Starbucks and Dancing Ubud Style

We had and idea yesterday that we might get a driver to take us to the beach, but we actually decided that we weren't really in the mood.  Rachel felt in one of those odd bad morning moods, so I decided to take her to Starbucks to cheer her up!  I know that they have been bad and not paid their taxes, but I did think that introducing Rachel to a Salted Caramel Mocha would right a fair few wrongs in her world (and I think I was more or less right!)  

Starbucks in Ubud is very tasteful and blends in with the surroundings pretty well and is a fascinating clash of the epitome of Western culture and chain brands, with a very distinctive Balinese flavour to it.  You can buy pretty much everything you would in a UK or USA Starbucks, but you get a real feel for Bali with the wooden carved furniture and the cushioned seating areas.  Kiran enjoyed crawling around the cushions as well as chewing on my purse.

we nipped into a book shop and I took the opportunity to buy Fragrant Rice by Janet De Neefe which is also about Bali and will be good for me to read on the way home. We  took a leisurely wander down Bisma which is still quite un-touristy with views of rice fields, although a lot of the dirt path that Rachel had remembered was now very much road paved by the hotels popping up all along the road.

We went back for a relax at the hotel and then went off to Juice Ja for a late lunch/early dinner.  I had a very tasty Chicken quesadilla, an Americano and 2 cardamon flavoured lassis.   We met a very precocious 4 1/2 year old girl who could speak Balinese, Indonesian, Thai, French and English and told me that I was fat because I ate too much and that she was fat too because she ate too much.  It didn't manage to put me off eating an incredibly tasty lemon and poppyseed cake with frosting served on the side.  

We came back to my room and I set about Baby proofing so that Kiran was contained whilst Rachel was talking to her Dad on Skype.  I also did some embroidery and applique to make Kiran a sleepsuit (It's what Rachel sings to him if he's getting a bit upset and it settles him down.)

Made picked Rachel and Kiran up at 7pm and so I went along to watch some Balinese Traditional Dancing and saw dancers from Sanggar Pondok Pekak performing the Legong dances, this is what my leaflet had to tell me:

The Sanggar (traditional music and dance) studio portion of Pondok Library and learning Center was founded in 1998, originally to provide dance classes for local children who didn't have other opportunities to learn.  Since then it has grown to include free children's gamelan classes, an international women's gamelan troupe and a professional men's troupe.  privately funded Sanggar Pondok Pekak is supported by our "Art of Bali" classes for travelers, private donations and proceeds from our evening performances   Many thanks to all those who help support our efforts.

The performance started with an instrumental piece with lots of men and boys playing the Gamelan which is similar I guess to a Xylophone and also there were lots of drummers.  There were 6 dances in total and I won't depict all of them here, but I'll cover some of the more interesting notes from the programme and give you a flavour with some of my pictures (which aren't great as it was dark and I was only using a phone to take close up pictures).

This is from the opening Sekar Jagat Welcome dance which represents the ritual presentation of an offering in the form of dance and is performed by a group of young girls.

Baris Warrior Dance - The Baris Dance, a dazzling dance glorifying the power and strength of a Balinese warrior, is most commonly performed as a solo exhibition dance, often by a young boy.  This expressive dance is broken into 3 parts each expressing the different moods and range of emotions of the young warrior.  The word Baris means line or file, as in a line of warriors going into battle.

Oleg Composed in the 1950s this duet represents the Courtship of two bumblees they flit from flower to flower in a beautiful garden.

Jauk This traditional mask dance portrays a demon, alone in the jungle, who is free to play, move and be happy.  Watch the ancient costume as the dancer turns around!

This drummer checked his phone in a gap between the performances.

All the dancers taking a bow.

I liked the dancing, it was different and had very strong facial expressions.  The music was also quite haunting and dramatic.  I can't imagine how long it takes to get ready and put all the make up on the dancers!  I remember how long it too Rachel to get into her wedding outfit and this must be similar, but for multiple people!  I hope that next time I come to Bali I get to see the Kecak and fire dance which is supposed to be good too.

Balinese Batik and Japanese Dinner

Saturday morning I had booked to do a Batik class with I Nyoman Warta - booking was quite interesting as I'd had to wander into his house in person on Thursday at Jalan Gautama No 12 and speak to his son as his wife didn't have enough English to understand what I was asking!  I wrote my name in a book for Saturday and the money I wanted to pay which denoted the size of the Batik that I would be doing.  Anyway, weirdly enough it turns out that I had been trying to book with the very similarly named I Nyoman Suradnya who is at number 10 (i.e. next door!) and had emailed on Tuesday, but not received a reply, which is why I had gone along in person to book.  Just a bit confusing to have two Batik artists next door on the same street with nearly the same name!  You would think that they might try and differentiate themselves a little better!  The benefits I think from the class I ended up taking accidentally are that it was one to one tuition and cheaper from what I can tell from looking at the other teacher's website.  

So I arrived at the class and there was an Australian couple picking up their completed Batik (reassuring as it was literally his house that I'd gone into for the class!) and after a little confusion the teacher gave me some paper and told me to sketch.  I was at first a bit taken aback, I had though that a class would be very much him teaching me, maybe showing me examples or giving me some stencils to use.  I haven't really done any sketching since I took a drawing workshop at Buns & Roses last year!  I sat looking a bit lost for a while and so he suggested that I drew what I loved about Bali - I said that I loved everything and then I thought about the one thing that I love more than anything - Cats!  I took out my IPhone and scrolled through my saved pictures before coming up with the one of Pocky below to base my design on.

I started off by sketching the outline of Pocky with her paw draped over the side of the chair, but slowly changed the chair into a branch and made the underneath into a pond using some of the pictures of the fish I'd seen at the Holy Water temple to inspire me (as well as copying some of the pictures that the teacher had on display).  I also put some Frangipani Flowers in the top corners for decoration as one of the things that I love about Bali is their fragrance and the fact that *Everything* is decorated with flowers and often they are Franipani.  Here is my initial sketch.

After my sketch on paper I was then given a frame with cotton stretched over it and I had to transfer the design in pencil onto the fabric.  Nyoman told me not to worry if the pencil showed as the Batik process would hide it.  He then gave me a sarong to wear (I think to protect my trousers) and showed me how to apply the wax to the lines on the design that I wanted to keep white with a special instrument called a Chanting or Tjanting.  I practiced first on some paper and found it fairly easy to get the hang of, you just need to angle it right so you don't get too much wax rushing out at once and move it with confidence along the lines that you want.  Similar in technique I think to icing letters onto a cake.  Here is the next stage of my Batik with the sketch outlined in wax and a picture of the pot that is used to melt the wax.

Nyoman then provided me with 4 different pots of coloured dye - red, yellow, brown and blue and showed me how to apply the dye which you can do fairly freehand and don't have to worry about staying in the lines!  I used the brown for Pocky and then swirled a lot of the colour around with a reassurance that the next layers would add more detail.  Here is another process picture.

The next stage was pretty simple - applying some green coloured liquid over the whole screen - it looks like he's doing it for me, but he just showed me what to do and I filled in the rest!

The next stage was very simple - he asked his son to rinse the screen for him and then he dried it off with a cloth and left it in the sun for a few minutes to dry.

We then sat down next to the melted wax again and he showed me how to use a normal paint brush to block out bits of the picture that I wanted to stay that colour e.g. some of the fish scales, parts of the Frangipani flower and the whole of Pocky apart from her eyes that would be black and would be the last colour to go on.

The next part was really good fun - sweeping loads of paraffin over the main parts of the picture for "cracking" - basically I coated the whole of the "water section" and the "sky section" with a layer of paraffin.

The next bit is also fun - you run your finger nail underneath the paraffin covered areas to create "cracks".  

When you are happy with the cracks a layer of darker blue dye was put over the entire screen with a bit think paintbrush.

The paraffin cracking process is then repeated and this time red dye is put over the whole picture, first some more areas are blocked out with wax to keep the same colour such at the flowers.

The process is repeated again and this time black dye is put over the entire picture with special attention to applying it to areas that I wanted black such as Pocky's eyes and the fish eyes.  I also did some cracking along the tree branch to make it look a bit like wood.  To make sure that the dye made it all the way through, it's applied to the back of the screen too.

And then finally it was the big reveal, to remove the wax I had thought it would be a case of complicated ironing off of all the wax, but it was actually much  more straight forward - you just dunk it in a big bucket of hot water and it melts off into the water!

They washed it a couple more times to remove all the wax fully and then it was hung over a tree to dry and I chatted a little more with Nyoman who has limited English beyond teaching Batik, but was able to tell me about how he'd been due to exhibit and teach in Holland, but then his sister died and he had to cancel his plans to save for her cremation ceremony and then he had been due to exhibit and teach in Germany and then his father died.  He really was a lovely teacher and so genuine - all along he said that if I wanted a break and to come back later he wouldn't charge any extra as he charged per piece and not per day and how he felt it was important to only teach small groups at a time so that people didn't make big mistakes and were disappointed with what they created.

  

After my Batik had dried I paid Nyoman and walked back to my hotel room for a well earned cool down and break (Nyoman had even sent his son during the lesson to buy tissues as he could see I was so hot!)  

Rachel came over with Kiran who had achieved a record 2 hour nap!  It was getting into early evening so we decided upon an early dinner and walked over to her favourite Japanese restaurant - Kagemusha which has a lovely view over the rice fields and she'd often seen cats in!  I tried some local rice wine - Brem which was only 10000 rupiah (60p) per glass and was surprisingly tasty and we both opted for Bento Boxes for our main courses which came with loads - Miso soup, noodles, rice, vegetable and prawn tempura, chicken and some vegetables and pickles.  Kiran enjoyed the food, but enjoyed pulling himself up over the rails next to the ricefield and shouting with glee!

Right at the end of the meal we saw something that I've wanted to see since I first arrived in Bali this time - a Tokay gecko!  They are basically bigger versions of the small lizards that you commonly see running around all over the place, but make the most noisy and strange calls at night that sound like they should be made by a bird - you can hear them yourself Here.  And here is a picture that I took before this particular Tokay snaffled a moth it had been chasing. 

We walked back up Monkey Forest Road stopping to pick up some Snickers flavoured ice cream for dessert (diet starts when I get back to England, or maybe Leeds at least!).  We decided to grab a glass of wine and so went back to Arts Kafe which was fine until the band started playing complete with Bongo drums waking Kiran up who had very easily fallen off to sleep in his sling.  Wine in Bali is not cheap - it was 75000 rupiah in Arts Kafe which is particularly pricey and usually about 35000 rupiah, however in most places it's about 185000 a bottle which is what we paid for a bottle of Hatten White Wine in Arts Kafe - about £11.  A local beer in comparison is only about 15000 rupiah or £1.  Rachel walked back with a sleepy Kiran, I finished the wine and grabbed a grape juice and some water from the shop on the way back before heading to bed at an unheard of time for me at 10pm as I was totally exhausted!

Banyan Bike Tour and more Yoga!

Up early yesterday to be picked up at 7.30 am for my Banyan Tree Bike Tour.  There are lots of bike tours available in Bali and so it's a bit hard to pick which would be the best one, so I did a bit of reading around and ended up choosing this one as it was rated highly on Trip Adviser and also because there looked to be a lot of cycling through more remote parts - e.g. rice fields etc.  The tour cost 450000 rupiah (£27) and included both breakfast and lunch as well as bike hire, water during the ride, snacks during the ride, guides and transfers.  I was impressed that within less than half a day of enquiring about the trip, the owner had emailed me back with the details and confirming my booking.

I was picked up from my hotel by a guy called Nomad, we then picked up 2 Austrian ladies (who say in Bali they are from Europe so as to not be confused with the many Australian tourists!) called Regina and Petina.  They were friendly and we chatted until stopping at the bridge where in Eat Pray Love Julia Roberts is knocked off her bike by her male love interest!  I didn't take the opportunity to take a photo as I didn't really think it necessary - it was a nice enough bridge though.  We joined up with 4 chatty and very nice Americans from Colorado - 2 couples Marsha and Ali and Kim and Bill.  We drove a little further and stopped at a restaurant for our breakfast which had a fantastic view over the rice fields.  

I had coffee, a fresh pineapple juice and a vegetable omelette for breakfast to set me up for a day of cycling.  It was all very tasty.  I sat with the Americans who were very friendly, Marsha and     Ali had previously lived in Jakarta for 20 years as Ali who is originally from Iran worked for the World bank previously.  Kim and Bill who is a dentist had previously lived in Saudi Arabia for many years too and so they were very comfortable with travel and temperature!  Ali was hilarious, very dead pan comical and with an accent not dissimilar to Joe Mantegna.  We got back in the mini bus and were dropped off to pick up our bikes.  Here I am looking very cool in a helmet with my bike (note the long sleeved shirt...)

I deliberately didn't opt for the "extreme biking tour" as whilst I'm ok on a bike, I didn't fancy my chances in Balinese heat and I was pleased with the pace of the tour - some of the group were in their 60s and so occasionally we had to wait for them, but it was in general a comfortable pace.  

We headed off onto a path through some rice fields which looked lovely, but it became fairly challenging as there were small drops off either side of a very narrow (a little wider than the bike tyres) path.  I had to really concentrate so that I didn't fall off my bike.  Unfortunately I think that I was possibly the only one person in the group who didn't fall off - no-one injured themselves bar a couple of scrapes and bruises, but everyone enjoyed it and was in good spirits.  The most spectacular fall happened right in front of me.  Regina was peddling past a completely naked Balinese guy in one of the rice fields who was using the irrigation system for the rice to have a bath (initially standing up until he saw us and sat in the water).  I don't know whether it was the distraction of the naked man, the very narrow path or both, but she wobbled over and fell into the stream in front of the naked guy getting covered in mud in the process!  I don't know who was more shocked - her or the man!

We cycled into a traditional Balinese compound house with a lady sat feeding her 8 month old grandchild by chewing up rice and feeding it to him.  You can also see our guide and also Regina with a muddy t-shirt in this photo.

We continued along and cycled up a really big hill (well I say cycled, I got so far and then just rolled to a stop, so I got up and pushed my bike the rest of the way.  We were rewarded at the top with a lovely slice of watermelon - Ali liked it so much that he bought one and put it in the mini bus to carry that had been following us around.  By this point he'd fallen off the bike a total of 5 times!

We cycled through a load more rice fields (fortunately this time with slightly wider and more solid paths) and then over a dam before stopping for a banana snack and then carrying our bikes up a steep slope before getting back in the mini bus to take us to the Bike Tour owner's house for a traditional Balinese lunch.

Just before we got in the minibus again to head off for lunch - Gdang our guide, found a nice spider to show us.  "Is it poisonous " I asked before taking a photo "I don't know" he said and then put it on his face and took it with us on the ride to lunch.

(I've just googled "big spider Bali" to see if it is poisonous or not and the 6th image that comes up is also from Banyan Bike Tours!)   Apparently it is "somewhat" poisonous!

We then had a lovely lunch at Bagi's house (owner of Banyan Tree Bike Tours) which was some of the best satay and curried fish that I've ever tasted along with noodles, rice and vegetables.  The best bit was the dessert - some lovely rice pancakes wrapped in banana leaf and a stripey rice cake.

We said goodbye to the Americans (who I'm pleased to say have already registered their postal votes for Obama in advance of the election as they are still going to be in Bali on the 6th) and then we went back via a coffee plantation.

At the coffee plantation we saw lots of interesting plants - Cinnamon, cocoa, pineapples, vanilla as well as both Arabica and Balinese coffee.  We also saw a couple of Mongoose (Mongeese??) who are used to make a very expensive version of coffee - Kopi Luwak or Civet Coffee.  They basically eat the coffee beans, they pass through their digestive system and the beans are roasted and prepared to make a very expensive coffee.

The Austrian ladies had mentioned that they were interested in going to a Yoga class so I suggested that they try out The Yoga Barn as at 6 pm they were doing their Community Yoga class which is free.  I got back to the room despaired at my sun burn - (even Factor 50 can't survive loads of sweat!) and had a nap before wandering down to the Yoga Barn again.

This class was probably a lot more similar to the Yoga that I do back at home.  At home I take a class at my gym in Ashtanga yoga and this was the theme of the class that was taught by a lovely guy called Mark.  At the start of the class he had a brief discussion around yoga and then he gave us some insect repellent.  The class was very warm and lots of poses and vinyasa flow.  At the end he made us do the "Happy Baby" pose - lying on your back with your legs in the air holding your feet - some people laughed and he very positively said that it was a good thing and that "You should never regret something that made you laugh" - A pretty good philosophy I think.  I really enjoyed the class, even though I was very hot and sweaty by the end of it  I think that the Austrians enjoyed it too - highly recommend the Yoga Barn!

I headed back to my room for a well earned shower and change and then went over to Bar Luna to see what was going on and to grab some dinner.   I had a very tasty Kerouac Chicken Sandwich - grilled chicken, very tasty bread with avocado, beetroot and lettuce with mayo spread on the bread and some pesto sauce to go with it.  I also took advantage of BOGOF Mojitos which were also very tasty.

Yoga and Tension Release Massage

I think that I'm still a bit jetlagged as I was up until past 2 am this morning again, so when the alarm went for breakfast it was all a bit startling!  

I had decided yesterday that I was going to go to Yoga today as the only exercise I've done all holiday other than this is to walk around in the hot weather slowly and throw Maya (12kg) around in a swimming pool.  So after breakfast I got into my yoga gear and walked down to Yoga Barn with plenty of time to spare.  I wasn't 100% sure whether I needed to book or not, so I just showed up and it was all totally fine. The Yoga Studio is based down a few steps past the cafe and is in really lovely surroundings - there were even a couple of very relaxed looking cats.  All the facilities were lovely - showers, toilets were clean and fresh and the staff were all extremely helpful and polite.

The class itself was lovely.  You walk upstairs to the studio which has a covered roof, but open sides to lovely views of the jungle.  Some of the reviews on tripadvisor mentioned that there was some building work going on which was distracting and this is true, but genuinely I didn't notice any noise (including the school nearby) about 5 minutes into the class.  I went to the Intro to Yoga class which was taught by Eva.  I've got about 6 years yoga experience from going in the UK, but I've not been for a while and so I thought it best to go for an intro class initially.  It was an hour and a half long and whilst wasn't massively challenging in terms of postures based on what I've done previously, it really was a good introduction to Yoga for people who are new to it and there was plenty of space so you didn't feel squashed up next to strangers.  The equipment is great too - loads of very good quality yoga mats, cushions, blankets, straps and blocks.  Eva was an engaging and warm instructor, she kept the pace of the class at a good level for everyone and included a great warm up and a lovely ending section with relaxation.  I will be back tomorrow hopefully for the community yoga free session and hope to squeeze in another before I leave on Tuesday.

I headed back to my hotel briefly for a change and shower and then went to go and complete my relaxation day with a lovely massage at Sang Spa.  I opted for this spa as they were rated well on Trip Adviser and also didn't have loads of people trying to entice me in with leaflets.  I opted for the 45 minute tension release massage: 

Let our therapist melt all tension away with a 45 minute deep pressure massage on your back, neck shoulder, and your hands. A totally pampering and revamping back indulgence.

Again I hope to be back as it was 45 minutes of antidote to sitting at a PC all day every day for 12 hours plus.  I didn't fall asleep, but at one point I think I was in an almost hypnotic trance.  It was very good.  And all for 100000 rupiah - or £6!

I wandered down to get some lunch from Juice Ja which included a very cleansing juice and a lovely Americano coffee and then Nasi Campur for lunch.  I wrote 6 postcards - which seems silly after the amount of blogging that I've done, but it's still nice to receive a postcard through the mail when all you normally get are offers on broadband or credit cards or if you are lucky a cash for gold envelope!  Now all that I need to do is work out how to post them!  I saw this in the toilets at Juice Ja and it reminded me that I liked it and Dr Seuss was a wise man.

I emailed the batik people yesterday, but hadn't heard back so walked down to the place which was near Juice Ja and eventually stumbled into a shop who told me to go through past some houses and I spoke to a 10 year old boy who translated for him mum and got me to book in by writing my name in a book, it does look good though so I'm booked onto do Batik class on Saturday and will watch the fire dance either on the same day or on Sunday evening.

I walked back and popped into a couple of shops as I really am not well equipped with suitable clothes for Ubud and bought a lightweight dress for c£22 and a green t-shirt with a cat print on it.  The woman tried to con me when I was buying the t shirt by only giving me 5000 rupiah change when it was 50000 due!  I managed to get the right change back though!

Rachel came over at about 6.30pm when I was skyping Coddy who then showed Rachel (and Kiran) Pocky and Marla.  (We took Pocky to live with us when Rach went "travelling" in 2008 - I guess she's ours now! Mwahahah)  We walked down to Bali Buddha which was a big effort for Rach as it was about 20 mins walk and she'd forgotten that she'd left the baby carrier for Kiran at home!       We managed to get there ok and had some tasty juice (mine was Orange, Pineapple, Carrot and Basil) and I ordered Bakso and a curry as I didn't realise quite how big the portions would be and quite how much my appetite has reduced.  Kiran slept all the way through dinner so we had plenty of time to chat and catch up.

So I'm now catch up with my blog in Arts Kafe again, but will need to be early to bed as "Bagi" is picking me up at 7am for my Bali Bike tour - a bit scared of just how hot I'm going to get, will be coating myself in sun cream to avoid massive burns!