Going Bamboo

So yesterday we checked out and headed Northwest towards Ubud—a village about an hour and a half outside Kuta in the rainforest popular with tourists and Expats. From Ubud you can see the central mountains. All around Ubud are rice patties—a big industry here since it’s the main staple of the Indo diet. They’re really beautiful at sunset and sunrise. It’s Indo pastoral. Ubud is the center of tourism in Bali, and most restaurants and shops in Ubud are owned by Expats or Westerners.

When we first came into Ubud I was really surprised at how Western it felt. You wouldn’t believe the amount of shops and restaurants here. This place gives “going bamboo” a whole new meaning! I mean, if I had to live on Bali, this is where I’d want to live. There are yoga studios, and western style shops and restaurants, and spas—all offering items and services at rock bottom prices. I got 1 ½ hours of spa treatments yesterday for $8—no joking. And they were good. With a tip (which isn’t expected here), I shelled out $10. Heck, with these prices, why not get a treatment every day? And we ate at a terrific organic restaurant for lunch, and ordered an obscene amount of food, and it still only cost us $50 for 4 adults and a child. I mean, at .75 cents to $1.00 per drink and dishes at $2.00-6.00 each, it was a steal. I’m convinced that if you want to live like a king in retirement, this is the place for you. You could do well here on a $1500 a month Social Security Check. Though there would be a few drawback, like distance from America, cultural differences, and the occasional brown out in the hot months (the electricity did go out twice yesterday, but only for about 2 minutes each time), you do have Wi-Fi almost everywhere, meaning you can stay in touch faster than you can order another coconut drink. And this is something that has really changed in the last 10 years of my traveling. When I was 23 my friend, Laura, and I went on a cruise in the Mediterranean. There was no internet access on the boat at that time, so when we got to port we would head to an internet café—and there were usually only 1 or 2 in a town, and not all that easy to find. Wi-Fi has revolutionized all of that. I mean, most places—cafes and hotels—here have satellite connections, making downloading and uploading times a cinch. It’s made doing this blog possible. On the other hand, in places like India—at least outside of the big cities-- Wi-Fi is still relatively unused. So I’m not sure I’ll be able to add any blog entries while I’m in Southern India. And brown outs are a usual occurance there, so even getting an electrical connection for the computer may be difficult. But for now, I’m relishing in our technical innovations.



Today we visited the Monkey Forest on the edge of Ubud village. The Monkey Forest has free ranging monkeys who are friendly to tourists—especially if you come armed with a bounty of fruit. You can feed them, and there are usually plenty of them to feed. Declan is particularly excited about this, because he loves Curious George so much. In Balinese culture monkeys are said to be the bearer of spirits. They play a large role in the tale of Ramayana, and in Hinduism there is a monkey god. Being that Bali is a Hindu island, here you will find the ubiquitous temple to the monkey god, or at least cement statues of bizarre spirited monkeys surrounding temples or on display around hotels. In fact, the little 8 room hotel we are staying at in Ubud has a traditional threshold entrance “protected by” cement Statuaries of Hindu gods, one of them a monkey. And usually at these places you’ll also find the ever-present flower and incense offering to the gods. Almost everywhere you step is a “gift”, or offering, to some god, in hopes of attaining favor, success, protection, and the like. People put them on the hood of their cars for protection from accidents. People put them on the sidewalks in front of their businesses to bring them success and money. Really, they are everywhere. When we were in Kuta in the mall near our hotel, the shoe shop where we bought Declan’s sandals had an offering at the entrance to their store. Declan’s ran over to it to step on it, not knowing what it was. I stopped him before creating a near incident.


The monkeys went crazy over peanuts for some reason. They jumped all over Scott because he had them in his hand and they could smell them. In the Sacred Monkey Forest there is a path that leads away from the forest and to other villages. We walked out to where Scott had asked Jenni to marry him—this tree house built of bamboo called Coco Bamboo. We climbed to the top for unparalleled views of the river below and surrounding rice patties.

The rice patties are little ecosystems all to themselves. The people here plant rice in half of the fields, and they allow the other fields to lay fallow until the previous ones are harvested. In the fallow fields they grow mud fish, and allow ducks to “fertilize” the mud for the next growing cycle. Then they repeat the process over and over between their fields. The rice is harvested much like wheat—the tips of the rice plant hold the rice pieces. The rice patties make for an interesting and mesmerizing landscape because of how objects reflect off the water flooding the fields.

We then headed for a 3 PM lunch at the organic café we ate at yesterday. They have the best spring rolls with peanut sauce I’ve ever eaten. We gorged ourselves on them. Then we walked around the village and headed back to the hotel. We did a little late afternoon swimming at 6 PM to work up an appetite…again. Dave got thoroughly burned because he didn’t wear sun block, and we are near the Equator and it’s darn hot down here. You could fry an egg on the sidewalk. But the pool is the best place to watch the sun set over the rice fields.


Tonight we venture to a new café. Let you know how the evening turns out later…

Well, I’ll try and write more tomorrow. We leave Bali tomorrow afternoon and head to Thailand for a stopover in the airport, and then on to Bangalore. It’s a 2 ½ hour difference in time zones—2 ½ hours behind Bali. We’ll be in Bangalore only one day, and then on to Kovulpati, south of Madurai in Southern Tamil Nadu province of India. While in Bangalore I’m going to try and write, though it may be short. While in Kovulpati I may be lucky to even get an internet connection. So my next entry may not be until Hong Kong. We’ll see. So, till the next entry…