Lombok experience

Gregg and Leigh invited us (only Rob couldn't make it) to a musical gathering this afternoon at the "guest villa" belonging to friends of theirs in Lombok. The guest villa is newly completed even though it started life as a very old traditional Java style house imported from Jogjakarta. Their friends have had it rebuilt on their family compound set on the lush green hills behind Senggigi Beach.

It turned out to be quite a gathering of the local ex-pat community and their Indonesian partners and family members. We'd met Dick and Janet a few nights before this. Janet will start teaching English at Gregg's school next week. They are from Clovelly Beach in Sydney so will find life here is very different.

The villa was a perfect setting for a gathering of friends like this. The verandah faces spectacular ocean views and captures all the sea breezes.

Our hosts were Mark (an ex-principal from Tasmania and a founder of Gregg's school) and his beautiful Indonesian wife Sopan (recently returned from a year's study in Tasmania completing her doctorate).

But the main reason for the gathering was to listen to a performance of original music presented by Ari and his trio of extraordinarily gifted musicians.

We were spellbound as Ari's group presented a short but stunning program of amazing sound and music combining their rich collective heritage of traditional Javanese and Sasak music styles, infused with Western style jazz rhythms. They also incorporated their own free form existential poetry (in English) exploring the meaning of life and the planet into their compositions. It was actually much more amazing, beautiful and moving than this attempt at describing it!

Ari and the guy on the right played a number of instruments too. Ari could play anything - we especially loved his improvised and melodic percussion sequences played on an assortment of saucepans and their lids.

Our hosts were very generous, with plenty of Bintangs on tap and a most delicious and aesthetically presented table of refreshments after the performance.

Mark showed me over their main family house a little down the hill from the guest villa. It is a newish house in a magnificent position on the side of a hill, built to a traditional Javanese style incorporating all recycled timber from old traditional style houses in Jogjakarta. It also features beautiful antique components like doors and panels and inlays wherever possible. It has obviously been a labour of love over the past decade for Mark and Sopan. Mark even had to bring in teams of craftsmen from Java who were familiar with the construction methods and finishing processes to complete the core parts of the house.

I'd had an unforgettable experience this afternoon but it was made so much better to return to the Puri Saron and find Rob looking like he might be returning to normal. Gregg had dropped him off some Indonesian antibiotics this morning especially for killing germs causing Bali belly (only cost $3.50AUS and you can buy them over the counter) and it looks like they are doing their job well!

He even felt up to coming with me to the Taman Restaurant in Senggigi village tonight for a meal of boiled rice and a hard boiled egg while I enjoyed everything else on the menu.

Lombok

We went from the ridiculous to the sublime in our first 24 hours in Lombok. Our own garden villa facing on to the swimming pool at the Puri Saron hotel seemed just wonderful (including our own private outdoor shower).

However we quickly realised the hotel was booked out by hundreds of Indonesian elementary school teachers for a quality teaching improvement conference. And for some inexplicable reason the professional development was being conducted under a large marquee by the beautiful Puri Saron pool! At 8.30am the PD program around the pool started - using microphones at very high volume. The PD involved singing lots of elementary school songs and very animated and humorous(?) presentations using ear splitting sound effects.

We had no where to go, the noise was deafening. I did think of getting me and my cellulite into the pool for a few laps to try to make them all speechless (all those Muslim men and the women in their decorous batiks and headscarves!) but chickened out when the crunch came.

Fortunately for us this was the 6th day of their program and the FINAL session. It finished around 10.30am and as the teachers gradually dispersed over the remainder of the morning the Puri Saron reverted to its usual paradise like state.

Rob is still suffering the after effects of his Bali belly so I had to enjoy much of what Senggigi Beach offers on my own on our first full day in Lombok.

A beach walk, a swim and laze around the recently vacated pool and then a beautiful seafood lunch at the Taman Restaurant in Senggigi village started the day. There, by sheer chance, I happened to meet up with Gede, the lovely young Balinese man we met (when he was John's gardener at his Mas house) about 8 years ago on our first visit to Bali. Over the years he has taken on more responsible work in John's business in Lombok, completed a teaching degree in Hindu religion (a Canberra teacher sponsored his studies) and got married (2 years ago). He does stock control at the Taman Restaurant now and teaches one day a week at a Mataran High School.

Life is never easy in Indonesia but Gede still looks like the smiling happy young man we met 8 years ago. We gave him a digital camera when he started uni and the first thing he said to me yesterday was that the camera was 99.5% of what made his life!!!! I enjoyed talking over old times and recent history with Gede. We agreed to meet up with him and his wife this evening so Rob can catch up too.

In the afternoon (Mr) Gregg took me for a conducted tour of his Sekolah (school) Nusa Alam almost on the beach, among the rice paddies at the southern end of Senggigi. I was astounded at how much development he had led in the 11 months since our last visit (physical as well as educational).

His new senior school building is wonderful. The classrooms are bright airy and well designed and all incorporate data projectors and wireless hot spots for the kids' laptops. This is unheard of the island states of Indonesia!

We were amazed to hear he had been able to get this building constructed and fitted out for the same amount of money as our recent bathroom laundry reno. had cost!

He proudly showed me the celebratory mural that the kids had painted for the recent 10th anniversary of the school. This was an idea that was inspired by what we used to do (each year) at Wanniassa School in Canberra.

I ended the day sharing a precious bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with Gregg and Leigh at their house while poor Rob endured watching some fairly lame old movies on the HBO channel in our room.

Goodbye Ubud

By yesterday afternoon Rob and I were both feeling fantastic after our week in Bali especially after our second lunch in a week at the wonderful Indus restaurant. We even had a Janet De Neefe sighting. She was doing lunch with some very important people - no doubt more planning for the seventh Ubud Writer's Festival coming up in October. The Indus was crowded, the food was fantastic, the staff were all really on their toes with Janet around. We really enjoyed the buzz!

With all the ceremonies going on there has been a really festive air about all the streets of the village. In their very glamorous ceremonial dress, careful makeup and up swept hair the women look fabulous especially sitting decorously sideways as pillion passengers scooting off to the temples. Their partners all look really handsome too in man sarongs and batik headscarves.

Unfortunately Rob has not been well enough to leave our hotel room today to enjoy our last full day in Ubud together. I put it down to the snacks we ate last night from a market stall. I ate exactly the same thing and had no ill effects...but that is Rob and his dicky stomach for you. It's the reason why 35 years ago when we travelled around Europe for 8 months as young backpackers Rob lost about 7 kilos and I gained 7 kilos. He got sick in Leningrad eating some dicey Borscht and never really recovered until we got back to England, no matter how much schnapps he drank or how much Immodium he took.

He spent a quiet day sleeping and recovering while I visited many shops that Rob finds boring, swam in the pool, had another massage and enjoyed a beautiful lunch at Wayan's Cafe, just opposite our hotel. (on my own!) It was rather beautiful sitting facing Wayan's gorgeous garden as I enjoyed my solitary lunch (while thinking of Rob).

Rob was feeling much better tonight and was able to join me on the balcony for our last evening in Ubud. A glass of Bintang (no snacks for Rob) and the sound of the frogs and geckoes in the rice paddies, and the gamelan orchestras in the distance as the light fades over this special part of the world.

Eat Pray Love

I'd avoided reading Eat Pray Love when it first became a best seller (amongst women of a certain age). Not another book about a woman finding herself (in Bali no less!!!) I thought. However since arriving in Ubud I've bought myself a copy from Periplus and am even starting to look forward to the film, opening next month they say.

Last August when we were here I took this shot of the extraordinary road collapse opposite the renowned Ubud markets - in the centre of the village, at its busiest point. Apparently it stayed like this for months; no one seemed to know what to do, what caused it, how to fix it. It created mayhem in the village and was very bad for tourism.

Come November last year the Hollywood film makers arrived, ready to shoot scenes of Eat Pray Love in a number of Ubud locations, including the markets (yes, with JULIA ROBERTS!). Apparently they organised the repair of the roadway, fixing it in a flash.

So today it looks like this........ Hooray for Hollywood, though we all hope it was not a temporary fix!

Scenes were filmed (with JULIA ROBERTS) in the markets. Apparently a lot of the stallholders were paid as extras. I heard they were paid 100,000 rupiah (about $12AUS) for their work as extras, which most stallholders would struggle to make in a normal day.

I predict Eat Pray Love will be big for Bali and may well convince many woman of a certain age to come here in search of toothless mystics so they can be just like JULIA ROBERTS.

An early morning visit to the Ubud markets, when the fresh food and cooking stalls are in full operation is a bit confronting as well as fascinating. It was wonderful to restore equilibrium afterwards with an iced Hibiscus tea at the beautiful Lotus Cafe.

And lunch afterwards at an old favourite: Ayu's Kitchen on Monkey Forest Road. Our jack fruit curry, larwa and rice and nasi goreng were just as delicious and just as cheap as in previous visits.

Rob and I both did a cooking class at the Bumi Bali Restaurant yesterday afternoon. Rob is preparing a nasi goreng here under the watchful eye of chef Nyomen. Easy, he says! I want to see him cook it at home now! We also cooked babi kecap, tum, bergedal and my favourite bubur injin (black rice pudding) - all fairly basic Balinese/Indonesian dishes (hmm).

Our Bali is full of loving and eating. I will read the book and find out more about the praying!

Walking Ubud

Ubud is a walker's village. We started early yesterday morning hoping to beat the humidity that builds as the day progresses. That is the time of the day when the locals are at their most industrious too. We saw this cement carver hard at work in one of the lane ways near Jalan Raya Ubud.

We were on our way to our favourite walk amongst the rice paddies on the ridge overlooking the Campuhan River to the West and Ubud village to the East.

Although there is a clearly defined path at the start, pretty soon it gives way to rough tracks formed by the rice workers making their way on the grassy ridges bordering the flooded rice paddies. After a night of heavy rain the tracks were very wet and muddy this morning. But the views were spectacular, as usual.

We walked for almost three hours - at least 3-4kilometres through the rice paddies, until we reached the next little village North of Ubud and then even longer back into Ubud following a roadway that took us back into the village from the North, where we've never explored before.

The little village, Mayan Ubud I think it was called, was a hive of activity. John had told us that it is a very auspicious time in Bali for conducting ceremonies at the moment. All the men and women of the village were dressed in ceremonial clothes. The women were happily (and noisily) working together in the village bangar (community hall) and the men were building a structure out of bamboo scaffolding and woven matting on a grassy clearing in the centre of the village. It was all very purposeful. The women enjoyed having their photo taken but I really wished I could talk to them about what they were doing.

This was our best Ubud walking adventure yet but we felt we deserved our long lunch (seafood platter at Bimbu Bali) afterwards.

Ubud indulgence

Driving up to Ubud on Saturday afternoon John suggested we stop at this Babi Guling (bar-b-que pork) "restaurant" in Batubalan (the stone carver's village) for a late lunch.

Although this was not the famous Babi Guling of Ubud (recently made even more famous by Rick Stein and Anthony Bourdan visits), for a grand total of 63,000 rupiah (a bit under $8AUS) the three of us enjoyed a sensational meal of the most tender spit roasted pork, crunchy crackling, a sate lillit, sausage and rice and lawar (bean salad). We also had iced teas and peanut snacks included in the bill!

It felt so good to be back in Ubud. We are even booked into the same room at the Sri Bungalows as last time. This time there is very little duck herding and rice harvesting to watch from our balcony. Instead there is the construction of a new villa to entertain us. As usual the women seem to do all the labouring work, hauling bricks, barrowing cement etc while the men do the more "skilled" work. No one uses any electrical tools or heavy equipment so there is very little noise to spoil the serenity!

The Sri Bungalows garden continues to delight me. The hellaconias are bursting forth everywhere, hanging in pendulous garlands of intense red and orange. The gardener always takes care to colour coordinate the statuary.

And the little shops along Monkey Forest Road show the same attention to detail. Ubud is very buzzy and the main roads and shops are crowded with tourists at the moment. We think there are many more upmarket shops than there used to be. I have already had a little splurge at Animale on Jalan Raya Ubud.

The monkeys still rule the southern corner of Monkey Forest Road and there are lots more buses full of tourists to see them. You don't have to go into the forest to see monkeys though as many of them prefer to terrorise the shop owners and tourists out on the road itself.

On our first full day in Ubud we couldn't resist a visit to The Indus, our favourite restaurant, about a kilometre outside the village centre. We found that the food continues to be wonderful and their black rice pudding and handmade fresh coconut ice cream would have to be the best I have eaten in Bali (or anywhere else).

To end of our first full day back in Ubud we signed up at "Bodyworks" on Jalan Hanoman for the one hour hot oil therapeutic massage combining Swedish massage techniques and acupressure. Although parts of the treatment can cause momentary agony, the overall effect is just wonderful. We always enjoy being pampered with a serve of fresh ginger tea and tropical fruit in the beautiful garden of the Bodyworks compound after the hard work of the massage. There is always some amazing new pet every year we go there. This time a captive bat was in residence. My first chance to really look at a bat up close and personal

We wandered back to the hotel as dusk settled over Ubud and a heavy shower of rain started, heralding an evening of steady rain, and later, thunderstorms. A perfect day back in Ubud.

Nusa Dua, Bali?

We've never stayed in Nusa Dua before, the gated resort area on the Eastern Coast of the Bukit Peninsula south of Tanjung Benoa. Conceived in the eighties at the height of the Suharto era it was designed to give tourists a pre-packaged, sanitised, safe, (artificial) experience of Bali away from the chaos of Kuta, the glitz of Jimbaran Bay and the unpredictability of Sanur and Ubud.

For three days around the wedding, Nusa Dua proved to be a very convenient place for us to stay. Our garden villa at the Inna Putri Hotel was very roomy, decorated in traditional Bali style, and extremely well located directly opposite the clean white sandy beach (patrolled by lifeguards and free of the usual annoying hawkers).

We loved the outdoor Bali style shower and were very happy to have our own resident frog for the duration of our stay.

However, the hotel was just too big for our taste (typical of the bigger than Ben Hur eighties era in Suharto's Indonesia), and full of Chinese and Eastern European tourists. The Chinese tour groups seem to us to be the new Americans with their loud shorts, loud voices and cultural crassness (sorry to be so stereotyping-but that is what the Balinese think too!).

The beach is so nice, the drinks are so plentiful, the pool is so good and the Balinese cultural displays are all provided in such neat packages at the hotel; there really is no need to go anywhere else in Bali!

Luckily we had wedding business to attend to and a responsibility to take David and Vanessa with us to Bumbu Bali on Jalan Peratama in Tanjung Benoa when they had a few spare hours. Rick Stein recommended this restaurant as the best in Bali for traditional style food (especially the seafood) and we have decided since our visit that we would absolutely agree with him.

I feel sorry for all those tourists who miss out on experiencing the magic, the beauty, the mess and the mayhem of Bali by staying within the gates of Nusa Dua.