimantan Part II), 12/11/05

Up the River (Kalimantan Part III), 12/12/05

About the Sanctuaries (Kalimantan Part IV), 12/13/05

Held Hostage by an Orangutan (Kalimantan Part V)

I stood frozen, sense overcoming the fear rising in my throat. I knew I had to remain calm. An orangutan with the strength of several men gripped my hair tightly, holding me hostage. My mind raced; how could I escape without being mauled? (I had never heard of anyone being mauled by any of these peaceful primates, but I was in no mood to weigh statistics.)

Calmly, in a purposefully conversational, non-threatening voice, I said to my so-called guide, “Said (Sah-eed), can you help me? Said?” I was, of course, completely panicked, but I made every effort not to show it.

Moments before, we had watched red apes of all shapes and sizes swing in from the forest canopy for feeding time at the first orangutan sanctuary we visited, Pondok Tanguii. They traveled on vines and branches from the depths of the rain forest, reaching one arm over the other until they arrived at the feeding station, a platform in the middle of the Borneo jungle. These orangutans were still being given a hand-out of sorts, until they could completely acclimate to the wild and make it on their own. At the feeding station, they scrambled for bananas placed there by the Tanjung Puting park rangers. (The rangers were young, shirtless Indo guys, one of whom had a poster of Jennifer Anniston in his room. I saw it when they let me use the room to change. Jennifer Anniston?)

After watching the raucous feeding, Said and I walked further into the jungle. He had seen a young, adult female ape sitting low in the trees, and he recognized her. Many of the orangutans had been given names, and Said reached up to Anher. She took his hand and held it politely. Said started shooting my video camera when I did the same.

He was still shooting when the orangutan suddenly stopped holding my hand and strongly and agressively grabbed my forearm. She startled and frightend me, but I was powerless in her grip. She then snatched hold of my hair with a hand and both feet, putting a lot of her weight on my head, almost using my head like a tree branch. She would sometimes release the grip of one of her hands, but not before she grabbed my hair even more tightly with a foot (there's not much difference between the hands and feet of an orangutan), always very, very tightly, right at the roots. It seemed she would pull my hair out. The rangers, of course, were nowhere in sight.

Said spoke to me in a low tone, “Don’t be aggressive, or she will bite you.” Well, duh... No question who would win in a bar fight. Said couldn’t leave me to get help, and he couldn’t really help me himself. So he did the only thing he could - he kept on shooting video! I sighed internally. Well, at least my death at the hands (and feet) of an orangutan would be on film for posterity.

Anher reached down, grabbed my hand and tried to put it to her mouth. This terrified me, but I slowly and carefully pulled my hand back, and she allowed it. Then she put her teeth down to my hair as if to try to taste it. "This is it," I thought. I was scared out of my mind she would take a big bite out of my face.

Finally, I think Anher got bored. I put my hand gently on the foot that was currently pulling the hair out of my head and forced my head down and murmured, “It’s all right... it’s all right.” And she finally let go.

I looked into her eyes, and they were not the eyes of a dog or cat. They were the intelligent eyes of a mischievous human teen-ager, and I could see the wheels turning behind them. Anher looked back at me and smirked.

PHOTO: Photo is of that demon, Anher

To be continued...

My Friend, Gabriel

2005-12-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

My friend Shara tells me I don't reveal much of myself in my writing on this blog. That is mostly purposeful. In an effort to put more of myself into this blog, today I would like to write about her son, who is an amazing personality and my friend in his own right. I introduce him to you now, as you will probably see him surface in this blog from time to time. He is now a bit past two and a half years old, though he is probably about 10 months in this photograph. I see the world's potential in him.

I don't have children, and I was never strongly drawn to them. Oh, sure, I was very fond of certain individuals, but not because they were children per se. I have always pretty much interacted with kids the same way I interact with adults - one by one. So when I was back in San Francisco from Bali one year to sell my line wholesale at the international gift shows, it was a bit of an odd match for me to find myself temporarily living with my friend Shara and her 8-month old baby. She had an extra room, I needed a place to stay, so we figured we could do it for a few months.

I had met Gabriel some months before, when he was sleeping and just sort of laying there like a piece of broccoli as babies do. (In all fairness to Gabriel, he was, after all, asleep.) But how much trouble could he be? I thought. No big deal.

Well, long story short, living with them, Gabriel came to look at me as another person who would comfort him and play with him and love him. And, so, of course, I fell completely in love myself. If he was tired and Shara was typing, he would crawl over to me, boost himself up onto my lap, situate himself and fall asleep. He completely melted my heart.

When I was working on my computer, sometimes he would crawl over and hold up his arms to me, wanting to be picked up. "Up?" I would say. And sure enough, soon he was crawling over, holding up his arms and saying "Ugh! ugh!" until I picked him up. ("Ugh" quickly became "Uppppp".) Of course, then he wanted to play with the computer mouse, which had a red light that fascinated him. I let him and lost a lot of work in the process.

"Up" was his actual first word, but he called Shara "Em" as his first word approximation even before I moved in with them (which was when he was eight months old). He had probably heard the word "Mommy" and this was as close as he could get so young. "Em! Em!" he would call to her. The next word he learned after "Up" was "That". Very smart, because he had picked it up on his own and it was handy for a variety of uses. When he wanted us to pick him up to kiss one of the African masks Shara had on the wall (for some reason still unknown to me, she had taught him to kiss the masks), he would point at it and say, emphatically, "That!" When I took him in his stroller down the street and he wanted to see something closer in the window, he would point and say, "That!" Of course, if we were eating food he wanted to try, we heard, "That!" He thereafter quickly learned to say "MMM!" for food, and would even point at newspaper ads of pizza and say "MMM!" with gusto.

A real San Francisco baby, Gabriel ate burritos before he even quite had teeth. I think he might have been about 10 months when I gave him his first pizza when Shara went out for the evening. She was worried to leave him for even a few hours, as she normally took him everywhere. (That kid had a better social life than I did!) However, that night she came home to find him sitting on my lap eating pizza with tomato sauce smeared all over his face. It's still one of his favorite foods. Hey, I'm not the mom, so I leave the healthy eating to her.

Gabriel continually astounded Shara and I with his feats; often we looked over his head at each other in wide-eyed amazement. Both mentally and physically, he was always months ahead of what he was supposed to be doing according to the baby books. Check out the photo (at left) of him at nine months doing a pull-up on my filing cabinet in an effort to reach the CDs. At nine months, he also learned how to turn light switches on and off when we held him up high enough to reach them. He had a look of concentration as he switched the light on or off, and we clapped and yelled, "Yay!" He would beam a smile and clap in response. We clapped and cheered for all his accomplishments, which may be why he still tends to show off when I am around.

In tune with the people around him, Gabriel has always been empathetic. When other children cried for reasons he could not understand, even at a very young age he would look extremely concerned and try to comfort them. Now that he is a little older than two and a half, he is already beginning to take care of Shara. Shara had a bad cold yesterday, so I stopped by to pick Gabriel up for an evening party of our mutual friends and their children. When we left, Gabriel told Shara, "Mommy, take your medicine." At the party Gabriel received a number of holiday gifts. When I brought him back to his house, the first thing he did was run over to his mother who was lying miserable and sniffly on the couch and proclaim, "Look, Mommy! I brought you something!" And he gave Shara a little stuffed dog he had been given at the party.

So, every now and then, Gabriel and I get together, just the two of us, to go to the movies or to see the sea lions at Pier 39 or take in the aquarium. It's not baby sitting; it's just two old friends spending time together.

As for Shara and Gabriel, they have a close bond that seems very special to me, and I am certain that bond will remain strong and vital throughout their lives. (Though I have a feeling Shara may have her hands full in the teen years!) I can see that Gabriel will grow up to be a strong, compassionate man and a joy to Shara. Together, they embody love.

Culture Shock

2005-12-15T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm now living on once-foreign soil, and I'm in culture shock. Have I moved to Bali permanently, you ask? No, friends, I've done what at one point I would have considered totally incomprehensible - I've moved from San Francisco to East Bay, El Cerrito, of all places. There was a time that my friends and I raised an eyebrow at those who opted to live on the other side of the Bay Bridge. As in "Do you really want to go to that bar tonight? It mostly attracts a bridge and tunnel crowd" Well, the worm has turned.

It was increased space for a cheaper price that called to me, the opportunity to have an office for my marketing and copywriting work and a studio for my silversmithing hobby. Of course getting away from a certifiably crazy roommate might have played a part. Ya think? Anyway, I got to tell you, it is a fabulous space, but there are some cultural adjustments. You wouldn't think a bridge would make that much difference, but nobody wants to cross that bridge once they get home at night if they don't have to.

Here is how my life has changed:

BREAKFAST

SF (San Francisco): Walk to neighborhood coffee shop owned by a French woman for latte. Drink latte and eat bagel and lox amid Parisian photographs and genteel music.

EB (East Bay): Actually MAKE my own coffee, because it's either that or get in the car and drive to Starbucks over at the shopping plaza.

GROCERY SHOPPING

SF: Grocery shopping? I just walked down the street to one of 50 restaurants: Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Greek, Salvadoran, Mexican, Singaporean, Korean, Thai...

EB: Trader Joe's and Berkeley Bowl, home of all fresh produce. (East Bay also has fabulous restaurants, but from where I live, you have to drive to them.)

PARTYING

SF: Cocktail party at home before going on to the "flavor of the week" restaurant followed by dancing at the prime time club followed by dancing at the after hours club followed by dancing at the after-after hours club.

EB: Vegetarian fare at friends' house while watching them try "Supernanny" or "Nanny 911" techniques on their two year old who is standing on top of the table, stomping the serving bowl of broccoli with his small foot and screaming, "No vegables! No vegables!"

EXERCISE

SF: Working out on Nautilus equipment in the gym after work before heading out for cocktails at that trendy new bistro.

EB: Hiking around Tilden Park.

HANGING WITH FRIENDS

SF: Sitting in a hot tub on the deck of a friend's condo overlooking the City with a glass of merlot (Have you noticed an alcohol trend in my SF lifestyle?) while discussing: a) Where to meet before the next anti-war rally, b) Are Gavin and Kimberly off or on? c) Is it wise to add a Nano to one's iPod collection, given its short battery life? d) Any of George W's voluminous incomprehensible antics

EB: Visiting Fairyland, because most of friends bought houses here when they had kids. On the up side, I'm seeing a lot of friends I had almost lost track of when they moved to East Bay.

FASHION

SF: Sleek black lambskin jacket, sleek Prada boots, Armani sunglasses
EB: Either fringed jacket and Indian tunic or a sweat suit

There are no doubt a lot more changes I have not yet faced in moving to East Bay. Anyone out there have any Bay Area culture shock observations of their own? Joyfish?

Information (Bali)

2005-12-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

Getting information when you're in Bali can be a challenge, and getting information when you are thousands of miles away is enough to make you tear your hair out. It is bad enough when I am trying to find out if a silversmith made the specified changes in an order. Did he add the small pearls to the amazonite necklaces? Did he correct the length of the heart charm bracelets? Did he properly close all the jump rings? These communications inefficiencies have probably cost me thousands of dollars over the years, but they are nothing next to trying to get information about 'Tut's prognosis. (See my previous posting, Warmth).

Ketut was in Denpasar when I called him yesterday, as he needs to be near the hospital where medical workers from Singapore are administering therapy. He does not have to stay at the hospital. He is sharing a room in Denpasar with another man who is undergoing cancer therapy from the Singaporean team. I ask him if he is getting radiation treatments following the operation he had for lung cancer in Singapore, and he keeps talking about "massage". But I don't think he really means massage, I think that is just the closest English word he can approximate, massage being seen as such a healing treatment in Bali.

He says he has a letter from his Chinese-speaking doctor that contains a code indicating information about his illness. But he says the code is unreadable and probably would mean nothing to medical professionals I could show it to in the United States. He does not understand why I keep asking for specifics when he feels he has clearly told me he had lung cancer, had an operation and is now undergoing therapy. He tells me he will be completely cured in six months. "They 100% guarantee it," he says. They guarantee a complete cure for lung cancer?

When my friend Lisa saw Ketut a month ago in Bali, she said he looked much thinner and appeared depressed. Her report put me in despair. She met Ketut when we visited her at her husband's family compound a couple years ago when they were in Batuan on vacation. She knows what he looked like before the illness, and she knows his normal joking personality.

'Tut keeps telling me it is raining, and he is cold, even though he has the coat. I am sending some waterproof boots with my friend Aileen who is going to Bali in a couple weeks. What else can I do?

About the Sanctuaries (Kalimantan Part IV)

2005-12-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

Previous Related Posts:
Heading for Kalimantan, 12/05/05
The Klotok (Kalimantan, Part II) 12/11/05
Up the River (Kalimantan, Part III) 12/12/05

As you have probably gathered from my previous posts, the focus of my trip to Kalimantan (other than getting out of making offerings 12 hours a day for that upcoming cremation back in Bali!) was to visit Camp Leakey and Pondok Tanguii, orangutan sanctuaries and research centers established by Birute Galdikas many years before in the huge rain forest tract set aside as Tanjung Puting park land. (See the book Reflections of Eden : My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo by Birute Galdikas.) Before Galdikas, almost nothing was known of orangutans. Both their solitary nature and their high treetop lifestyle made them extremely difficult to study. Originally established as a research center, Camp Leakey quickly also became a santuary for orangutans who had done time in activity. At the time I went, there were still wild orangutans in the park, but the ones I met close up and personal were in the process of being rehabilitated back into the wild.

I love apes; I was an anthropology major, and I have followed research about non-human primates for years. In other words, this was a momentous trip for me; I was excited. It did not occur to me until a long time after the trip, that perhaps bringing visitors to the orangutans could put them at risk of disease and make it more difficult to rehabilitate them back into the wild. This, as I understand it, is the view held by Willie Smits, who heads another orangutan rescue organization which is very well respected. (See www.organgutan.com.)

When I went to the sanctuaries in Tanjung Puting, small groups of tourists were permitted, and they still are. Birute Galdikas has come under fire for her methods in recent years. (See Linda Spalding's A Dark Place in the Jungle: Following Leakey's Last Angel into Borneo and The Follow.) I do not take it upon myself to take up those issues here. I will say, however, that I later volunteered briefly to work for an Orangutan Foundation International fundraiser (Galdikas' organization), and I was quickly disillusioned. (For more information on this organization, see www.orangutan.org.) But that does not change the fact that Galdikas was the first. And it does not change the fact that wild orangutans exist only in Borneo and Sumatra (different varieties), and they desperately need our help.

Another group dedicated to the preservation of orangutans is the Sumatran Orangutan Society, http://www.orangutans-sos.org. They have offices around the world, including one around the back of Tegun, Megan and Kadek's shop on Jln. Hanoman in Ubud, Bali. I know nothing about SOS personally except they teamed up with IDEP to get aid into Aceh fast after the tsunami. (See my previous post, Tsunami .) Trying to help (i.e., donating to the cause) no matter which group you choose is certainly better than sitting back and watching orangutans become extinct, which is an imminent danger during our lifetime.

Up the River (Kalimantan Part III)

2005-12-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Previous Related Posts:
Heading for Kalimantan, 12/05/05
The Klotok (Kalimantan, Part II) 12/11/05

The Rimba Lodge was rather like those rustic lodges you often find in the mountains of the United States, but instead of snowcapped peaks, the windows opened close up and personal to the tropical rain forest right outside. There were few guests. To get to my room from reception, I crossed a narrow, wooden bridge over rushing water. As I unpacked with the door open, small monkeys edged near my door, and I actually had to shoo them away so they didn't become my roomates. I made the mistake of taking a shower, only to find the water brown and suspect - water from the river. I was probably cleaner before the shower.

As agreed, I met Said back at the klotok at 4:00 p.m. We went further down the tributary and passed more tributaries. We turned down one of them and soon found ourselves staring back at crocodiles watching us through slitted eyes from the shore and macaques screaming at us from the trees. Troops of proboscis monkeys swung from branches; it was hard to believe they were endangered, they seemed so numerous. But I knew they were numererous only in this small slice of Asia, calling to each other, their huge noses giving each a distinctive visage.

And then... and then, I wouldn't have seen it but for Said. There, in the late afternoon, a wild orangutan building a nest high in the trees near the river. I was mesmerized. This was not one of the once-captive orangutans from a santuary. This was a wild orangutan who had so far escaped the scourges of man, and I was seeing it as it was meant to live.

We were extremely lucky; we saw one or two more organgutans that afternoon. More often you can go down this same river and not see any at all, even after several trips. But their land is dwindling, with the farming and the gold mining and the logging. Few humans here respect the orangutans, the "people of the forest", killing them mercilessly when they are driven into the open to the farms due to famine and fires started by humans. The babies are cute, and many people want them for pets. This often dooms the babies to witnessing their mothers slaughtered before the babies are taken into captivity. Of course, as they grow up, they are no longer so cute and risk suffering the same fate as their mothers, or, at best, living their lives in tiny cage prisons, rather than ranging extensively in the trees.

I had seen huge trucks hauling timber in Kumai, proof that greed was stripping the jungle (and the orangutans' habitat). Although I had not yet seen the gold mines that had turned some of the world's lushest forests into wasteland, I would before I left Kalimantan. As I watched the orangutans build nests and the probosiscis monkeys play in the trees, I knew I was seeing a world that likely would not exist in 15 years... almost certainly not in 20.

Sunset approached. Said pulled out his prayer mat, kneeled facing east on the klotok's deck and praised Allah.

The Klotok (Kalimantan Part II)

2005-12-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Previous Related Post,12/05/05: "Heading for Kalimantan"

I lounged in the sunshine on pillows Said (Sah-eed) had set up for me on the deck of the blue, wooden klotok and surveyed the Sekonyer, a vast, muddy river of Kalimantan, a river that had given life to humans and animals alike for time beyond memory. The captain and his two young, shirtless boatmen joked with each other in Indonesian rather than a local dialect, so I understood some of it. Said, my guide, was in good humor, but more serious and proper than the boatmen, even though Said could not have been older than 30.

I grinned as I recalled how I had dreaded the five or six hour ride on a small boat into the jungle to see the orangutan sanctuaries. I was extremely excited at the prospect of seeing orangutans, but the boat ride itself sounded long, boring and uncomfortable. I based this on memories of impossibly crowded Guatemalen "chicken" buses, smoky Spanish trains, suffocating Jamaican taxis, windy Greek night ferries, and the tiring 20-hour plane ride to get to Indonesia only a few weeks before. In other words, the last thing I wanted was another grueling trip. My mood was in no small part due to the horrible fight I had had with Made two nights ago, before leaving Bali. It reverberated in the back of my mind, and I was still upset.

Once I got on that klotok (named for the sound it makes going through the water..."klo-tok, klo-tok"), I wasn't upset for long. Soon, we left Kumai far behind and saw only tropical jungle and occasional small settlements of wooden houses on stilts along the shore. I watched vendors in boats offer produce and goods to villagers, men pull fish from the river and families flit here and there on the river on domestic errands. People guided their boats on missions large and small, as they had for centuries on this ancient causeway. Birds such as I had never seen took flight from the shore, and small monkeys chattered at each other in the trees.

Said heaped my plate with mie goreng, and I luxuriated in my good fortune at finding myself on this amazing river. Now I understood why Said had insisted we buy all those provisions before leaving. He cooked, the boatmen played cards and laughed, and I sipped tea and enjoyed a view I knew I would probably never see again. I practiced my Indonesian language skills with Said and the boatmen, and Said really was a wonderful teacher. Turned out he had taught Islam in Surabaya before an economy downturn closed the school and forced him into the guide biz.

Riding up the river on the klotok was lovely and romantic; too bad Made was back in Bali and probably planning never to speak to me again. Oh, well. From beautiful sunshine, rain threatened, filling the atmosphere with primitive anticipation. When it began coming down in earnest, we scurried down the four-rung ladder below deck. Said quickly dropped the canvas at the open windows. We pulled out cookies and peanuts and made tea. When the rain lifted enough to lift the canvas, we watched the rain fall on the river from below deck.

After some time, the boat traffic dwindled and we turned down a tributary. We arrived at Rimba Lodge around 1:30 p.m. The Rimba Lodge was pretty much the only place we could stay here in the middle of the jungle of Indonesian Borneo near the orangutan sanctuaries, aside from sleeping on the boat. We would sleep on the boat the next night. We made plans to meet at 4:00 p.m. for a ride up the river to see proboscis monkeys. It was too late to go to the orangutan sanctuary that day.

The Noodle Village (Vietnam)

2005-12-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

"My uncle was executed here before the American war. He was spying for the French, and they decided he was a double agent, and they killed him." It seemed a story out of the distant past, though it had happened not so long ago. The sun shone brightly outside the open room where we lounged in the shade, the girl, her grandmother and me. I sipped my green tea and set the cup down, forgetting the girl's grandmother would refill it immediately.

Because I had an afternoon to fill before I left Hanoi for the Hill Tribe country the next morning, I found myself on a solo tour to handicraft villages outside of Hanoi on the back of this 20-year-old woman's motorbike. It was the hot season in Vietnam, and I had never experienced any heat like that of Hanoi, not in Bali, not in Thailand, and certainly not in the West. It was good to get to the outskirts of Hanoi and into the villages, despite Hanoi's old French colonial charm.

After visiting villages where silk was made, the girl took me to a village that specialized in making noodles. Her mother was from that place, and many of her relatives still lived there. She was a born story-teller, and she told tales of intrigue, desperation and war as I watched the sweating women cook the noodles in huge vats and cut them on giant screens.

As a dog wandered past, the girl said it was the kind eaten in Vietnam. I could tell she relished pointing this out to me; she knew it always got a rise out of foreigners. "American type dogs are too greasy to eat," she said.

The Beast (Bali, 1998)

2005-12-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

I was sitting sideways behind Made in my best yellow silk sarong and handmade lace kebaya when it became apparent that Made’s ancient beast just couldn’t make it up the hills leading to Pejeng. That motorcycle was 50 years old if it was a day. It was a miracle that nuts and bolts still held it together, but it was our only transportation to the night-time ceremony. When we reached a hill, the beast balked and sat down until I got off and tottered up the hill in my tightly wound sarong. We knew perfectly well at the time how ridiculous we looked in the twilight, me dismounting and hiking up the road between the rice fields to meet him and the bike at the top. We laughed everytime we reached a new hill and had to repeat this maneuver. That's when I started to fall for Made, because he wasn’t embarrassed, just amused. Before I knew much Balinese or Indonesian, I could always tell when he was retelling this story because I would hear the word “jalan-jalan” (literally “walking-walking”) and then everyone would turn to me,laugh good-naturedly and commiserate with me.

Leaving Bali for Kalimantan (Indonesia, 1998)

2005-12-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

I went to Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, in August, during the primary cremation season in Bali. I wanted to visit my friend Made in Bali after the multiple cremation of the remains of 22 people was over in his village, so we could travel around Indonesia together. (See my previous posting, "Ghosts".) It is common in Bali for the dead to be buried and cremated later, even years later, to share the cost of expensive ceremonies among several families. I knew Made would be too busy in the months preceding the cremation to spend much time with me. But as usual in Bali, everything shifted, and it was impossible for him to nail down the date. Despite all my planning, I arrived in Bali when his village was still deep in the midst of intensive cremation preparations.

Made's village was tucked away in the hills northeast of Ubud. Though not that far from Ubud, it is a village you would not have heard of, for it is never found by tourists. (Heck, even Balinese born and raised in Ubud haven't heard of it!) At first I hung out in the village and helped make offerings, my clumsy efforts vastly amusing the old ladies. "How can a woman reach her age without learning to do the most basic tasks?" they laughed and asked each other. (For some things you don't need an interpreter.) My ineptness at constructing little straw offerings and properly shaping pastry dough was clearly incomprehensible to them. Made and all the other village men were busy building the huge, brightly colored, wooden bulls and lions in which the dead would be cremated. He rarely had a spare minute,and we didn't have a lot of time together.

It became apparent if I was going to do any traveling around Indonesia, it would be alone. Made's savvy half-brother, the village priest, warned me that the political climate in Sumatra would be a bit dangerous for me at that time, so I decided on Kalimantan. I tried for weeks to get a ticket to Kalimantan, but all the travel agents kept telling me my return fight could not be confirmed. I asked if we should perhaps just call the airline office in Kalimantan and was told “No.” In desperation I tracked down an old acquaintance, Mahfoud, who, before he opened a shop, had worked as a travel agent. Of course, Mahfoud said we should call Kalimantan, as I had suggested all along. He made the call and the arrangements as a favor, and within a day after contacting Mahfoud, I had a ticket in my hand.

I landed at the airport in Pangkalan Bun and caught a ride with a guy on a motorbike to the Blue Kecubung (blue gemstone) Hotel. My friend Sara had stayed there once, and it seemed a place where I could probably find out how to make arrangments to go upriver to visit the orangutan sanctuaries established 30 years before by Birute Galdikas, one of Louis Leakey’s so-called three “angels” (Goodall, Fosse and Galdikas). I felt the difference from Bali in the same way it hit me when I first went to Java - the large scarves covering the hair of many of the little school girls. Of course, women wore these too, but I thought how restrictive they must feel to these little girls as they ran and played.

The Blue Kecubung turned out to be a hotel used primarily by Indonesian business people, and though it was not what I would call fancy, it was a luxury to me to stay for a night in a place with air-conditioning, particularly after weeks of staying in the family compound in Bali. Before I even registered, I had hired my guide, Said, who was standing at the front desk talking to the clerk when I arrived. He took my passport and went off to book the boat and get the necessary police permits to visit Tanjung Puting, the large section of park land that contained the orangutan sanctuaries. We would go the next day; it was almost evening and too late to head upriver into the jungle.

PHOTOS
1. Fanciful animals the men built to house remains for the big send-off
2. Made and some of the guys taking a break from cremation preparations
3. Me, amusing the women of the village with my incompetence at making offerings

To be cont...

Top 10 Ways to Tell You've Been in Bali Too Long

2005-11-25T11:47:00.000-08:00

1. You don't even notice when rats from the beautiful rice fields scamper past you while you're eating.
2. You wear a parka when the temperature gets below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. You fight to be the first to get a serving of fatty chunks of daging babi (pig meat) with little wiry hairs sticking out of it at ceremonial feasts
4. You don't think twice about sitting sideways in your best sarong on the back of a speeding motorcycle on your way to temple while balancing a fruit offering on your head and holding your toddler on your lap
5. You can't function without two pembantus (housekeepers), a gardener and a security guard
6. Even your Balinese friends start complaining that you have stretched "jam karet" (rubber time) to the limit, and could you at least try to show up in the same month as the appointment?
7. The builders finished your new house two years ago, but you won't move in, because you are still waiting for the pemangku (local priest) to choose an auspicious date for the new house blessing
8. You find yourself arguing with the pisang goreng vendor about a 100 rupiah (one cent) overcharge
9. Your sequined flip flops and your fringed sarong pass as formal wear
10. You find yourself telling your overseas customers you'll get back to them in two months to fill their orders, because you have to prepare for (pick a ceremony below, or use one of the other 200 million ceremonies in Bali):
a) a cremation (this one usually buys the most time)
b) Galungan (this is almost as good as a cremation for buying time)
c) Kuningan (okay, okay, this one really goes hand in hand with Galungan, but tardy vendors usually cite them separately to emphasize the burden of their societal commitments)
d) odalan (temple anniversary)
e) Saraswati (Count on the fact that most of your customers won't realize this one doesn't take much prep - after all, what do they know?)
f) the three-month ceremony of your child
e) the six-month ceremony of your child
g) the catch-all, general "family ceremony" option, possibly mixed with a monthly full-moon or dark-moon ceremony

Top 10 Ways to Tell You Live in San Francisco

2005-11-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

1. You marvel at the really cheap deal your friends got on the $600,000 house they just purchased

2. You don't blink when a 6'5" drag queen in a tiara, a pink chiffon dress and sequined stilettos asks to borrow your comb in the Ladies' room

3. You regularly scream at the @$*#$&^#cable cars to get out of your way as you drive down California St. toward downtown, the same cable cars you thought were so quaint when you first moved here

4. You would not consider eating even a burger at a place without an 8-page wine list (that is if you ate burgers, which, of course, you don't)

5. You are late for your tantric yoga class because you got stuck in the anti-war protest traffic on the way back from the seminar by the Dalai Lama

6. Your toddler has been on waiting lists for eight preschools for the last six months, because the schools feel he does not show enough leadership ability to have the right stuff

7. Your toddler finally does get into a desirable preschool, and it costs you more than you paid in college tuition at your Ivy League university

8. You would eat food from any random street vendor when vacationing in Asia, but you would die before Wonder bread or iceberg lettuce passed your lips

9. It dawns on you that you don't know one single person who is actually an employee at the Silicon Valley company where you work - you are surrounded by consultants and contractors. Come to think of it, you are a contractor.

10. You consider Howard Dean right wing

Warmth (Bali, 2005)

2005-11-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

I remember riding through the rice fields north of Ubud on the back of Tut's motorcycle when everything was new, years ago. He pretended to show me houses for rent, and I pretended I needed his help. We stopped along the road in the gathering twilight, alone except for a farmer in a broad straw hat and a hiked-up sarong, herding his ducks home from the rice fields, and some children chasing each other in the shadow of a distant, ancient, Hindu temple. We laughed, and we talked, and we watched each other's signals - the age old dance. 'Tut with his ready laugh, his clever jokes and his wry, wicked wit.

Since then, Ketut and I have been through a lot; we know we could never live together, we bicker and we drive each other crazy. I've tried to say good-bye to him a hundred times, but still we are bound to each other, though we don't quite understand how. Even my old friend Abang, who knows what I'm thinking before I do, can't figure out this one - "What's with you guys?" he asks. But I don't have an answer, except that somehow, when I wasn't looking, Ketut became family.

The last time I saw Ketut was in April, when he helped me pack my bags to head back to the States. He was going to accompany me to the airport, but when Wayan arrived with the car, we saw there was no room for Ketut, due to the size of my large bags. I had yet to return the motorcyle I had rented three months before from Putuh, and Wayan went ahead in the car to wait for me at Putuh's. Ketut and I started off down the road, he on his motorcycle, and me not behind him, but on my own motorcyle this time. We stopped at a warung across the road to say our last good-bye.

Now Ketut is in the hospital with a serious illness, and he has just returned from Singapore where he had an operation. I talked with him on the phone tonight, Ketut in hot, tropical Bali, and he asked me to send him a warm coat, because he is so cold.

Tsunami (Aceh, 2005)

2005-11-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

When I first met Abang in Ubud, Bali, he was a party in a bottle, a fun-loving DJ with wildly colored hair, tattoos and piercings. We became unlikely friends, even at times crying on each others shoulders about love affairs gone wrong. As the years passed, I saw him mature into a deeply caring, intelligent and resourceful man who under the auspices of IDEP, a local NGO, met with village elders throughout Bali to help them understand disaster planning (Bali is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions).

After the deadly tsunami swept through Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of thousands, Abang found himself called into service by IDEP to help coordinate on-the-ground efforts to get aid fast to the stricken Aceh region of Sumatra. He interviewed medical personnel, building contractors and other Indonesian would-be volunteers who could communicate with the local populace. He probed to see if they could take the strain of living in the jungle in shacks with no niceties and little contact with the outside world for three months before their replacements arrived.

But one day when I called Abang on his cell phone, I found him not in Bali, but in the middle of the jungles of Aceh. I was immediately concerned for his safety, not just because of the fear of further earthquakes and tsunamis, but because of the fierce hostilities between Aceh rebels and the unrelenting Indonesian military.

There was “still a war going on,” Abang told me. “People come in with knife and bullet wounds, and sometimes the military comes to the clinic and questions us.” He told me there were “lots of heavy guns”.

He had brought three medical volunteers with him, and they were in the midst of building a wooden clinic. Although it was weeks after the tsunami had hit, he said there was still a lot of flooding, not helped by the fact that it rained almost continuously. He was keeping the infrastructure running, which included driving 10 hours over bad roads to pick up food.

Even though this particular clinic was mid-wife oriented, and even though it was still being built, all kinds of patients went (and still go) there. The volunteers treated people with injuries caused by the tsunami and its aftermath, and also people with long-standing problems who took advantage of the fact doctors had arrived in their midst. Malaria was a problem; the clinic was treating malarial patients when I spoke with Abang, but he didn’t seem concerned about catching it himself.

If you’ve ever spent time in Indonesia, you know that family members often accompany patients at the hospital, and the clinic was no different. At night, Abang said, when the relatives came, they had about 50 people staying all night there. He was obviously enjoying the experience deep in the jungle, talking with people who had been through so much and doing what he could to help.

Abang said, “Everyone has lost people, everyone has horrible stories, but the people are great and smiling and want to give you things even though they've lost everything. They are mostly rebuilding their villages themselves. Many NGOs come and run into a little adversity and quit and leave.”

He talked a lot about the children. “The kids don’t so much talk about their experiences as draw them,” he told me. “I can see the tsunami through their drawings.” He held a drawing contest, not tsunami-related, just a kids' drawing contest, but the children drew the horrors they had seen, of course. He put the drawings up on a wall....

Ghosts (Bali)

2005-10-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

“Where are you going? Aren’t you afraid?” Wayan waylaid me as I hurried in my sarong and best kebaya down the moonlit dirt road. I was startled not by Wayan, but by his question. What could there be to fear here, in this Balinese village tucked into the hills, so far from the outside world. “Afraid of what?” I asked him. He looked at me seriously, obviously amazed at my stupidity, and answered, “Ghosts.”

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m just going to join Made and the others.” I was hurrying to join my friend Made and other young people who were guarding the area where villagers spent every waking hour preparing for the upcoming village-wide cremation. The preparations were prolonged and complex. Many ceremonies had to be precisely executed before the village dead could be put to rest, about 20 of them, most of whom had been buried in the graveyard for years, awaiting this group cremation. Tourists often see the final fiery cremation ceremonies, but there are weeks and weeks of work and ceremonies that precede the big send-off.

“You can’t go alone. I will walk with you,” insisted Wayan quietly.

I tried not to roll my eyes, Wayan was such a good kid, and I knew there would be no dissuading him. “You should not be out alone at night by yourself. Aren’t you afraid of the leyaks?”

I had actually never felt safer in my life. What were ghosts and the shape-shifting witches called leyaks next to the terrors of the city streets back home in the States? I didn’t know enough to be afraid yet... I didn’t know enough to realize that back in the villages, the magic still swirled through the rice fields and the coconut trees and the family compounds, and skimmed along the surfaces of the rivers.

The late night ceremony had not yet begun when we arrived at Preparation Headquarters, a cleared field where the families had built what I can only describe as sort of bamboo trade show booths. They had built one for each loved one; within each was neatly folded ceremonial clothing for the departed, flower offerings and photographs or artist renderings of their likenesses. The mood was anything but somber. Made had obviously had a few beers, and everyone was sitting around laughing and telling jokes.

Made's mother appeared with other older members of the village. She carried the spray cologne I had brought her from the States. My mother had ordered it from QVC and given it to me; I had thought it smelled like bug spray and regifted it. To my horror, Made's mother sprayed the clothing symbolically laid out for Made's dead aunt, then passed it to other people who sprayed clothing of their loved ones with this awful cologne. I watched helpless as the cologne made it's way around almost every one of the booths. It's not like the dead would actually be dressed in this clothing, I thought. These people had been bones for awhile, and it was bones that would be cremated. But I couldn't help feeling guilty; it would be my fault if stunk like cheap cologne for all eternity. Maybe I should start watching out for ghosts after all...

PHOTOS:
1. Wayan
2. Made's sister, Kommi, me and some friends at the "trade show booths"
3. Made's grandfather sitting in the "trade show booth" prepared for Made's deceased cousin

Alwyn's (Jamaica)

2005-10-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've been to Jamaica a few times, two of them in the early '90's. Before I had been to Jamaica, I had traveled all over Europe and the States, but nowhere in the third world. Jamaica hit me like brick. I loved it; nowhere had ever affected me like Jamaica. By the end of my first trip, I felt like I lived there, and I had a great deal of trouble reintegrating on my return. So I had to go back.

Negril was my base. I always meant to get to Kingston and Spanish Town, but the pull of Negril was strong. It was so laid back there, yet there was always an underlying tension of something about to happen. Maybe it was just the beat of Jamaica, a beat that went beyond the reggae, beyond the house music. I felt it on the streets of Savannah la Mar, Mo Bay,Treasure Beach and even Mandeville, but I felt it most strongly in Negril.

The beach in Negril was wide and white and soft. The water was gentle, warm, and clear blue. I loved the shacks,the chickens, the bars overlooking rocky cliffs, the ganja smell in the air, the sound of patois, the ever-present music. There were many exciting places,some local, some for tourists. But there was one that boiled down the essence of Negril for me, one place I had to take my traveling companion, Dru, on my second trip. I had to have dinner at Alwyn's.

Alwyn had a shack on the beach where he cooked absolute gourmet delights on a Coleman stove. He would cook anything to order, breakfast, lunch and dinner, but he expected you to make reservations. The first time I went to Alwyn's I had failed to make reservations. This meant he had not bought fish or other fresh things especially for my dinner, so my choices were snapper or lobster, made any way I liked, with a variety of sauces. I was not disappointed. Alwyn's prices were great, and if we were still hungry, we needed only yell "Alwyn! More fish!" for one of Alwyn's assistants to appear with another steaming plate, all included in the price.

Alwyn's was primarily a locals hang-out. If you walked by Alwyn's and didn't know better, you might have thought it was a large group of friends sitting around visiting, and not even realize you were passing by a wonderful restaurant. But, of course, the smell of Alwyn's spicy sauces filling the air gave it away for what it was.

I remembered evenings at Alwyn's sitting at a table on the beach after sundown, or even better, the built-up hill of sand with shells packed into the sides that Alwyn called the "balcony". (The hill was destroyed years ago by Hurricane Gilbert.) We would listen to the waves roll in, faces lit only by candles while we talked with Jamaican friends, or sometimes an adventurous tourist.

Alwyn's was equally pleasant in the heat of the day. I would lay in a hammock in the balcony, after the breakfast crowd left (indeed,he had a breakfast crowd that couldn't get enough of his ackee and saltfish), and talk to whoever else was around about rastafarianism, or music, or the latest gossip. (Negril's a small town, and everybody knows everybody.) Alwyn would bring me a papaya juice on a tray, as I lay in my hammock, and tell me formally, "Thank you. Come again." Eventually most anybody I had met who lived or had relatives in Negril would come by to buy a beer or a Ting from Alwyn. I anticipated all this on my return trip.

Dely was sort of the Maitre D' at Alwyn's. He also sold items to tourists, like hats or rafts, and even brownies and ganja for those so inclined, hence Dely's nickname, "Happy Time". Dely, at the time,was probably in his late 30's and a self-styled Rasta, usually wearing a Rasta-type hat, but occasionally setting his medium length dreadlocks free, or ensconcing them in a bright pink baseball cap that said "Jamaica" on the front. There was always something a little incongruous about seeing Dely take his daily jog on the beach in his Rasta cap. Conversations with Dely about the meaning of life had been a focal point of my prior visit, and I looked forward to seeing him again, as well as introducing my traveling companion, Dru, to Alwyn's down-home Jamaican cooking.

When I awoke the morning after arriving on my return trip, I wanted to make reservations immediately. I hadn't yet seen anybody I knew that I wanted to see, and I knew one trip to Alwyn's would solve that. Alwyn's was more than a restaurant; it was a vital Beach nerve center. Dru, however, wanted to set out first thing to Booby Cay, a very small island off Negril known for the Hedonism Crowd's antics. I reluctantly agreed. It was very early, and since nobody I knew was at the Water Sports shack, we wandered down the beach, and made a good deal with Henry, a pleasant, rather heavy set fellow to take us over for a few hours on his glass bottom boat, the African Star. Henry and his assistant, "All Right" (was the blond tint on those dreadlocks real?), took Dru and I over along with a middle-aged German couple. It was about as expected, the Hedonism crowd self-consciously indulging in structured drinking games in an effort to shed clothing so casually discarded on the main beach in Negril.

After a very short while, the Hedonism crowd was getting on my nerves, blaring rock from a boom box was giving me a headache, and I was yearning to hear some mellow reggae. When Henry stopped back to check on Dru and me a little early, I nearly fell into his boat in my effort to board it quickly. The middle-aged German couple climbed aboard too. Instead of dropping us on the beach in front of our hotel, I asked Henry to drop us at Alwyn's, so I could make reservations for the evening.

As the boat pulled up to Alwyn's, Dely waded out into the water when he saw us approach. He yelled, "Alwyn is not here! The restaurant is closed!" Then we drew closer. I said, "Happy Time!" He said "Every time!" I said, "All the Time!" Then he really looked at me, did a double take, smiled broadly, shook my hand, and said, "Oh! It's you!" So Dely jumped in the boat and rode back to our end of the beach with us.

I told Dely I hadn't seen anybody I knew except Trevor, who I could do without. Dely said, "Rasta?" I nodded. Anyway, Dely asked, "You haven't seen Dr. Quality?" Before I could answer, we passed a speed boat at the dock, and Dely said, "There he is in the green shorts!" and pointed to Quality standing in his unmoving parasailing boat. Dely signaled Quality with a circular, Arsenio Hall- like arm movement. Negril was filled with personalities, and certainly Quality was one of the best known. Whether this was because of his status as a competitive wind-surfing champion, or his formidable ability to throw a lot of tourist business to other participants in the local (often black-market) economy, or a bit of both, I don't know, and I'm not likely to ever find out.

Our boat continued onward, but a few seconds later, Dru yelled, "He's following us!" And there was Quality, speeding behind us toward the beach. Henry dropped us at the beach by our hotel; Quality arrived shortly thereafter, after docking his boat. By that time, thanks to the nearby beach bar, Dru and I were drinking rum punch. A few of Quality's friends wandered over, as well as some Italian tourists Dru and I had met the evening before. Since it was Quality's birthday, the crowd made plans to help him celebrate it that evening. Which brought us to the topic of dinner again. Where were we going to eat? We all bemoaned the fact that Alwyn was still in the country, and his restaurant was closed, for that left the party with a definite hole around dinner time.

Of course, we managed to have dinner, and went from there to dance to reggae and drink flaming tropical concoctions. The next morning, I pulled on my swim suit, and still feeling the rum hurricanes from the night before, I walked down the beach to see if Alwyn had returned. I found Dely beside himself because Alwyn was still absent. Dely said Alwyn was in the hills, "chasing the girls." This was a little hard for me to imagine, as Alwyn was an extremely mild sort. I think Dely was just trying to malign Alwyn, but, who knows, maybe still waters ran deep.

I began to give up hope when on the following day Alwyn had still not returned. Dely was in even more of a snit. "No respect! No respect!" Dely muttered, as he angrily swept the sand in front of the "balcony". (I had no idea why sand needed to be swept, and I had to suppress a giggle. He really should have been managing a five star restaurant in Miami or New York.) "I am just going to quit and go back to the country for six months, maybe a year!" Dely continued, sweeping furiously. Then, he stopped sweeping, leaned on his broom, looked at me and demanded, "Is this any way to run a business?!!"

I carried on my vacation, and I had the expected great time, but I regretted that Dru would miss Alwyn's cooking. The day before I left Negril I was lying on a lounge chair reading a book, listening to the soft waves roll in and trying to soak up the last rays before heading back to the land of ice fishing. (I lived in Minnesota at the time, which goes a long way toward explaining my infatuation with Jamaica.) Several yards away, the beach bar was playing Ziggy Marley's "Tomorrow People," and the smell of ganja floated in and out of my consciousness. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dely jogging past me on the beach. As he jogged by, he called, "Yo! Alwyn's back!"

Dru had already gone home, but the Italians and I dined grandly that night.

PHOTOS: 1. Dely ("Happy Time") in front of Alwyn's
2. The Italians

Shampoo (Jamaica)

2005-10-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

In 1991 De Bus was my favorite open-air reggae club in Negril; it was not the more polished DeBus that exists today. It had restrooms that should have been condemned, and it was almost impossible to get a beer at the crowded bar. But the talent that played at De Bus was phenomenal, and Tuesday was the night to see reggae legend Gregory Isaacs in an intimate setting. The air always pulsated with energy, a lot of which was generated by the beach soap operas played out there.

It was my last night in Jamaica; I had been there for 10 days, and I was about as wired in as a tourist can be in a place in such a short time, with lots of new friends both local and tourist. After dinner at Alwyn's (a couple tables on the beach outside a shack just big enough for Alwyn to fit a couple pots), a few friends and I headed to DeBus. Marcia, who had accompanied me from Minnesota, was there, as was Dr. Quality, a parasail driver and wind surfing instructor. Dely (also known as Happy Time), a Rasta with a philosophical bent who worked at Alwyn’s, came along, an unusual occurrence, as he rarely went to the clubs. You could get to DeBus by taking a taxi down the road and then tromping back through the high weeds and past the multi-colored, decrepit double-decker bus that had been used in a movie. But that night we decided to enjoy the long, moonlit walk down the beach, and along the way we picked up Howard and Natalie, friends of Qulaity’s from L.A. we had met earlier.

I was dressed up for the occasion of my last evening in Negril. Dressed up in Negril in 1991 was white tights and a sequined t-shirt. When we entered on the beach side, through the rickety fence put in place to help enforce the $5 cover, the first person I saw was Nicodemus, a singer with a lovely voice who had little tiny braids all over his head. He had been one of the first people I had met in Negril, and I hugged him hello. Quality gave me a raised eyebrow and wandered off. Rasta Trevor was also there, looking his usual fierce self with thick dreadlocks and a 6'4" frame, the fierceness somewhat alleviated by his fluorescent pink t-shirt that proclaimed "Black by Popular Demand". (I don't know why, but a lot of the locals called him "Rasta", even though there were plenty of other Rastafarians around.)

We stood around drinking beers, and checked out the scene. The whole beach was there, as were a lot of people in from the country. The scent of ganja drifted by every once in awhile. Some people didn't even bother to go out to the beach to smoke. Howard had drunk some mushroom tea, and it kicked in after we arrived at De Bus. When I went to the bar to get a beer, I found him sitting on a stool at the bar. He became inordinately upset when it took him a half hour to finally get the bartender's attention (it always took that long... no worries), then remembered to order drinks for everyone but himself.

If a hotter band has ever played in Jamaica than the one that played that night, I haven't seen it. I think I danced with most of the people I had met in Negril. I spent most of the evening dancing with Delroy, a very easy-to-look-at guy who worked on the boat with Quality. Sweet-natured and a natural born teacher, Delroy gave me vital choreography tips. "Ten days, I show you everything there is about reggae dancing."

I had been dancing for awhile before I just had to take a break to recover my breath. For a few moments I stood slightly apart, already nostalgic that this was the end of my time in Negril. A really young Rasta in from the country came up and asked me to dance. Actually, he didn't so much ask me as take my hand and indicate he would like to dance. He looked about 16 to me, I found out later he was 19. He was very dark, not very tall, and had exceptionally long dreadlocks. He was obviously harmless, it was my last night in Negril, and I had nearly recovered from Delroy's aerobic dance style, so I accepted.

He led me by the hand right up to the front, for he was a big fan of Gregory Isaacs. He said his name was Shampoo, (a name I had to ask about at least twice), and he told me about the meaning of some of the music. After the song, I thanked him for the dance, we shook hands, and I went to go look for my friends.

Marcia and I stayed at De Bus for awhile, dancing, socializing, and listening to Gregory. I went back in a cab with my original party (plus Nicodemus who needed a ride back up to that end of the beach). Back at the hotel, we had a drink or two, and there was talk of going swimming. I decided to leave the group and head to Compulsion, an R&B bar with a late liquor license, and meet with some other friends. Compulsion was about halfway down the beach road, and as I walked purposefully toward Compulsion, mosquitoes bit at my ankles, and the wet grass ruined my stylish leather sandals. I hoped I wouldn't step on one of those huge red land crabs that skittered across the road. Finally, I accepted a ride offered by an American guy and a Jamaican guy on a mini-bike. They dropped me off at the turn-around, I walked up to Compulsion, and it wasn't open. So I caught a cab back.

On the way to the hotel, the cab driver told me, "A Rasta guy got killed tonight. Ran his motorcycle into a tree." Negril is a small town, and the Beach News is amazingly fast and efficient.

I didn't know many Rastafarians, and I couldn't imagine Dely on a motorcycle. But I hadn't seen Dely for close to an hour, and perhaps I envisioned him borrowing a mini-bike and looking for me, worried that I had left alone so late. Also, Rasta Trevor, although not my favorite person, was an acquaintance who had been at De Bus that night. I felt a chill. A lot of people came in from the country when Gregory Isaacs played, including a lot of Rastas, I told myself, and it was unlikely to be anyone I knew. But I heard the urgency in my voice when I asked, "Who?"

"Shampoo," the cab driver answered.

My heart stopped, and then I was screaming, "Shampoo?!! I was just dancing with Shampoo. Are you sure?"

"Yeah, mon."

"I just met Shampoo a couple hours ago, and now he's dead? My god, he's a kid! Are you sure he's not just hurt?"

"Shampoo dead, mon."

"Are you sure?"

"Shampoo dead, mon."

When I got back to the hotel, I was very upset. Dely had reappeared from the darkness outside the hotel. We stood on the beach, the tide coming in around our feet, the moon hanging over the water in front of us, and I told him about Shampoo. (For those of you who are wondering, no, there was no romantic relationship between Dely and me.)

Dely said, "Calm down. There is nothing you can do. Forget about it." I imagine Dely was just trying to be soothing, for he saw I was agitated. But I was still shocked by his fatalistic attitude. I said, "Don't you understand? I just met him, and now he's dead! He was still practically a child, and he's dead!"

The next day Marcia went down the beach to Alwyn's to say good-bye to Alwyn, Dely and everyone. As she walked down the beach, she saw Quality, who was busy repairing a windsurfboard at the water sports concession. She told Quality about Shampoo; she had become part of the Beach News. Quality had not heard, and she said he just looked down at the sand.

As Marcia and I ate breakfast amid tropical plants at the hotel's outdoor restaurant, Rasta Trevor joined us briefly. He said he had been among the first to reach the accident scene. He started to describe the details, and I had to beg him to stop.

For months afterward, I felt the touch of Shampoo's hand.

Two Worlds (Bali and San Francisco)

2005-10-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile now. I have been going back and forth to Bali for years, and there was a time I spent nine months out of the year there. But now I have been gone for five months. It's a classic love/hate relationship (much like my typical relationships with men), and now that I have been away so long, I think of it constantly.

I live in San Francisco. They say everthing not screwed on quite tight eventually slides to California, and San Francisco is a time-honored magnet to the far-out, the edgy, the out-there and the weird. (This used to be more true before San Francisco turned into Palo Alto.) We have wiccans and buddhists and vegans and green earth advocates and consultants and all sorts of groups that are more common here than in middle America. But, like the rest of America, San Francisco is devoid of magic. It is the magic of Bali that calls to me. In Bali, witches and spirits and gods are real; black magic is to be feared and balians hold more sway than medical doctors. Villagers carry out ancient ceremonies to the beat of gamelan music and the swirl of dancing maidens, ceremonies that can go on for days, nights and weeks, ceremonies that surge through the villages and sweep up their inhabitants in mystical trances, all far from tourist eyes. Anything is possible...

But it is also the every day living of Bali I dream of. Five months out of Bali, I long for the wind in my face as I ride my motorbike on the road through the rice fields near Ubud. Riding past the temples of Bali, multitudes of terra cotta temples with walls covered in ancient scripts and ancient secrets; avoiding the monkeys as I negotiate the narrow footpath bridge through the Monkey Forest in Padang Tegal; hearing a friend call to me from a warung and stopping to visit and have a beer or a cup of coffee. I crave deng deng, the dried beef delight at the Sumatran-style Padang restaurants, pisang goreng, the fried bananas so readily available from vendors along the side of the road. I crave the sudden rains, the kids climbing coconut trees, the surprise of turning down a street only to meet a large procession of laughing teen-agers and children clanging musical instruments to accompany a barong, that mythical, lion-like, dragon creature who brings good luck. For in Bali, the mundane and the magical are forever intermingled.

But I live in San Francisco now. Maybe I can go back to Bali in a month or two, but not now. So I go to work and I go home and I get ready for a date, because I feel like I should be dating, ready to go to a restaurant or a movie or whatever... but there is no magic.

Rains in the Distance

2005-10-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember,I have longed for far-away places. As a child, my friends played with Barbies while I read War and Peace. This yearning has been both a blessing and curse. It has led me to hire boatmen and travel rivers where I was accompanied by the cries of macaques, entertained by proboscis monkeys and awed by wild organgutans building their nests in the trees. It has driven me to dance and drink tuak with longhouse dwellers in the jungles of Kalimantan, hike the mountains of Vietnam in the company of the "blue" Mung and live in a cave in Crete. It has prevented me from working 9 to 5 in the same place for 20 years... if you only get two weeks off a year, it's hard to make it to Bali for Galangun. It has changed me and turned me inside out, ripped out my heart and stuffed it back in again,leaving me not quite the same, never the same. But always eager for the next awakening.

But this same yearning too many times has hindered me from living in the now, from establishing the roots my friends have put down. For always I have one eye cast to the horizon, on the rains in the distance. When I can, I follow the rains, golden rain dripping from lush tropical foliage to the forest floors of Borneo. Blue rain sweeping across the mesa from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, lightening splitting the sky. And the green, life-giving rain falling on the rice fields and villages of Bali, the mystical island where I will never quite belong, but where I will always return.