By 9.00am this morning the sports field on Monkey Forest Road was filled with uniformed children from all the schools around Ubud, a small army of civil servants, police and military types, ready to mark Indonesian Independence Day. Although the mood was pretty militaristic with lots of regimentation and saluting we saw plenty of Balinese touches lightening the mood.
There was the gorgeously decorative marching band for a start. The band master was dressed Balinese dancer style, but chose to complete her outfit with white high heeled boots. The band members were dressed in a colourful array of styles including one boy dressed in gilded Balinese royalty type clothes, and with noobvious instrument to play. The sports field itself was decorated with the huge bamboo decorative installations that mark every Balinese ceremony. Traffic in the village was at a standstill, but everywhere there were happy relaxed families, healthy looking and very cute village school children - all out to enjoy their national holiday.
John picked us up around 11.30am after the official ceremonies were over and the streets had started to clear. He'd invited us to lunch with him in Gianyar, a short drive from Ubud village. There'd been a big day market in Gianyar and he'd bought his favourite pork dishes and salads from the market to share with us at his home in Gianyar.
We'd remembered some of this amazing home style, no part of the pig wasted, food from our very first visit to the Gianyar night market back in 2002. It was so much more enjoyable this time sitting out amongst John's tropical garden greenery under his thatched garden bale eating this delicious food from a plate, with a fork even!
We spent all afternoon chatting with John, drinking wine from the hilly, northern region of Bali and strong and thick Bali Kope. John has lots of stories to tell and it is remarkably easy to pass the time in his company.
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