Lovin' Lovina

I don't know if we've made this clear yet, but you should all get your asses to Bali. Its beautiful and touristy and cliched, and then manages to magnanimously rise above the cliches and enchant you anyway. The people are all friendly and smiling and artsy and lovely - they ARE. In the midst of the Muslim nation of Indonesia (with its 15,000 islands and crazy mix of cultures), Bali is this Hindu holdout with temples to Shiva and Brahma and Vishnu, and endless reenactments of traditional Hindu stories like the Ramayana. Each Balinese person gets up in the morning and puts out an offering to the 3-gods-that-are-one-god, leaving little bamboo leaf baskets of flowers and crackers and incense and the occasional cup of coffee on every curb and doorway. Its incredibly hot and humid, making it nearly impossible to do anything in the middle of the day except lie on your bed or, if you're lucky, in a swimming pool. The island is lush and floral and smells good and has volcanoes and monkeys and beautiful beaches and is basically everyone's picture postcard idea of paradise. But not in an annoying way! Oh, just see for yourselves..Its astounding.

So, Ubud is the inland tourist mecca for Balinese culture, which we lazily lapped up. Molly learned to play the gamelan and Kate carved a cool wooden mask and I learned to make a bunch of Balinese food (including these coconut/palm sugar crepe things that are unbelievable) and then we went to a dance show at the community center, in which Molly's music teacher lead the band. The dancers move like no Western person could ever hope to move - their hands bend in crazy ways and their eyes dart back and forth, accenting their movements. The next day we got ourselves up for early morning yoga at the Yoga Barn - a place designed for all of the thousands of expats running around Ubud. Even at 8 am, the place was hot and crowded with people, but it was still relaxing and counts as exercise in the tropical heat. Next we headed to the Arma art museum and looked at some Balinese paintings, the most recent of which include tourists with their cameras in the Where's Waldo style depictions. By this time, it was too hot to do anything but go to the pool and sit on our patio and play cards while sipping giant Bintang beers.

For Molly's last night, we headed out to a 3 course dinner of Cheese Plate and Wine at the DeliCat, traditional Indonesian fare at Gaia, and minimart ice cream bar. We retired early because we were all traveling the next day and wanted to get up to see the market in the morning. The Ubud market has the typical tourist stands that sell scarves and sarongs and Balinese carvings, but it also has a large food section that I discovered during my cooking class. All of the locals come here, starting at 4am, to do their grocery shopping and pick up the supplies for their offerings and haggle over mangosteens and rice and turmeric root. Getting there before breakfast (and before the heat of the day and the crush of the tour buses) means actually seeing some Ubudians going about their daily business - not to mention getting some delicious breakfast treats.

Then Molly departed (so sad!) for the airport, laden down with a whole lot of our stuff, and we departed for Lovina, a beach town on the north shore of Bali. After a 3 hour ride over the mountains and through the beautiful rice fields and terraced hillsides, we arrived at the Angsoka Hotel in Lovina ready to hit the pool and stroll along the dark sandy beach. Lovina is sleepy and quiet and surprisingly clean, the beach full of small fishing and tour boats. We watched a bunch of guys play volleyball on the town court and wondered at the fact that the town is full of older Europeans. This morning, we got up early and went out to the Lovina reef to do some snorkeling before noon. We traveled about 10 minutes in a hollowed out tree boat with bamboo outriggers tied on for stabilization. These colorful fishing boats line the beaches here. A lovely snorkel in the rolling waves followed by lunch near the beach. The rest of the afternoon will be spent indoors under fans and at computers until it's cool enough to go back out and take a long pre-dinner walk.
Tomorrow we leave charming and beautiful Bali for Java!!