Reportage: Tour day two of Bali

Amed

We got up and had breakfast with the ducks quacking at us and then walked across the street for an hour of snorkeling before we hit the road again. I am always amazed by the abundance of colorful fish as soon as I put my mask in the water.

Pisang rebus—boiled bananas

Pak Astika bought a bunch of these small brownish bananas from a woman on the side of the road. I was a little reluctant to try one not being a huge fan of bananas, but they are so delicious or “sangat enak” as we say here in Bali. Not so sweet, a bit lighter with a slight citrus flavor, I think...

Selling a little of everything on the side of the road.

Day 2 continued

After snorkeling we headed across the north coast, which at first is a very dry volcanic landscape until we got close to Singaraja where there are rich plantations of coffee, cloves and rice. They grow grapes here to produce the local Bali wine Hatten Aga white, red and rose which is not unlike the wine I drank when I was not old enough to drink.

First stop was a trek into the jungle to see the Gitgit Waterfall. On our way up we passed people bathing in the irrigation canal and up further they were washing the intestines of a pig. We passed very small simple houses belonging to people who grew fruits and vegetables in amongst the lush vegetation. We stopped to admire the beautiful Rambutan trees and bought some from the guy who grew them. We sat at a table in front of his house while he told us that his Rambutan was considered some of the best on the island and was sold to high-end hotels.

Rambutan means “hair fruit”. It is about the size of a lemon with bright red skin covered with soft green hair. His Rambutan was about the most beautiful I had seen. It is easily peeled exposing the sweet white fruit around a pit.

The Gitgit Waterfall

Cabe (chili peppers) in a small family garden on our way back down from the waterfall. They like their food hot here so peppers of all kinds are plentiful. I am not a big fan of hot food so I have to be quite careful of some of the condiments that accompany the food. The other night I tried something that looked quite harmless and thought I was going to die.

The road to Permuteran

A late lunch in Singaraja on a pier over the water where we stuffed ourselves with cumi cumi bakar (grilled squid) and of course nasi puti (rice). Then it was on the road again for another two hours to the western part of the island to a beautiful town called Pemuteran where we collapsed at the beach to watch the sunset after another long day.Then it was off to bed because tomorrow was ceremony day.

Reportage: A three day cultural tour of Bali

Day 1—Barong dance in Batubulan

On Friday we set out on a tour with Pak Astika a Balinse priest from Tabanan, Bali. First stop was a Barong Dance in Batubulan. This dance is the eternal fight between good and evil. Barong a mythical animal who represents the good spirit and Randa a mythical monster who represents the evil one.

While I was trying to capture the dance in my sketchbook, Jerry was explaining the acts as they unfolded.

The Barong—the good guy

Servant of Dewi Kunta

Randa—the bad guy

After the dance, we headed up to Ubud to the Blanco Museum which was just amazing.

Pura Goa Lawah

A temple that has three meru (shrines) that stand at the entrance to a deep cave. Their tiered roofs of black palm fiber are stained with the droppings of thousands of harmless bats which dangle from the rocky overhang. No one knows how far the cave extends, it being taboo to venture too deep. They are regarded as the guardians of the temple, but are not the only creatures in Goa Lawah. The priests are happy to show the large rock pythons which coil luxuriously near the shrines and feed on fallen wounded bats.

Pak Astika praying at Goa Lawah

I sketched Astika quite bit on our trip. He is a fascinating person with deep knowledge of Bali and its culture. His ancestors came from Java centuries ago. He had such a natural way of meeting and talking with people along the way in our travels. We had some amazing experiences because of who he is, his most generous personality, his natural way with his people of Bali and his pride in this most beautiful and amazing island.

Day one continues

Tenganan

A “Bali Aga” village which one of the few original aboriginal villages left in Bali. Their way of life, rituals and customary laws still remain today in among layers of cultural influence from Java’s Hindu-Buddism which began around the 8^th century. The villagers still practice the traditional arts of basketry, ikat weaving and lontor leaf itchings.

I Nyageh Kepet is an 82 year old traditional basket weaver who has been making these beautiful baskets most of his life. He spoke only Balinese so we relied on Astika to translate. Balinese is quite different from Bahasa Indonesian which is the language we have learned and is the official language of Indonesia. There are something like 700+ dialects in Indonesia.

The basket we bought from Nyageh.

Tirtha Gangga

We arrived at this water palace just as the sun was setting. We had to walk through a pond of 108 stepping stones to get to the holy water which is fed by a sacred spring. We had to splash the holy water 12 times in our eyes so we would really be able to see. Pak Astika claims this water comes from the Ganges River in India— wonder how they do that? After a day like this I was ready to believe anything...

Amed

11 hours later, on this amazing day, we finally made it to our hotel in Amed. We had dinner in the garden by the pool where a large orange and white cat meowed at us with his gravely voice and these two ducks quacked at our table. In the morning the ducks were swimming in the infinity pool and I was not!

George

Pencil study of George from this week's life drawing. On my way home, I saw her whiz by on her motorcycle with her surfboard, no helmet and smoking a cigarette...

"Hashing"—Run #931

In May 1977 the “Bali Hash House Harriers” was born and since then people have been running or walking through the muddy rice terraced countryside and jungles near Ubud, Bali. Every Saturday afternoon following a trail designated by small piles of shredded paper, often in remote areas of this beautiful island, 200+ people head out on this crazy short or long trek.

An hour and half later we all return hot, sweaty and muddy to the starting point where there are presentations, singing and lots of beer drinking. Some say they are runners who like to drink and others say they are drinkers who like to run. Being our first “hash” we were called “virgins” and required to chug a beer or the Hash Master would pour it on our head. I managed to avoid both.

After the hash, run #931—mud, singing and lots of beer.

Balancing act

I had to sketch fast to capture this one and then quickly splashed in color after they were long gone down the beach path. I could not believe this cute little dog was comfortably sitting on this 2' x 2' wooden platform attached to back of this guys bike. What a good dog—anjing bagus!

Our home away from home

View from my desk in the spare room we have turned into an office/studio. Tile rooftops nestled amongst the lush tropical jungle of palm trees and hundreds of other deciduous and flowering trees and plants.

We are in the back of a three villa complex. It's a lovely garden walkway to get to ours. The tenant in the second villa has two small dogs that my little cat enjoys visiting. Which means she just stares down at them from the high garden wall. Drives them crazy!

SPF what?

Quick watercolor sketches of some bathing beauties at the beach. Wow, check out "the girls" on these girls! I don't know how people do it, but they are all out there roasting in the glaring sun—hello, it's the equator. I think you can actually get tan in the shade here.

A cat named mouse

This is my little 3lb cat named Tikus, which is the word for mouse in Indonesian. She is probably the only cat in Bali who is spayed, gets shots and meds from Dr Kadek who makes house calls on her motorbike and sleeps in AC all day long.

Most evenings are spent cleaning up after a day of sleeping. She will be with us until we leave in January and then she will go back in her rice cooker box and take that 1/2 ride on the motorbike back to Umales with Uul. I think she's really Uul's cat and he thinks she's mine. Hmmmmmmm.

Life drawing class

I have a style and it is fairly illustrative. It's just who I am. However, in today's life drawing class we had assignments which took me out of my comfort zone and away from my old friends pen and ink.

This one I had to create the form with shading and to try not use too many lines. Damn, look at all those lines.

For this assignment we had to first use chalk to establish the negative areas and then add lines and shading with charcoal. I made the biggest mess! Blue chalk and charcoal everywhere and then look at that pitiful drawing...

I'm back home now with my friends pen and ink.

Our villa entrance

Bali is filled with statues from very small to quite large and imposing. Many are wrapped with a black and white checked "Poleng cloth" which signifies mutual dualism that makes up the world. Two opposite things that depend on each other to exist, such as day and night, dry and rainy seasons, bitter and sweet and black and white. The Balinese believe that the balance of this mutual dualism will bring prosperity and peacefulness to mankind.

I love this stone statue that greets me whenever I enter our villa. I think it might be Buddha, but I am not sure. I always give it a friendly pat with my hand as I walk by.

Woven Voices~Messages from the Heart

My good friend Sarah Haskell is an artist who specializes in weaving. One of her recent projects is Woven Voices~ Messages from the heart. It is an interactive global art project inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, Shinto paper prayers and the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

People send positive messages of hope and renewal, dreams, wishes or prayers written on paper or cloth. These messages will be read aloud in a public place and then woven into brightly colored prayer flags. the flags are then sent back to those who sent messages. The hand woven flags will hang outside in communities around the world to fade, unravel and release the message of hope, peace and renewal.

She gave me three flags to bring to Bali. They are now hanging from a Frangipani tree here in Sanur.

It's pretty cool! Check it out.

http://www.wovenvoices.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wovenvoices

Hot, tired and glowing in Bali

It took me 36 hours to get from Maine to Bali. The bus to Boston and flight to JFK were easy peasy lemon squeezy. Even the 6 hours to Vancouver was okay. It was not full and I stretched out a bit. The guy next to me popped a hand-full of Ambien, put on his eye shades and he was gone. It was the totally full 14 hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong that was the killer, except for "Ambien guy" who woke up ate some noodles popped another hand-full of Ambien and was out until Hong Kong. I watched movies drifted up and down the aisle and managed the above sketch. Did I mentioned that my lower back started hurting before I even left Portland...

I finally got to Hong Kong and fell asleep at the gate. Luckily the 4 hours to Bali was not full and I managed to sleep a bit more. Arriving in Bali where it is 100° and humid has made my jet-lag even harder to overcome. So I have been glowing and lazily drifting around the villa for the past week. Maybe tomorrow I will do a little more...

Fright night flight to Bali

It's that time again to pack my bags and to head back to beautiful Bali. It's not easy to get there from here and by the time I arrive in Bali it will have been over a day of traveling. A tiring event and with the 12 hour time difference, there is serious jet-lag recovery time. Wide awake in the middle of the night and then there is a desperate want to crawl into bed mid-afternoon. It takes about a week of this craziness and then it all seems to even out and be normal...sort of...

See you in Bali

Happy Halloween

The Pink Tulip Project

The Pink Tulip Project was founded in 2006 by breast cancer survivor and friend, Robin Whitten. It is a fundraising project that benefits the Women's Cancer Fund at the Maine Cancer Foundation. Gardens are established to raise funds, create awareness and support those affected by breast cancer. Each garden plants seeds of hope and beautifies the community. So far, 30,000 Pink Tulips have been planted and 80 gardens bloom every spring.

My friend Patti coordinated the planting of this garden, so her husband Jack, cousin Pam and I met in Freeport early Sunday morning to plant 500 bulbs. We developed a "system" where Jack used a stick to create the holes and we followed by dropping in a bulb and covering with the soil. We had the 500 bulbs planted in a little under an hour. You got to love a "system".

You too can have a beautiful Pink Tulip garden in your town. Go to Pink Tulip Project for more information.

A lovely time in Georgetown

When we weren't out on one of our daily 8 mile walks, we were hovered over the jigsaw puzzle we started when we arrived. This day on our walk we meandered around Indian Point along Sagadahoc Bay. Most of the summer people were gone so we were able to walk along the shore and peek in the windows of all the cottages.

Elizabeth and Patti heading back to the jigsaw puzzle.

Georgetown sunrise

My last day in Georgetown was a warm sunny day that started with this amazing sunrise. I was mesmerized as I watched it rise over the ocean. Not having the energy to break out the oil paints I used Neocolor 11 crayons to capture the moment.

A road trip to Georgetown Maine

Sophie and I took the opportunity to get out of the city and enjoy a few days with friends at their beautiful home up the coast from Portland in Georetown Maine.

The front yard of my friend's house are these wonderful rocks and tide pools, crashing surf and open ocean as far as the eye can see. Their house is actually bolted to the rocks.

Lobster boats on my way to Georgetown, Maine.

Saturday in the city

Sophie spends most of her days sleeping and much of that time is on her back with legs spread and paws in the air. This is how I found her Saturday afternoon before we took our walk. This Bulldog is one of the "wild things" we met on our afternoon walk .