Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Our Time In Ubud
VIDEO OF DANCE PERFORMANCE ADDED
Hi there!
Francesca wrote the first part of this post, and here it is:
On our last day, we were ready for our drive to Bali from mainland Java. It only took about an hour to drive from Kalibaru to the Bali ferry, and then we were off! The ferry was slow and calm, taking about 30 minutes for us to reach Bali Island itself. While on the boat, we had to ‘deal’ with some locals, watching them do crazy things like leap off the ferry for a swim or throw trash directly into the water. Not the most comforting to watch. After we reached the ferry terminal, we still had to get to Ubud, a city that is a 3 hour drive from where the ferry lands at Gilimanuk on the west coast.
We started to take in the new sights: ornate architecture on the most simple of buildings, Hindu hanging party decorations made by local women, the aroma of sweet incent everywhere... very different from mainland Java!
The larger hanging Hindu decorations along the roadside are called ‘penjor.’
Here is a great description from an education website we found of the decorations displayed throughout Bali:
“The penjor is a tall, curved bamboo pole decorated with coconut leaves with an offering at the base. This is one of the media used by Hindus in Bali as part of almost every important ceremony, especially for the anniversary temple celebrations. The Sri Jaya Kasunu manuscript states that the penjor symbolizes the mountain and the mountain itself is the symbol of the universe. Therefore, for the Balinese the penjor is synonymous with Mount Agung, the highest and holiest mountain in Bali. The aim of erecting penjors at Galungan is to show devotion to God in His manifestation as Hyang Giri Pati (the God of the mountain). Mountains with deep forests hold a lot of water, which flows into rivers. This then fulfills water needs for irrigation and drinking water. During Galungan celebrations, each family erects a penjor outside their gate, which makes the whole neighborhood look splendid.”
Now, here is my (Henk’s) section:
Bali has been treating us extremely well so far, and it is time I made you all very jealous by telling you about our adventures. Our arrival in Ubud had perhaps been unfortunate, but in some way we have to thank ‘Beda Guesthouse’ for purposefully overbooking and thus selling our room, for we found a lovely place just across the street from them. Whilst Francesca guarded our bags I had walked down the street and ducked into a little place called ‘Tunjung Bungalows,’ where I had a talk with the owner. The place looked very decent, so I went back to Francesca and had one of the Beda-employees help us with our bags.
Initially, we had told ‘Beda’ we would return the next day to claim our room. They offered us to make use of their WiFi, which we needed to keep in touch with all of you. After dropping our bags off, I sat down with the owner of ‘Tunjung;’ she told me that ‘Beda’ always overbooks, and that she often gets requests from them to house a few of their ‘extras.’ Of course, they’d only stay for one night and then head back to ‘Beda.’ The owner told me she was quite angry about their policy and the amount of work she had to do for people that didn’t want to stay for more than one night. She offered us to stay longer for a very nice rate and in a better room than the one we were in for this first day.
I was quite pleased with her offer and promised that we would check the room in the morning and that we would most likely stay. First Francesca and I headed over to ‘Beda’ with our laptop in our daypack. The owner actually wanted to charge us for an hour’s worth of internet, which left us dumbfounded. I didn’t feel like having the argument right then, so I accepted his timecard and we went online. After an hour of Ubud-research and a bit of downloading we were quite done with the internet, and we headed back to our bungalow. The owner came after us, demanding money. I told him that we were not going to pay, because they had sold our room and earlier offered us free internet. The guy apologized and we left.
The intensity of the days behind us caught up with us and we dozed off for a few hours, ready for dinner. Monkey Forest Road had looked interesting on the way in, so we walked down Jalan Tegel, past the Monkey Forest and through the dark, reappearing on the other side with a lane of restaurants and hotels ahead of us. The first places looked a little dodgy, but eventually we came across a place called ‘Ubud Inn Warung,’ where we sat down for a bite. The restaurant was right next to a pond and we had an enormous table with an equally enormous bench to enjoy our meal. Francesca opted for a home-made Hawaiian Pizza whilst I had a Club Sandwich. Whilst we were eating, I saw something rustling in the plants next to us.
Too curious I walked over to the shrubbery and saw a cute little creature emptying the flowers on the bushes. It was a fruit bat and it didn’t care about us being there at all. I called Francesca over and even though she was initially scared we were soon right next to the bat inspecting it. One of the employees of the hotel next to the ‘warung’ even brought it a banana. It was a pity we had forgotten our camera, but I guess you can’t get a picture of everything. After watching the bat for a few more minutes we finished our meal and took a detour back to our bungalow.
The next morning we were woken up early by the plentiful crowing roosters, barking dogs and a little later, screaming kids. Since it’s so hot in the middle of the day school starts at 7:30AM and ends around 11:00AM. Not being able to sleep much longer we got up and asked for our breakfast. By 8:30AM we were enjoying our fruit and banana jaffles (toasted slices of bread with sliced banana inside), whilst the owner’s mother went around placing fresh offerings all over the place. I also pointed out the colored chickens that were running around (painted by the original owner) and we had a look at the decorations hanging around.
After that it was time to explore Ubud some more and we walked up Jl. Hanoman towards Jl. Raya Ubud to explore some of the surroundings. We saw several nice restaurants, cool shops, many monuments and dance arenas and even a gathering of old men that we were too hesitant about to visit. We were far behind with our posts and (mainly) pictures, so we found an internet café and sat down. The place also offered lunch, so we ordered a bagel and a grilled cheese sandwich. The afternoon went by rather unassumingly and in the early evening we decided to walk down the rest of Monkey Forest Rd. to find another place to eat. What we did not know was that the power had gone out due to maintenance after the earthquakes in past years, so finding a place to eat at proved difficult as many had no back-up generators. We sat down for a snack in a hip little place and shared grilled pineapple with a chocolate sauce. We didn’t feel hungry enough to eat a full dinner, so we retired to our bungalow and watched ‘Paranormal Activity’ – which was pretty bad! – and got some early sleep.
On the 18th of November we managed to sleep in and only started our day in the afternoon. I was very excited to take Francesca to the Monkey Forest, which is exactly what its name suggests. We got our extremely cheap tickets and stepped into the forest. Immediately we were surrounded by monkeys. Cute little ones, but also old grumpy grandpas were sitting around, waiting for a snack. I walked back to buy us some bananas, which I handed to Francesca so I could take some pictures. Before she (and I) knew it a mother with a baby had climbed up her leg via her dress, was pulling down her shirt and reached for all the bananas. Gone were our bananas… Francesca did not look happy at all, but there was not much we could have done since a bite from a monkey would have been worse than losing a bit of fruit.
Our first goal was a temple in the middle of the forest. Armed with a green sarong Francesca and I headed inside and found a rather abandoned and destroyed shrine. I thought it strange that they were doing so little work on the temple itself, because there was a lot of construction around it. Even stranger was the one sole monkey that we saw licking a few bricks. We‘re still not sure what it was doing there, so any suggestions are welcome! The statues surrounding the courtyard were perhaps even more bizarre, as we saw an angel with monkey-bodies, a woman with dog-face and other even vaguer creations that we marveled at.
Monkeys also surrounded us on our way to a sacred waterhole. Whole families were sitting and eating, or fighting, or playing around us. A youngster sat on the side of the path investigating one of the offerings. Down at the bottom of the staircase we seemed to have entered an entirely different world. More bizarre statues proved we were still in the same place. We walked past the pond to a narrow path with an unknown end. We decided to walk down it and followed a tiny gorge covered in lush greens. The water was perfectly see-through. At the end of the path we found a tiny statue holding a little urn which had eternal water running through it.
Since the path ended with the sculpture Francesca and I headed in the opposite direction where we found another neat creation. A steep staircase down to the water found us standing next to a huge statue of a giant komodo. Covered in green moss it looked very much like it could come alive any minute. After the komodo we walked back up the staircase and found ourselves surrounded by monkeys on all sides once again. We walked to the end of the forest and back, and eventually watched some young monkeys playing together whilst an older one lazily laid around.
Another monkey tried to climb Francesca, but before it reached its goal a guide scared it off her shoulder. Right after we found out what it was after as it also climbed me, eventually reaching my shoulder. It posed there for a while and then tried to grab my glasses. I held on tight and the monkey realized it was fighting a losing battle, so it let go and disappeared. Our adventure with the monkeys was coming to an end and Francesca and I walked around town for a little more, thinking about dinner.
Eventually we found what we were looking for: the ‘Bebek Bengil’ or ‘Dirty Duck.’ Francesca had had a craving for duck, so this seemed to be the best place to go to. The table was once again chairless, so a few pillows provided us with cushioning. The restaurant looked very small, but once inside we were taken behind the reception and past some rice paddies. Our table was in the back, and once seated we had a look at the menu. Francesca got her duck – local style – and I felt more like chicken, so I ordered a local specialty. Francesca found her duck a little dry, but combined with the sauce it tasted pretty good. My chicken was very tender and tasted ‘enak,’ or ‘delicious.’
The next day Francesca and I had planned to go to a Balinese dance, and the owner had directed us to her husband’s group, so we could buy tickets later. We were sidetracked by the gathering of men, and this time dared to enter the courtyard, flanked by Hindu architecture and statues. We found they were holding cockfights! Two men were holding two roosters and the other guys were placing their bets. Eventually, the roosters were let loose and we saw them fighting a fierce fight. We saw one giving up, upon which the other was picked up and declared winner. The loser was carried off and followed by us. We then saw what happened to the loser.
The first thing we saw was an old man taking a little knife off one of the claws of the rooster. He then cut off its legs – mind you, still alive – and started plucking its feathers. He gathered some as a trophy and smiled whilst I took photos. Another man even explained the rooster would be eaten later that day. Francesca and I thought we’d be more shocked by all of this, but the continuous crowing had made us, and Francesca in particular, rather anti-rooster. Francesca would like you all to know that: “one rooster starts crowing at like 3 in the morning – you don’t have to say ‘at like’ (I’m apparently not allowed to add this, he he!) – which will then be followed by a second rooster, and a third rooster, until there’s a symphony of roosters crowing in unison, or high-pitched little squeals. It’ll go on for what’ll seem like hours. It’ll be one of the worst memories I’ll have of South-East Asia.”
A second fight was about to ensue, and I switched the camera to video mode. This time we actually got to see the full fight, and how it begins. First, the roosters are put up against each other. The owners will ruffle their feathers, hit their heads and make them look fierce. They pretend to let them loose several times, before stepping back two paces and letting them go. Both roosters fly at each other’s throats with their claws – with added knives – and blood starts flowing. This time there was a white rooster, which made it a lot easier to see how much damage was actually done. We guessed that once one rooster admits defeat it’ll lay down on its stomach and stay still. The other sort of climbs on top, before being announced winner. See above for the continuation of this story.
At the end of the second fight we were done with watching cockfights and walked towards the exit, still the only tourists to check it out. We were not the only people that were not supposed to be there though, as a cop came in. We didn’t find out what happened after that, but we heard the fights are illegal and the fights were stopped, apparently right after we had left. We didn’t see any more fights at the same place the following days, so go us for following our ears.
Our next stop was a little clothing shop that Francesca had had her eye on a few days before. She had seen a very colorful dress and since we can’t buy souvenirs, but a cute piece of clothing is always okay, we decided to check the price out. The dress was hand-painted in Ubud and looked great on Francesca. When she was asking which size to get the woman suggested ‘Medium or Large.’ Francesca and I were about to protest when she started laughing and pointed at Francesca’s chest. ‘Because you have big – here.’ Aaah! Medium looked great, and so we took it home.
Lunchtime was coming up and we walked back a little to a cute little restaurant we had seen earlier. We sat down on some chairless pillows once again, and ordered a pizza and a sandwich to share. The pizza especially was a great choice and filled us up entirely. We decided to rest up before the dance later that night and walked back. A few hours later we felt refreshed and strolled to the ‘theater.’ We bought our tickets and sat down front row.
About 70 men in traditional clothing came pouring out and sat down in a circle in front of us. Together with several actors they played out the Ramayana once again, but in a much more abstract and musical variation. Francesca and I were quite intrigued by their interpretation. The men were supposed to be monkeys, and the sounds they were making formed the rhythm of the performance. Listen carefully to the video I made and you’ll hear them sing ‘chak-chak-chak’ (The sound of monkeys) in unison whilst one man chants ‘pong-pong-pong.’(The sound of the bird king) It was very mesmerizing and interesting to watch.
The second part of the show was a little less tantalizing. Two young girls performed a supposedly very difficult dance, which didn’t look that challenging at all. The most difficult part for them must’ve been standing there in heavy smoke coming out of a small bowl with smoldering wet wood in front of them.
The third and final part however was very much worth it. The Fire Dance is an exorcist dance against spirit possession. Right in front of us two men brought out a large stack of coconuts, which they set on fire. We were a little too close for comfort as the smoke blew in our faces at times and the heat was very noticeable. However, we sat it out and saw a man run through and kick the blazing coconuts, whilst wearing a wooden contraption that reminded me of a horse. It looked very surreal and gave us a worthy ending to a very successful day.
Hi there!
Francesca wrote the first part of this post, and here it is:
On our last day, we were ready for our drive to Bali from mainland Java. It only took about an hour to drive from Kalibaru to the Bali ferry, and then we were off! The ferry was slow and calm, taking about 30 minutes for us to reach Bali Island itself. While on the boat, we had to ‘deal’ with some locals, watching them do crazy things like leap off the ferry for a swim or throw trash directly into the water. Not the most comforting to watch. After we reached the ferry terminal, we still had to get to Ubud, a city that is a 3 hour drive from where the ferry lands at Gilimanuk on the west coast.
We started to take in the new sights: ornate architecture on the most simple of buildings, Hindu hanging party decorations made by local women, the aroma of sweet incent everywhere... very different from mainland Java!
The larger hanging Hindu decorations along the roadside are called ‘penjor.’
Here is a great description from an education website we found of the decorations displayed throughout Bali:
“The penjor is a tall, curved bamboo pole decorated with coconut leaves with an offering at the base. This is one of the media used by Hindus in Bali as part of almost every important ceremony, especially for the anniversary temple celebrations. The Sri Jaya Kasunu manuscript states that the penjor symbolizes the mountain and the mountain itself is the symbol of the universe. Therefore, for the Balinese the penjor is synonymous with Mount Agung, the highest and holiest mountain in Bali. The aim of erecting penjors at Galungan is to show devotion to God in His manifestation as Hyang Giri Pati (the God of the mountain). Mountains with deep forests hold a lot of water, which flows into rivers. This then fulfills water needs for irrigation and drinking water. During Galungan celebrations, each family erects a penjor outside their gate, which makes the whole neighborhood look splendid.”
Now, here is my (Henk’s) section:
Bali has been treating us extremely well so far, and it is time I made you all very jealous by telling you about our adventures. Our arrival in Ubud had perhaps been unfortunate, but in some way we have to thank ‘Beda Guesthouse’ for purposefully overbooking and thus selling our room, for we found a lovely place just across the street from them. Whilst Francesca guarded our bags I had walked down the street and ducked into a little place called ‘Tunjung Bungalows,’ where I had a talk with the owner. The place looked very decent, so I went back to Francesca and had one of the Beda-employees help us with our bags.
Initially, we had told ‘Beda’ we would return the next day to claim our room. They offered us to make use of their WiFi, which we needed to keep in touch with all of you. After dropping our bags off, I sat down with the owner of ‘Tunjung;’ she told me that ‘Beda’ always overbooks, and that she often gets requests from them to house a few of their ‘extras.’ Of course, they’d only stay for one night and then head back to ‘Beda.’ The owner told me she was quite angry about their policy and the amount of work she had to do for people that didn’t want to stay for more than one night. She offered us to stay longer for a very nice rate and in a better room than the one we were in for this first day.
I was quite pleased with her offer and promised that we would check the room in the morning and that we would most likely stay. First Francesca and I headed over to ‘Beda’ with our laptop in our daypack. The owner actually wanted to charge us for an hour’s worth of internet, which left us dumbfounded. I didn’t feel like having the argument right then, so I accepted his timecard and we went online. After an hour of Ubud-research and a bit of downloading we were quite done with the internet, and we headed back to our bungalow. The owner came after us, demanding money. I told him that we were not going to pay, because they had sold our room and earlier offered us free internet. The guy apologized and we left.
The intensity of the days behind us caught up with us and we dozed off for a few hours, ready for dinner. Monkey Forest Road had looked interesting on the way in, so we walked down Jalan Tegel, past the Monkey Forest and through the dark, reappearing on the other side with a lane of restaurants and hotels ahead of us. The first places looked a little dodgy, but eventually we came across a place called ‘Ubud Inn Warung,’ where we sat down for a bite. The restaurant was right next to a pond and we had an enormous table with an equally enormous bench to enjoy our meal. Francesca opted for a home-made Hawaiian Pizza whilst I had a Club Sandwich. Whilst we were eating, I saw something rustling in the plants next to us.
Too curious I walked over to the shrubbery and saw a cute little creature emptying the flowers on the bushes. It was a fruit bat and it didn’t care about us being there at all. I called Francesca over and even though she was initially scared we were soon right next to the bat inspecting it. One of the employees of the hotel next to the ‘warung’ even brought it a banana. It was a pity we had forgotten our camera, but I guess you can’t get a picture of everything. After watching the bat for a few more minutes we finished our meal and took a detour back to our bungalow.
The next morning we were woken up early by the plentiful crowing roosters, barking dogs and a little later, screaming kids. Since it’s so hot in the middle of the day school starts at 7:30AM and ends around 11:00AM. Not being able to sleep much longer we got up and asked for our breakfast. By 8:30AM we were enjoying our fruit and banana jaffles (toasted slices of bread with sliced banana inside), whilst the owner’s mother went around placing fresh offerings all over the place. I also pointed out the colored chickens that were running around (painted by the original owner) and we had a look at the decorations hanging around.
After that it was time to explore Ubud some more and we walked up Jl. Hanoman towards Jl. Raya Ubud to explore some of the surroundings. We saw several nice restaurants, cool shops, many monuments and dance arenas and even a gathering of old men that we were too hesitant about to visit. We were far behind with our posts and (mainly) pictures, so we found an internet café and sat down. The place also offered lunch, so we ordered a bagel and a grilled cheese sandwich. The afternoon went by rather unassumingly and in the early evening we decided to walk down the rest of Monkey Forest Rd. to find another place to eat. What we did not know was that the power had gone out due to maintenance after the earthquakes in past years, so finding a place to eat at proved difficult as many had no back-up generators. We sat down for a snack in a hip little place and shared grilled pineapple with a chocolate sauce. We didn’t feel hungry enough to eat a full dinner, so we retired to our bungalow and watched ‘Paranormal Activity’ – which was pretty bad! – and got some early sleep.
On the 18th of November we managed to sleep in and only started our day in the afternoon. I was very excited to take Francesca to the Monkey Forest, which is exactly what its name suggests. We got our extremely cheap tickets and stepped into the forest. Immediately we were surrounded by monkeys. Cute little ones, but also old grumpy grandpas were sitting around, waiting for a snack. I walked back to buy us some bananas, which I handed to Francesca so I could take some pictures. Before she (and I) knew it a mother with a baby had climbed up her leg via her dress, was pulling down her shirt and reached for all the bananas. Gone were our bananas… Francesca did not look happy at all, but there was not much we could have done since a bite from a monkey would have been worse than losing a bit of fruit.
Our first goal was a temple in the middle of the forest. Armed with a green sarong Francesca and I headed inside and found a rather abandoned and destroyed shrine. I thought it strange that they were doing so little work on the temple itself, because there was a lot of construction around it. Even stranger was the one sole monkey that we saw licking a few bricks. We‘re still not sure what it was doing there, so any suggestions are welcome! The statues surrounding the courtyard were perhaps even more bizarre, as we saw an angel with monkey-bodies, a woman with dog-face and other even vaguer creations that we marveled at.
Monkeys also surrounded us on our way to a sacred waterhole. Whole families were sitting and eating, or fighting, or playing around us. A youngster sat on the side of the path investigating one of the offerings. Down at the bottom of the staircase we seemed to have entered an entirely different world. More bizarre statues proved we were still in the same place. We walked past the pond to a narrow path with an unknown end. We decided to walk down it and followed a tiny gorge covered in lush greens. The water was perfectly see-through. At the end of the path we found a tiny statue holding a little urn which had eternal water running through it.
Since the path ended with the sculpture Francesca and I headed in the opposite direction where we found another neat creation. A steep staircase down to the water found us standing next to a huge statue of a giant komodo. Covered in green moss it looked very much like it could come alive any minute. After the komodo we walked back up the staircase and found ourselves surrounded by monkeys on all sides once again. We walked to the end of the forest and back, and eventually watched some young monkeys playing together whilst an older one lazily laid around.
Another monkey tried to climb Francesca, but before it reached its goal a guide scared it off her shoulder. Right after we found out what it was after as it also climbed me, eventually reaching my shoulder. It posed there for a while and then tried to grab my glasses. I held on tight and the monkey realized it was fighting a losing battle, so it let go and disappeared. Our adventure with the monkeys was coming to an end and Francesca and I walked around town for a little more, thinking about dinner.
Eventually we found what we were looking for: the ‘Bebek Bengil’ or ‘Dirty Duck.’ Francesca had had a craving for duck, so this seemed to be the best place to go to. The table was once again chairless, so a few pillows provided us with cushioning. The restaurant looked very small, but once inside we were taken behind the reception and past some rice paddies. Our table was in the back, and once seated we had a look at the menu. Francesca got her duck – local style – and I felt more like chicken, so I ordered a local specialty. Francesca found her duck a little dry, but combined with the sauce it tasted pretty good. My chicken was very tender and tasted ‘enak,’ or ‘delicious.’
The next day Francesca and I had planned to go to a Balinese dance, and the owner had directed us to her husband’s group, so we could buy tickets later. We were sidetracked by the gathering of men, and this time dared to enter the courtyard, flanked by Hindu architecture and statues. We found they were holding cockfights! Two men were holding two roosters and the other guys were placing their bets. Eventually, the roosters were let loose and we saw them fighting a fierce fight. We saw one giving up, upon which the other was picked up and declared winner. The loser was carried off and followed by us. We then saw what happened to the loser.
The first thing we saw was an old man taking a little knife off one of the claws of the rooster. He then cut off its legs – mind you, still alive – and started plucking its feathers. He gathered some as a trophy and smiled whilst I took photos. Another man even explained the rooster would be eaten later that day. Francesca and I thought we’d be more shocked by all of this, but the continuous crowing had made us, and Francesca in particular, rather anti-rooster. Francesca would like you all to know that: “one rooster starts crowing at like 3 in the morning – you don’t have to say ‘at like’ (I’m apparently not allowed to add this, he he!) – which will then be followed by a second rooster, and a third rooster, until there’s a symphony of roosters crowing in unison, or high-pitched little squeals. It’ll go on for what’ll seem like hours. It’ll be one of the worst memories I’ll have of South-East Asia.”
A second fight was about to ensue, and I switched the camera to video mode. This time we actually got to see the full fight, and how it begins. First, the roosters are put up against each other. The owners will ruffle their feathers, hit their heads and make them look fierce. They pretend to let them loose several times, before stepping back two paces and letting them go. Both roosters fly at each other’s throats with their claws – with added knives – and blood starts flowing. This time there was a white rooster, which made it a lot easier to see how much damage was actually done. We guessed that once one rooster admits defeat it’ll lay down on its stomach and stay still. The other sort of climbs on top, before being announced winner. See above for the continuation of this story.
At the end of the second fight we were done with watching cockfights and walked towards the exit, still the only tourists to check it out. We were not the only people that were not supposed to be there though, as a cop came in. We didn’t find out what happened after that, but we heard the fights are illegal and the fights were stopped, apparently right after we had left. We didn’t see any more fights at the same place the following days, so go us for following our ears.
Our next stop was a little clothing shop that Francesca had had her eye on a few days before. She had seen a very colorful dress and since we can’t buy souvenirs, but a cute piece of clothing is always okay, we decided to check the price out. The dress was hand-painted in Ubud and looked great on Francesca. When she was asking which size to get the woman suggested ‘Medium or Large.’ Francesca and I were about to protest when she started laughing and pointed at Francesca’s chest. ‘Because you have big – here.’ Aaah! Medium looked great, and so we took it home.
Lunchtime was coming up and we walked back a little to a cute little restaurant we had seen earlier. We sat down on some chairless pillows once again, and ordered a pizza and a sandwich to share. The pizza especially was a great choice and filled us up entirely. We decided to rest up before the dance later that night and walked back. A few hours later we felt refreshed and strolled to the ‘theater.’ We bought our tickets and sat down front row.
About 70 men in traditional clothing came pouring out and sat down in a circle in front of us. Together with several actors they played out the Ramayana once again, but in a much more abstract and musical variation. Francesca and I were quite intrigued by their interpretation. The men were supposed to be monkeys, and the sounds they were making formed the rhythm of the performance. Listen carefully to the video I made and you’ll hear them sing ‘chak-chak-chak’ (The sound of monkeys) in unison whilst one man chants ‘pong-pong-pong.’(The sound of the bird king) It was very mesmerizing and interesting to watch.
The second part of the show was a little less tantalizing. Two young girls performed a supposedly very difficult dance, which didn’t look that challenging at all. The most difficult part for them must’ve been standing there in heavy smoke coming out of a small bowl with smoldering wet wood in front of them.
The third and final part however was very much worth it. The Fire Dance is an exorcist dance against spirit possession. Right in front of us two men brought out a large stack of coconuts, which they set on fire. We were a little too close for comfort as the smoke blew in our faces at times and the heat was very noticeable. However, we sat it out and saw a man run through and kick the blazing coconuts, whilst wearing a wooden contraption that reminded me of a horse. It looked very surreal and gave us a worthy ending to a very successful day.
Monday, November 16, 2009
My Little Pony And Henk's Durian Episode
Hey everyone! Francesca here again.
I'm going to tell you about our trip to Mt. Bromo, as well as our visit to the Mt. itself. Well, the actual drive from Yogyakarta to Mt. Bromo was not too exciting. It was still scenic in places, but the trip itself was really long: a 10 hour long drive. Henk and I enjoyed our ‘Western’ breakfast once again at the tables outside the hotel, and then I jumped online to attempt to check some e-mails before we had to leave around 9:00 am. We ended up leaving at around 20 minutes past 9:00 due to our extra internet time, and after a quick ATM and supermarket stop, we were on the road. Henk and I watched ‘Into the Wild,’ and had a long and lively discussion about different foods our parents/grandparents make… making both our mouths quickly water!
We pulled off to a buffet for lunch since I had to go to the bathroom, but it didn’t look appetizing at all – the food looked like it was sitting there for days, and had tons of flies all over it. Who knows how many maggot babies were getting ready to be born on that food! Yuck! We tried to hold out for a while longer, relying on our store-bought snacks. However, when our guides pulled off to a little shack to grab some dinner, Henk decided something to eat was in order. Since they didn’t have ‘sate ayam’ (aka chicken satay, or chicken-on-a-stick) Henk instead tried a concoction that I raised my eyebrows at: ‘sotong kilik’ or ‘cow skin soup.’
He could eat his cow skins, I was gonna wait for some chicken. It wasn’t until more than an hour later that we stopped off at a large grocer/food ‘court’ area. I was famished! I grabbed so many different snacks from the grocery store that the girls at the checkout counter actually threw in a couple extra snacks for free. Free caramel chocolate bar! Woot! Then we proceeded to the sate section, and bought two portions of lamb sate, which I happily stuffed into the bread roll I had bought at the supermarket. Finally, a sandwich again! (Apparently, less than 1% of Indonesians eat any form of sandwich, which is why I’m struggling to find food. And I refuse to eat cow skins… and bats… and cats... seriously, they eat that stuff!)
We arrived around 8:30 pm at Hotel Yoshi, which for less than $20.00/night was extremely nice! It even had an amazing view and an eclectically-designed Indonesian restaurant. We booked our sunrise tour of Mt. Bromo for the morning, and then jumped straight into bed after hearing what time we were going to be woken-up by reception. 3:00 am! And we really had no choice but to do the sunrise tour, because we were scheduled to leave Bromo at 9:00 am, with a 7 hour drive (or so we were told) to our next destination, Kalibaru Village. So we were happily awakened at 2:30 am by a crowing rooster… then shortly later by reception knocking on our door. We saw that Budi was outside, ready to come with us. However, since we had to book a special jeep for the tour, Topik got to sleep in. Lucky!
Our brochure about Mt. Bromo describes the sunrise as ‘one of the most exciting experiences,’ but we were a bit hesitant to believe them. Why? Their next line goes on to read that the sunrise viewing is: ‘Fallowed by a pony ride from the village of Cemoro Lawang over a see of sand to the food of the volcano.’ After a bumpy jeep ride, we arrived at the sunrise viewing platform and starting taking pictures of the volcano and its accompanying sunrise. Thankfully, since Henk was taller than virtually everyone there, he was able to get pictures over their heads. There were a ton of people there! Deciding to beat the crowds to the horses, we left the sunrise a bit early and headed back to the jeep. We did take the time to buy a roasted sweet corn to munch on the way back down.
As we got on our horses (more like ponies from the size of them) we noticed many locals trying to get us to buy bundles of colorful flowers, asking us if we want an ‘offering.’ We later asked Budi about this, and he told us that indeed the volcano is considered ‘holy,’ confirming our suspicions. Mt. Bromo is believed to be a ‘holy volcano’ by Hindus, the Balinese, and the surrounding villagers. It is said that when there is intense rumbling made by the volcano, the population quickly bring offers to the God of Bromo. Moreover, there is an annual offering ceremony of Kasada in the twelfth month in the Tenggerese calendar year. During this ceremony, villagers bring their produce of sacrifice to the holy volcano. Henk and I rode our ponies to the base of the steep stair climb, and then got ready to tackle the worst.
250 steep steps later, we were posing at the top of the climb, peering down at the crater below and getting pictures with Mt. Bromo in the background. I was really nervous standing at the top since there wasn’t exactly a ‘comfortable’ area to sit or stand without being very near to the cliff edge. We made our way back down and jumped on our ponies again (different ones this time, and Henk had to walk a bit to meet his) heading back to the jeep. We returned to the hotel, packed up our bags, and ate breakfast/lunch in the hotel restaurant. Henk tried a pineapple curry chicken which he wasn’t too impressed with, while I had a ‘pizza bread open-faced sandwich.’ Yes, a sandwich!
Our drive for the day started around 9:00 am, and finished much earlier than expected around 2:00 pm at our very nice hotel here in Kalibaru called ‘Margo Utomo.’ We have our own little cabin! However, all is currently not well. Henk decided that he wanted to try one of the local fruits during our drive, a fruit called durian. It is supposed to be a very sweet fruit that smells extremely disgusting… I wasn’t at all interested in trying that risky thing. However, Henk being a fruit-lover opted to try one. Let’s just say he has gotten really sick all of a sudden, and we’re wondering if it could have been the durian, because besides the chicken this morning that’s the only thing he has really eaten all day.
Anyways... that is the current status of things. I’m taking good care of him, don’t worry! But I really hope he gets better soon.
Everyone wish him well!
The next day... November 15th!
Henk feels a lot better today from the ‘durian episode.’ We found out after some light breakfast that our driver, Mr. Topik, felt a bit sick as well. Since the only thing both him and Henk ate was durian, it was probably that. We even found out from Mr. Budi that durian ‘heats up the stomach’ or something like that, so it is not the easiest fruit for the stomach to handle. Now we know!
Here is a description of the fruit I found on Wiki that is pretty humorous:
Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."[22] Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."
Anyways, because Henk wasn’t really feeling 100% yet, we decided to just do the rubber factory tour and skip the coffee plantation tour planned for later in the day. We had already seen a coffee plantation when we went to Costa Rica, so seeing another one wasn’t mandatory... it was much more important for Henk to be able to relax. We met our guide and driver and then drove us down the bumpy road towards the rubber factory. When we got there, we were given an ‘inside look’ at where companies like GoodYear get some of their pre-processed rubber from for their tires.
There were young rubber trees all around, all which had little buckets attached to them to collect the liquid rubber dripping down like sap off the trees. We also saw a handful of Indonesian women working hard in a warehouse, mixing the rubber with water to separate the rubber and form it into flat ‘rubber plates.’ There were also a bunch of machines in the warehouse that looked absolutely ancient, and we later learned they were brought over by the Dutch in the 1800’s.
Next we were taken to a long row of doors. Turns out, each one had a heat-room behind it, heating the rubber to various temperatures over the course of 5 days in order to form and shape the rubber sheets. There were two qualities of rubber: the ‘A’ quality, which was turned into big sheets of rubber and the ‘B’ quality, which was cut into smaller pieces and sold as ‘scrap rubber’ for use in products like footballs. We stretched and tested both qualities, and viewed a ton of packed boxes of rubber labeled and ready for shipment.
With our short tour over, we enjoyed some tea and tapioca doughnuts before heading back to the car. When Henk and I returned to the hotel, we spotted the pool walking back to our room and decided to dip our feet in real quick. It felt good! Henk had been progressively feeling better throughout the day, so I thought a soak in the pool might help him and we changed into our bathing suits. We were literally the only ones in the pool – or even anywhere near the pool! We realized our nice hotel was so empty because the two of us were one of just two couples staying at the moment. Nice! We ended up having a huge private infinity pool, just for us.
After a quick shower, we decided to have some dinner at the hotel. It was less than $5.00 USD for my sweet and sour chicken meal, and the same for Henk's soup and chicken sandwich. Since it was so cheap, we splurged on a dessert of banana fritters and ice-cream. Tomorrow morning we have to get up around 7:00 am (or a bit earlier) to get some breakfast before experiencing the last day of our tour. Thank God, we’re finally reaching Bali! It should only be a few hours for both the driving time and the ferry, and we can’t wait. We’re going to have 2 full weeks of nothing but relaxing, snorkeling, and laying around in the sand.
Bali, here we come!!
Francesca
I'm going to tell you about our trip to Mt. Bromo, as well as our visit to the Mt. itself. Well, the actual drive from Yogyakarta to Mt. Bromo was not too exciting. It was still scenic in places, but the trip itself was really long: a 10 hour long drive. Henk and I enjoyed our ‘Western’ breakfast once again at the tables outside the hotel, and then I jumped online to attempt to check some e-mails before we had to leave around 9:00 am. We ended up leaving at around 20 minutes past 9:00 due to our extra internet time, and after a quick ATM and supermarket stop, we were on the road. Henk and I watched ‘Into the Wild,’ and had a long and lively discussion about different foods our parents/grandparents make… making both our mouths quickly water!
We pulled off to a buffet for lunch since I had to go to the bathroom, but it didn’t look appetizing at all – the food looked like it was sitting there for days, and had tons of flies all over it. Who knows how many maggot babies were getting ready to be born on that food! Yuck! We tried to hold out for a while longer, relying on our store-bought snacks. However, when our guides pulled off to a little shack to grab some dinner, Henk decided something to eat was in order. Since they didn’t have ‘sate ayam’ (aka chicken satay, or chicken-on-a-stick) Henk instead tried a concoction that I raised my eyebrows at: ‘sotong kilik’ or ‘cow skin soup.’
He could eat his cow skins, I was gonna wait for some chicken. It wasn’t until more than an hour later that we stopped off at a large grocer/food ‘court’ area. I was famished! I grabbed so many different snacks from the grocery store that the girls at the checkout counter actually threw in a couple extra snacks for free. Free caramel chocolate bar! Woot! Then we proceeded to the sate section, and bought two portions of lamb sate, which I happily stuffed into the bread roll I had bought at the supermarket. Finally, a sandwich again! (Apparently, less than 1% of Indonesians eat any form of sandwich, which is why I’m struggling to find food. And I refuse to eat cow skins… and bats… and cats... seriously, they eat that stuff!)
We arrived around 8:30 pm at Hotel Yoshi, which for less than $20.00/night was extremely nice! It even had an amazing view and an eclectically-designed Indonesian restaurant. We booked our sunrise tour of Mt. Bromo for the morning, and then jumped straight into bed after hearing what time we were going to be woken-up by reception. 3:00 am! And we really had no choice but to do the sunrise tour, because we were scheduled to leave Bromo at 9:00 am, with a 7 hour drive (or so we were told) to our next destination, Kalibaru Village. So we were happily awakened at 2:30 am by a crowing rooster… then shortly later by reception knocking on our door. We saw that Budi was outside, ready to come with us. However, since we had to book a special jeep for the tour, Topik got to sleep in. Lucky!
Our brochure about Mt. Bromo describes the sunrise as ‘one of the most exciting experiences,’ but we were a bit hesitant to believe them. Why? Their next line goes on to read that the sunrise viewing is: ‘Fallowed by a pony ride from the village of Cemoro Lawang over a see of sand to the food of the volcano.’ After a bumpy jeep ride, we arrived at the sunrise viewing platform and starting taking pictures of the volcano and its accompanying sunrise. Thankfully, since Henk was taller than virtually everyone there, he was able to get pictures over their heads. There were a ton of people there! Deciding to beat the crowds to the horses, we left the sunrise a bit early and headed back to the jeep. We did take the time to buy a roasted sweet corn to munch on the way back down.
As we got on our horses (more like ponies from the size of them) we noticed many locals trying to get us to buy bundles of colorful flowers, asking us if we want an ‘offering.’ We later asked Budi about this, and he told us that indeed the volcano is considered ‘holy,’ confirming our suspicions. Mt. Bromo is believed to be a ‘holy volcano’ by Hindus, the Balinese, and the surrounding villagers. It is said that when there is intense rumbling made by the volcano, the population quickly bring offers to the God of Bromo. Moreover, there is an annual offering ceremony of Kasada in the twelfth month in the Tenggerese calendar year. During this ceremony, villagers bring their produce of sacrifice to the holy volcano. Henk and I rode our ponies to the base of the steep stair climb, and then got ready to tackle the worst.
250 steep steps later, we were posing at the top of the climb, peering down at the crater below and getting pictures with Mt. Bromo in the background. I was really nervous standing at the top since there wasn’t exactly a ‘comfortable’ area to sit or stand without being very near to the cliff edge. We made our way back down and jumped on our ponies again (different ones this time, and Henk had to walk a bit to meet his) heading back to the jeep. We returned to the hotel, packed up our bags, and ate breakfast/lunch in the hotel restaurant. Henk tried a pineapple curry chicken which he wasn’t too impressed with, while I had a ‘pizza bread open-faced sandwich.’ Yes, a sandwich!
Our drive for the day started around 9:00 am, and finished much earlier than expected around 2:00 pm at our very nice hotel here in Kalibaru called ‘Margo Utomo.’ We have our own little cabin! However, all is currently not well. Henk decided that he wanted to try one of the local fruits during our drive, a fruit called durian. It is supposed to be a very sweet fruit that smells extremely disgusting… I wasn’t at all interested in trying that risky thing. However, Henk being a fruit-lover opted to try one. Let’s just say he has gotten really sick all of a sudden, and we’re wondering if it could have been the durian, because besides the chicken this morning that’s the only thing he has really eaten all day.
Anyways... that is the current status of things. I’m taking good care of him, don’t worry! But I really hope he gets better soon.
Everyone wish him well!
The next day... November 15th!
Henk feels a lot better today from the ‘durian episode.’ We found out after some light breakfast that our driver, Mr. Topik, felt a bit sick as well. Since the only thing both him and Henk ate was durian, it was probably that. We even found out from Mr. Budi that durian ‘heats up the stomach’ or something like that, so it is not the easiest fruit for the stomach to handle. Now we know!
Here is a description of the fruit I found on Wiki that is pretty humorous:
Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."[22] Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."
Anyways, because Henk wasn’t really feeling 100% yet, we decided to just do the rubber factory tour and skip the coffee plantation tour planned for later in the day. We had already seen a coffee plantation when we went to Costa Rica, so seeing another one wasn’t mandatory... it was much more important for Henk to be able to relax. We met our guide and driver and then drove us down the bumpy road towards the rubber factory. When we got there, we were given an ‘inside look’ at where companies like GoodYear get some of their pre-processed rubber from for their tires.
There were young rubber trees all around, all which had little buckets attached to them to collect the liquid rubber dripping down like sap off the trees. We also saw a handful of Indonesian women working hard in a warehouse, mixing the rubber with water to separate the rubber and form it into flat ‘rubber plates.’ There were also a bunch of machines in the warehouse that looked absolutely ancient, and we later learned they were brought over by the Dutch in the 1800’s.
Next we were taken to a long row of doors. Turns out, each one had a heat-room behind it, heating the rubber to various temperatures over the course of 5 days in order to form and shape the rubber sheets. There were two qualities of rubber: the ‘A’ quality, which was turned into big sheets of rubber and the ‘B’ quality, which was cut into smaller pieces and sold as ‘scrap rubber’ for use in products like footballs. We stretched and tested both qualities, and viewed a ton of packed boxes of rubber labeled and ready for shipment.
With our short tour over, we enjoyed some tea and tapioca doughnuts before heading back to the car. When Henk and I returned to the hotel, we spotted the pool walking back to our room and decided to dip our feet in real quick. It felt good! Henk had been progressively feeling better throughout the day, so I thought a soak in the pool might help him and we changed into our bathing suits. We were literally the only ones in the pool – or even anywhere near the pool! We realized our nice hotel was so empty because the two of us were one of just two couples staying at the moment. Nice! We ended up having a huge private infinity pool, just for us.
After a quick shower, we decided to have some dinner at the hotel. It was less than $5.00 USD for my sweet and sour chicken meal, and the same for Henk's soup and chicken sandwich. Since it was so cheap, we splurged on a dessert of banana fritters and ice-cream. Tomorrow morning we have to get up around 7:00 am (or a bit earlier) to get some breakfast before experiencing the last day of our tour. Thank God, we’re finally reaching Bali! It should only be a few hours for both the driving time and the ferry, and we can’t wait. We’re going to have 2 full weeks of nothing but relaxing, snorkeling, and laying around in the sand.
Bali, here we come!!
Francesca
