We learned something new here about the Swastika symbol. It remains widely used in Indian religions, specifically in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, primarily as a sacred symbol of good luck. In Hindu it represents represents the Sun's rays, upon which life depends. You can see it in the center of the following carved window, but it was widely prevalent in various art forms throughout Bali.
The other thing you notice immediately is the abundance of little Hindu offerings which are everywhere. At first we felt bad for tripping over them on the sidewalk (it was impossible not too). They varied in complexity, but always consisted of a reed basket, with some food and flowers, and sometimes an incense stick.
There were so many offerings left all over the place, that they just accumulated. On steps, sidewalks, windowsills, stone carvings, cars, anything really. Here was a particularly large collection at a temple near the central market.
We wandered around Ubud, including briefly through the vast market, and found an inexpensive little cafe for lunch. This entire meal, including drinks, cost us about $4.80, together. Dewey tried Mie Goreng (typical Indonesian fried noodles), we shared some vegetable lumpia (spring rolls) and I ordered the "cresping water plant with chicken" (creeping water plant, I think). It was all wonderful.
On our second morning in Ubud we visited the Money Sanctuary. It was fascinating watching the macaque monkeys play.
They were somewhere in between domesticated and wild; they knew full well that you probably had bananas, and you weren't going to hurt them, so they went about their everyday business around you. But you had to be careful about your sunglasses and your bags, they knew about stealing those too.
This little guy took his banana, mashed it into the ground in front of him, then licked it up. Banana tastes better mashed?
A tickle-fight, or maybe a real fight, we weren't sure.
Observe this next picture closely. It's too funny!
Inside the monkey sanctuary were numerous temples and various carved stone statues. The monkeys played freely around them. There were offerings at the temples, but the monkeys picked those apart quickly too, eating the edible parts and dumping the rest.
This baby macaque was climbing the spindliest little tree, the whole thing was bending under his weight. We were surprised he didn't fall out.
A whole family of baby macaques harassing their mom who was trying to sleep (far left, lying down). Notice the tiny little hand in the bottom right corner... he got pushed off and was climbing back up.
All over the streets in Ubud were stone bowls of water, filled with freshly set designs made from flowers, leaves, and flower petals. This was one of our favorites. A slight variation on a similar thing we saw in Thailand (where the bowls were filled with fish, and live water plants).
The Ubud central market was fascinating, and massive. There were multiple stories, and multiple building, and then all the space in between as well. I could have spend days in there. It was hard not being able to buy much, but we had to be realistic about what we were prepared to backpack around with for the next 8 weeks.
Dewey snapped this picture in the market before he realized what he had actually taken a picture of! I believe this woman has a goitre.
The bottom floor was more "local", with fruits and vegetables and other food items.
Indonesian silk batik sarongs:
Carved wooden lanterns (you would suspend them from the ceiling, with a light bulb inside).
Dewey would have liked to buy a painting, but again, there were some tricky logistics involved with backpacking or shipping something like that.
So many things carved out of wood! And they were all so intricate. Quite different (much more ornate) from most of the souvenir markets we've been to in other countries.
On our second day in Ubud, we rented a scooter and two helmets for $5 and set off to explore the island. We somewhat planned to get up into the mountains to see the terraced rice patties.
We ventured off the main road and chose instead to scoot through some smaller villages along the way. There were school children everywhere, and they girls especially just loved to smile, wave, and say hello to us. The boys, maybe not so much, although they liked to show off.
We stopped at the Bali Elephant Safari park, thought about maybe riding an elephant, but you know that when they advertise the price in $US, not Rupees, that it is bound to be a rip-off... which is was. We decided we didn't need to pay that much to ride a domesticated elephant around a path.
On our way up into the mountains we were passed by a local on a scooter who asked (while passing us) where we were going. We told him we were just going to a drive, but when we later stopped at a temple on the side of the road he stopped to chat with us.
He showed us around the temple, then asked if we wanted to go see his garden and have some tea. I was hesitant, but then he said we didn't have to pay, unless we wanted Luwak coffee (which was actually something we had been wanting to try!), so we went along.
His "garden" was actually somewhat of an agro-tourism farm, where you could wander through pebbled paths displaying labeled plants (papaya, mango, mangosteen, snakeskin fruit, cinnamon, coffee, etc...). We got free cups of Bali coffee, Ginger Tea, Lemon Tea, Ginseng Coffee and Bali Cocoa (from right to left) to try. Then we also paid to try Luwak coffee (in the center). It was about $5 US for a cup, but hey... they sell this stuff for about $20US a cup in Calgary. Dewey had originally heard about it on CNN so when we were in Calgary we had investigated, but figured $20 was a bit steep.
Luwak coffee is actually made from partially digested coffee beans. The Luwak is a small tree-dwelling animal native to Bali which eats ripe red coffee beans.
The beans are then passed through the digestive system, undergoing some chemical changes along the way. Farmers collect the "droppings" in the morning, then the turds are cleaned, and the beans are roasted and ground like any other coffee beans.
To be honest, I'm not a coffee connoisseur,but Dewey said it was good coffee, although he probably didn't need to pay to try it again.
Salak (Snake skin fruit), which we tried. It was firm, and slightly sweet, slightly sour. Danielle later remarked that it would make a great "apple" pie (with cinnamon and spices), and I fully agree.
We then carried on up the road towards the mountains. After not too long we were pulled over by a police stop-check. At first, I wasn't nervous at all, because as far as I knew, we weren't doing anything wrong. However, this policeman proceeded to ask for Dewey's drivers license and insurance (which he had) and then pointed out that his drivers license wasn't valid in Bali and he would need to pay a 250,000 Rupee fine. This was blatantly unfair, and an obvious display of police corruption. The worst part is that he wasn't going to provide us with any proof of payment, or even require us to turn around and go back. He said we could just pay him cash and keep driving (or he threatened to take our registration and Dewey's license away). We argued this, and he eventually dropped it to a "special price" of 100,000, but I still felt this was so out of line... especially since we were probably going to drive another 10 minutes down the road and run into another cop, and go through the same thing again. Eventually I ended up crying out of frustration, and then the cops didn't really know what to do so they said "Ok, fine, you can just go... because of her". Haha.
Sure enough, a few minutes down the road we were stopped by a local who said there were cops up ahead. He offered to take us through the back roads. We gladly followed him, but he took us to his restaurant. We felt obligated to eat there but didn't realize it was a fixed-price buffet lunch, and an absolute rip-off at that. We ended up paying 192,000 Rp for a terrible, cold, buffet lunch. So I guess we escaped one fine... and ended up getting ripped off later anyways. We were pretty shook up and irritated and after hiding out at the restaurant for awhile we set back, taking the smallest back roads the whole way to Ubud, out of fear of running into cops again.
Here is a view from the restaurant where we stopped for lunch, although we weren't really in a view-appreciating mood.
On our final day in Ubud we decided to walk to the Elephant Cave (Goa Gajah), a few kilometers outside of Ubud. Along the way we passed many rice patties, and small artisan workshops.
A small bird market
This particular vendors art was so incredible. He hand carved sculptures of deer (sometimes with tigers chasing them) out of mostly hibiscus wood. I wish I could have taken one home... but this is about as unrealistic as things get in terms of backpacking souvenirs.
Hot and sweaty, from our walk along the roadside in mid-day, we finally arrived at the Elephant Cave. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia, because they do a better job of summarizing what it was that I could have:
Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave), Jalan Goa Gajah. 8AM-6PM daily. The centerpiece here is a cave dating back to the ninth century, the entrance to which is an ornately carved demon's mouth. Inside are some fragmentary lingam and yoni statues, as well as a statue of Ganesha. Large, carved guards stand around pools near the entrance, and a little path leads to a waterfall, rice fields, and some Buddhist stupa fragments. Some parts of the Goa Gajah complex were not excavated until the 1950s. Nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rp 15,000, including sarong rental.
On the ground there was a really fun old tree with some pretty artistic roots.
On the way back from the Elephant cave we took the backroads through some small villages and rice patties. It was a long walk, but it was so beautiful.
There are very few gas stations around, so mostly you fill up your scooter at small stands along the side of the road where they sell petrol in old liquor bottles.
The night before our ferry to Lombok we stayed in Padangbai...a very sleepy little harbour town. There was a short walk up a hill at one end of town, where you could walk up to this little temple.
These strange little boats were lined up all along the beach. The had long "legs" with floats on each side, which was probably a good thing, since the boat itself was so narrow.
Another example of a dinner menu where the Bahasa to English translations are funnier than they were probably intended to be. Our favorites were "Rangging Bull" pizza with "hum", and the "Something like it Hot" pizza.
A fun little scooter-side car combo that Dewey spotted. The scooter is the primary vehicle of choice around Bali (and most of Asia, actually). Apparently, there used to be local buses on Bali but they were so terrible that everyone just bought scooters.
The next post will be a few days since we are leaving tomorrow morning at 5:00am to start a guided 3-day trek up Rinjani volcano. We will talk to you all when we get back! Enjoy :)
I'm glad you got to enjoy the market in Ubud. Did you see the bowls that smell like cinnamon? My mom bought a few while we were there (grade 10 I think?) and they still smell like cinnamon today!
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