Rediscovering Bali

A few weekends ago, I made my second trip to Bali. Somehow, I managed to spend four days there without ever setting foot on a beach. That wasn’t really my goal, but it ended up being just fine. If the purpose of a beach is to relax, then my trip certainly did that anyway.

We were aiming for more of a cultural tour of Bali—temples, markets, and just plain good food. We spent the first two nights in Ubud in a hotel that reminded me of something like a Hindu Secret Garden, with a temple and garden behind a high wall.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was meeting up with my penpal Karen.

Apparently, towards the beginning of my grant, what had been my most recent blog post was picked up by Google as a news story about Indonesia, and it was emailed to anyone who signed up for regular news alerts from the archipelago. It was awesome, even if I really had no idea it was happening then. I received a lot of borderline scary emails from conservative Muslims we’ll say encouraging me to convert. But I also got emails from a bunch of really cool Americans who used to visit or live in Indonesia. And that’s how I e-met Karen.

An American psychiatrist living in California but raised in Ohio (whoop!), Karen was going to be in Bali visiting her boyfriend, so I tried to schedule my trip to coincide with hers. It was so fun to finally meet her. I’m hoping we can meet again when she visits her family for holidays in Ohio.

I also visited Bali with the goal of getting a bunch of souvenirs at the markets here. I used to love bargaining for my purchases, and I still get a little rush from it. But here in Indonesia, it really gets exhausting to bargain for everything you want to buy, from food to clothes to gifts to transportation.

For example, I wanted to buy a silk batik scarf. Aaron and Vidhi had both bought one earlier for between $4-$5. It helps to head into battle knowing what a reasonable price is, because sometimes you really have no idea. Here’s how the exchange (a typical one) went: (except I changed Indonesian to English and rupiah to dollars to help you make sense of it all [PUN!])

I walk by one of a billion booths of scarves set up and touch one. Almost immediately, a large Balinese woman is touching me and telling me I absolutely must have it, as though I could not have possible chosen a more perfect scarf in the world.

Saleswoman: “You are so beautiful! So beautiful! Yes, you like this. For you, I give a special price. Only $22.

[$22?! That’s almost five times what it’s worth. Now we start speaking in Indonesian.]

Me: My friend paid $4 for this scarf earlier today.

Saleswoman: Ooh, you speak Indonesian? Ok, for you, smart, pretty girl, I give you an even more special price. Just $12.

Me: No, my friend just paid $4 for this scarf.

Saleswoman: $8 is my final offer! I can sell it to you for no less!

Me: That’s ok, I understand. Thanks anyway!

She now blocks my way with a gigantic floor-length mirror and throws the scarf around my neck to show me “how beautiful it will make me.”

Me: Oh, you’re right! This IS a beautiful scarf! I wish you would sell it for $4.

Saleswoman: Ok ok ok. From you, I will just ask $6.

Me: I am not paying more than $4.

Saleswoman: I must feed my children! If I sell you the scarf for $4, I will make no profit! I have to eat! Please take pity on me!

Me: Ok, I don’t want to hurt your business. I will shop somewhere else.

I walk away.

Saleswoman: Ok, ok. $4.

Me: Thank you! I’ll take it.

Saleswoman: $4.50

Me: Uh, what? No.

Saleswoman: Ok, ok. $4. And I will not be able to eat tonight.

Me: I’m sorry about that.

Saleswoman: You want two for $4 each?

Me: Sure.

And immediately, there are no hard feelings. She wraps the scarves up carefully, smiling at me, and she throws her arm around my shoulder and tells her friend about the great sale she just made. Is it possible I still got swindled? Almost definitely.

I made a stop back at Wayan’s house, too. She’s the fortune-telling medicine woman from my first trip. I didn’t get my fortune read, but I got some of her “magical oil,” and we took a picture for Mom.

The next day we rented a car and driver and toured some Balinese temples.

We started with the Pura Besakih, the largest and most important temple in Bali. Lonely Planet got another one right: “Perched nearly 1000m up the ide of Gunung Agung is Bali’s most important temple… in fact, it is an extensive complex… Unfortunately, many people find it a deeply disappointing experience due to the avarice of numerous local characters.”

The temples themselves were beautiful, but it was nearly impossible to enjoy them with all the local “guides” constantly demanding that you pay them.

More Lonely Planet wisdom:

“Besakih’s hassles and irritations go back years and mean that many visitors now skip this important sight.

Near the main parking area is a building labeled Tourist Information Office. Guides here may emphatically tell you that you need their services. You don’t. You may always walk among the temples. No ‘guide’ can get you into a closed temple.

Other ‘guides’ may foist their services on you throughout your visit. There have been reports of people agreeing to a guide’s services only to be hit with a huge fee at the end.

Once inside the complex, you may receive offers to ‘come pray with me.’ Visitors who seize on this unsanctioned chance to get into a forbidden temple can face demands of $5 or more.”

Here’s what Aaron said afterwards in his blog:

"Despite this Pura Besakih (aka the ‘mother temple’) was pretty interesting, once we finally got in past the ‘mandatory guides’ (they weren’t but we ended up paying a guy a little, mostly just to be left alone). At several of the temples, most of us were struck by how insincere some of the temples seemed. While it was demanded that tourists wear sarongs and sashes, there were other people throwing their cigarettes around and hawkers of all kinds in the temples. I have absolutely no qualms with wearing appropriate clothing, but when it seems like that is required mostly so that tourists have to rent a sarong, that isn’t right. This is supposed to be a holy location, but it turns into a gimmick. I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say that there was not an authentic feel, it seemed the temples were there primarily for tourists to see; though to be fair we did go to the biggest temples that tourists commonly visit."

Author Chuck Thompson wrote, “It feels awkward to be a visitor in a place reserved for the intimate acts of strangers—like accidentally stepping into your friend’s parents’ bedroom when you were a kid.”

That’s exactly how I feel when I visit mosques or temples: I know I’m allowed to be there, but I just can’t quite shake the feeling that I’m going to get caught somewhere I shouldn’t be.

Per usual, there were signs warning against entering any of the temples if you were menstruating. I, uh, wasn’t, but I wondered if I really would have stayed out if I had been. I guess it’s part of respecting another culture, but it’s a difficult rule to observe when it go so much against what I’ve been taught and believe. I wasn’t entering any of the temples to pray, and it’s hard to imagine I would have somehow comprised the sanctity of the temples by going inside anyway.

We also visited a tea and coffee plantation, where we got to sample a series of different flavors: ginger tea and coffee, lemongrass tea, Balinese coffee, and hot chocolate. It was really neat, and it didn’t cost anything at all. My favorite was the lemongrass tea, although I spotted a lot of sugar at the bottom of the cup, so that may have been why.

Gunung Kawi was the last temple we visited,and by far our favorite. Huge shrines have been cut out of the rock, and they stand more than 8m high. The area surrounding the temple was amazing, too, with rice paddies and palm trees in alternating shades of bright green.

The last night we met up with my favorite ELF Maura in Legian, who had just arrived in Bali for a conference. She was nice enough to let us crash in her hotel room, and we continued our tour of most-delicious-foods-and-drinks of Indonesia.

I love Bali. Some people think it’s too touristy, and many Indonesians almost resent that it’s often the only thing foreigners know about the country. But I think it’s just another part of Indonesia, as “real” as any other part. And it has bagels. Yum.

A Very Bali Birthday

(Or as Christine says, “Celebrate, Bargain, Swim: One girl’s search for the greatest birthday ever.”)

I was sad when I came to the realization that my birthday in Indonesia wouldn’t be taking place at the same time as my birthday in America. In fact, only 12 of the hours would overlap.

But… then how would I possibly be able to bask in all the glory of my one special day? And that was the moment I decided I was going to take advantage of my birthday this year.

My plan was to begin “my birthday” at midnight in Bali, which makes sense. But instead of ending 24 hours later, I would still consider it my birthday until 12:00am on November 8 in America. Bali is one hour ahead of Palembang… so that meant… I was officially declaring this my 37-hour-long birthday.

But THEN we went to dinner at around 8:00pm on November 6… and saying, “Hello, Mr. Waiter! It’s my birthday!” just sounds soooo much better than saying “Tomorrow is my birthday.” So I did.

And, thus, I managed to squeeze a solid 41 hours of birthday in for myself.

Heh heh heh.

Bali would be wonderful it weren’t your birthday. It would be wonderful if it weren’t the only time you’d felt warm bath water in a month. It would be wonderful if you weren’t there with your favorite fellow ETAs. But the stars aligned. And it was wonderful.

We met up with my aunt’s best friend’s sister’s best friend when we landed in Bali. (Did you follow that?) Isn’t that funny? Someone at least four steps removed from me became my closest friend in a place I’ve never been. That has to be one of the coolest parts about traveling. Marilyn was so kind and so welcoming, and her house was INCREDIBLE!

She’s lived nearly everywhere in the world, and has the neatest things hanging and sitting all over her house to prove it. That’s how I want to be when I’m older. “Oh, did you mention Italy [substitue any other cool place]? Yeah, I lived there for a few months when I was younger.”

Her house is just a few minutes away from Jimbaran Beach. You can walk, and so we did. The ocean water was literally warmer than my shower water in Palembang. There were people milling around, but it was mostly empty. The weather was perfect, and for the first time in 2 ½ months, the sun was hitting my legs and shoulders. It was the sort of scene that makes you want to take big, deep breaths so you can fill as much of your lungs with sunshine as possible.

Jimbaran Beach... ahhh.

We played around, got sunburnt in about three minutes, and then headed to the hotel. It was… nice. I think it’s safe to say that a $75 room in Bali doesn’t get you quite as much of a deal as a $75 room in Bukittingi. Our door had only a padlock on it, and the showerhead was the hand kind, it didn’t hang on the wall. But hey… there was hot water and wireless internet around the pool. It takes less to make me happy these days.

So we went out for a delicious dinner on Friday night, where I truly did bask in the glory of my special day. The restaurant gave free tiramisu and limoncello… mmm. Then we walked around and explored the nightlight in Seminyak.

An interesting note: I’m pretty sure Raj stepped off the plane in Jakarta on August 30 and began anticipating our trip to Bali. He read books, he scanned articles, he researched online. He decided we’d stay in Seminyak; apparently the Goldilocks area of Bali—not too touristy, not too elite, but juuust right. Somehow, though, in all his reading, Raj must have skipped an important part of the travel guide: Seminyak is the heart of gay Bali.

Which made my birthday AWESOME. Raj was slightly appalled; the rest of us were delighted.

If there’s one thing Balinese gay men love more than each other, it’s celebrating birthdays with a bunch of American girls. I was plopped onto barstools, showered with free drinks, flamboyantly serenaded, ushered onto stages, and overwhelmingly cherished.

"You are the dancinggg queeen,

young and sweeeeeet, only twenty-threeeee."

(As a side note, one of the free drinks I received had “arak” in it. This is something else Jared warned me about before I came to Indonesia, and I’ve heard a lot more about it since I’ve been here. It’s basically moonshine since affordable alcohol can be so hard to find. But when people make it in their backyards, the alcohol content is incredibly high and they put other illegal substances into the mix.) Seven people died drinking it in 2004, and more have died since then. Generally, it’s completely safe if it’s served in a bar… but it’s still a little eerie. And a tiny bit thrilling.)

Sleep is for wimps in Bali. We were up the next morning at 7:30am and quickly on our way to Ubud. Get ready for a busy day:

Christine gave me a beautiful pink, purple, and green batik scarf: my first birthday present! Her students helped her pick it out. I would have worn it all day if I hadn’t been so sweaty.

First, we stopped for a gamelan performance and barong show. The coolest thing about gamelan is that it’s music that’s just supposed to be beautiful music. It doesn’t tell a story, it’s not supposed to imply an emotion… it’s just nice to listen to. Of course, THIS show did put a story to the music: the ancient battle between the good, ornery Barong (half-dog, half-lion) and the evil witch Randga.

Next we stopped at a place where you can watch women make “batik.” (More on batik in my next posting.) Batik is a huge part of Indonesian culture. It’s cloth made with wax and many colors and complicated patterns. Vera Bradley bags, for example, would be batik. I didn’t buy anything, though, because it was all mega expensive. We also stopped at a huge jewelry studio and shop; most of the products were sterling silver and also disappointingly overpriced.

Next up? The Monkey Forest Sanctuary. It’s exactly what you think it is. There were just tons of monkeys everywhere—running around and begging for food and fighting with each other! Christine was scared to death. One monkey even jumped on top of a girl’s backpack, opened the zipper, and stole some wet wipes before running away.

Monkey kisses. Muah.

There were signs posted everywhere about “monkey safety,” including “Never grab a monkey. If a monkey gets on you, drop all of your food and walk away slowly. If a monkey jumps on you, stand still, and walk away slowly.” I’m not exactly sure how you walk away from a monkey that’s on top of you, but luckily it wasn’t something I had to worry about.

After that, we were starving. We’d all watched Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations on Indonesia before coming here. (Thank you to my roommate Leslie for cleverly finding out when it would be on and setting a timer.)

Anthony Bourdain... you got nothin' on me.

Tony eats at a place that serves Babi Guling, pork soaked in delicious spices and covered in coconut water as it’s roasted over four hours over an open fire. You even eat the skin, and it tastes like pork and sugar and fruit. Keep in mind, Muslims don’t eat pork, so this is the first we’ve had pig in 2 ½ months. No bacon, no sausage, no ham, etc. So sad.

I'm just missing the sweet Hawaiian shirt.

Honestly, it was a tad disappointing. The skin was really hard to chew. The meat itself was tender and delicious, but the restaurant coated it in these spices that detracted from the natural flavor. Oh well, it was still awesome.

Next we headed to a nearby traditional market. I bought a bunch of things for souvenirs for all of YOU, and I got a small original painting of a cute pink and red happy little pig to commemorate my visit to Indonesia’s only non-Muslim island and my subsequent gorging on its native food.

The Hindus in Bali take offerings to the gods very seriously. There are small offering plates—with crackers and candy, interestingly—at the door of every home and business, and in the four corners of every house.

If I were a god, I would absolutely accept candy as an offering.

Or Diet Mountain Dew.

And now, the Very Coolest Thing I’ve Done So Far In Indonesia.

Hopefully you’ve heard of Eat, Pray, Love. It’s a novel written by Elizabeth Gilbert, in which she travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia and spends four months living in each country. In Indonesia, she searches for balance and finds it on the island of Bali. She meets a lot of interesting people. One of those people is Wayan, a medicine woman, who is Gilbert’s friend and cures her of various illnesses.

Well, Mom found Wayan’s address, and we went there. It was just that easy! In the book, Wayan can’t afford to keep her house, so Gilbert’s family and friends raise the money to build her a new one. And there we were—standing in front of the house! We walked in and saw a few Indonesians. “Is Wayan here,” we asked. “Yes, I am Wayan,” she answered, entering cinematically as she walked down the stairs.

I think she was a bit apprehensive about us being in her home until we each agreed to do a full-body reading with her for $20. That includes a health screening, fortune-telling, a body and face scrub, a light massage, two health drinks, and a week’s worth of vitamins.

She was eerily accurate. She told Christine not to eat peppers, having no way of knowing she’s allergic. She knew that Christine had recently ended a 3 ½ year-long relationship and that she’d worked two jobs since graduating from college. She knew that Dani had worked many different jobs all throughout college and had four very good friends. I went last.

I wanted her to look at me and say, “Oooh, Katie, it is your birthday, I see, no?” But she didn’t. I guess November 7 isn’t written on my hand anywhere.

She said I need more calcium and water in my diet, and I shouldn’t eat so many sweets. Well, that part would apply to nearly everyone, wouldn’t it? She said, “You think too much. Your stomach gets sick so much because you worry.”

She told me to watch out for my left knee.

The palm-reading portion of my treatment

Then she started on the fortune-telling. According to Wayan, I will have two long-term jobs in my life: one full-time and one part-time. I’ll make a lot of money, especially at the part-time job.

“Ooh,” she said, turning my hand on its side. “You will spend a lot of money, too.”

“Uhh… like… too much?” I asked.

“No,” she said. I breathed a sigh of relief. “You make many investments. You love to make investments, buy property. Maybe you also will play poker a lot.”

Poker?!

“Oooh,” she said. “You have had many boys in your life.”

Hey, lady. Watch it. “Have I?” I say.

“Mmmhmm,” she answers. “Five men have loved you already. Five men have loved you deeply. But you have not loved even one of them back. Not deeply. You have not known true love.”

Umm, ok? “Do you think I WILL someday know true love?”

“Yes,” she said. You will be married two times. The first time, for 8 years and 3 months. Maybe 8 years and 6 months max. That is all. It is no good. And then after that, you meet your love. You are happy then for the rest of your life in your second marriage.”

I sigh. “What about babies?”

“You have… two eggs.” She looks at me intensely and her eyes flicker between my hand and my stomach. “No, you have three eggs in you. But one, it is not strong. It will not live.”

“Like a miscarriage?” I ask.

“Yes, a miscarriage.”

At this point, I wonder if someday I really WILL have a miscarriage, and if so, I wonder if I'll remember this moment, when everything in my "real" life seemed so far away and a miscarriage didn't seem like it would bother me too awful much. I bet I'll feel differently about it then.

She proceeded to tell me that I have three really good friends in my life right now and that I would have my two children in my first marriage and that I haven’t met either of my husbands yet. She said soon I’ll meet someone I’ll date for three years. She promised he’d be a good person and that we’d truly love each other. But I don’t marry him, nope. Then she slathered some smelly creams all over us, literally pushed about 30 vitamins into our mouths, slapped some sticky tape onto our knees, and put leaves on our bellies. She said not to take anything off for at least two hours. It was all so… surreal. It was exactly what I imagined it would always be like to actually talk to someone you met in a book.

Our trip was over soon after that. That night we went out to eat at a truly horrible seafood/Thai restaurant, but by that time, I was satisfied with my birthday already.

We briefly considered turning in early, but Christine said, “Katie. It is your birthday. We must go to Kuta.” So we got a cab (that took nearly an hour to go five miles), and we headed to the most touristy, most crowded part of Bali.

Here’s the thing about Kuta: everyone there is beautiful. It’s like the Land of the 6-ft-tall Gorgeous Women. Conversations were literally taking place in a layer of oxygen 8 inches above my head. I felt like I needed to start breathing through my nose and saying, “Sorry I’m not dressed real cute… I got mah nice clothes dirty in the monkey forest!”

Christine and I walked around exploring all the different bars and clubs we’d been reading about for months in Lonely Planet. People were breathing fire and dressed up like pirates and dancing with basketballs in unison! We saw the places that were bombed earlier this decade, the incident that single-handedly delivered a fatal wound to Bali tourism. (We didn’t stay very long in those places.) We ate chocolate gelato at 1am and ended our night with a swim in our warm, clean hotel pool.

23 is going to be a good year.