I sort of want to give you a day by day, but I could write about this vacation for pages and pages… so I think it'd be best to just give you "the best of" in case you decide to visit this incredible place.
Sydnie and I planned to split our time on the island between two locations - Ubud and Sanur. I think this was an excellent choice - we loved the different sides of Bali that we got to see, and the balance we struck between seeing it all and getting to relax :) Ubud is more of an artsy, cultural center and Sanur was more resort-y. We steered clear of Kuta, the absolute resort center and enjoyed Sanur's calm and more natural feel. Sydnie and I found our hotels/home stays on Airbnb.com - I heard about this website from my friend Meg and decided to give it a go. There are a lot of "home stays" on this website, and I wasn't really sure what that meant. We chose a hotel in Sanur and a home stay in Ubud. The home stay was very much a hotel - it's just that one family owned and operated it. We had our own cabin/hut/building (Balinese compounds are hard for me to explain) with a bathroom and two beds. Breakfast was included, and it was just outside of Ubud with a beautiful view of the rice paddies. The only thing I would have done differently is to have chosen a home stay or hotel in Ubud that also had a pool. It got HOT and that would've been so nice. It was SO reasonably priced. In Sanur, we stayed in a very straightforward hotel. One thing I will say about Sanur is that it felt a little empty - that may be because we were traveling during a non-peak time (peak travel time in Bali is December and January), or because we stayed there on a Wednesday through Saturday… but it was a little TOO quiet for me. Anyway, still a really positive experience.
While we were in Ubud, Annie and Made drove and showed us around - we were so fortunate to have them as our guides. It was just perfect that we, a pair of music teachers, had performers and musically minded people to show us Balinese culture. Here's some of the stuff we experienced in Bali:
Wayang:
We met a wayang (puppet) maker who was preparing for his debut as a wayang performer. Nana was playing with the puppets while Made was goofing around, telling stories with the puppets for fun. The puppets we learned about were hand made from leather and generally last 40 or 50 years.
These are two puppets of the same character - one is a Balinese representation and one
is a Javanese representation. So cool.
Here you see Nana and Annie hanging out in the puppet shop :)
Made playing with the puppets. So funny.
A day later we went to the puppet maker's debut as a Wayang performer.
Wayangs (as they were explained to me) can take many forms. The one we attended was part of a temple's annual celebration. The Balinese calendar is different, and the community celebrates their temple's birthday, sort of. The Wayang can be hours long and is a big event - shutting down the streets for the performance. What's going on in this photo above is a puppet performance. You can see the large flame behind the fabric. Also behind the fabric is a team - a couple gamelan players and the main puppet guy. The puppet guy is a huge deal - He moves the puppets, does their voices, and uses little wooden hammers held by his toes to give cues, punctuate sentences, and for sound effects. All while sitting under a flame. Intense.
Costume Shop:
Annie and Made are in the process of preparing to be professors at The Univeristy of Hawaii (starting in January 2015, if I remember correctly). Part of their job while they'll be there is to coordinate and put together a large performance, so they've been ordering costume pieces to bring to Hawaii for the performance. They took us to their preferred costume shop, which they said is definitely the best in Bali. A lot of businesses and stores are also the homes of the people who run them. We spent time in their courtyard behind the store front which was also their main work area. After trying some pieces on and looking at them in the display area we went to their work area to see them working on things. I was particularly interested in the beautiful gold patterned fabric and how that was made. Luckily, they had just returned from lunch and were willing to let me watch! You can learn a ton more about this stuff here, in case you're curious.
Here are Nana and Sydnie trying on some costume pieces.
This was them decorating the fabric - I was all kinds of snoopy. The fabric is woven in Bali - they decorated it with gold foil. You can see them putting glue onto the fabric through a plastic pattern. They take away the plastic pattern, roll on the foil, and then rip it off.
Work space. Costume pieces everywhere you look.
We also went to a flute maker's home, learning about modes from Made while the flute maker made us flutes to take home. Homes are very communal and different than what I'm used to - they live in compounds with their families (like, I'd live in a different building but right next to my parents, and my brothers would each have their own building, but we'd all share a kitchen or bathroom, depending on the size of the family). I didn't take many photos there - focused more on the music and not invading their privacy.
Musical performances:
Nana showed us Gamelan. This set was typically used for funerals - I initially
thought it was because of how they were decorated, but was wrong.
It actually had to do with the mode/notes of the instrument.
This is the entrance to the performance space we visited. We saw a women's gamelan rehearsal - Nana danced her way through the session and I was in awe. There were some traditional songs and a new composition. Super neat. Because these spaces are spiritual, you must have your shoulders covered and there were suggestions (but not rules) about wearing a sarang and belt.
Later on in the week we went to see a gamelan and dance performance Made was performing in.
His sister taught the dancers and even performed - really neat.
This is Jegog - a type of music performed on bamboo instruments, ranging in size.
One thing you NEED to do if you visit Bali is see the performance around sunset at Uluwatu Temple. It's totally touristy, but so worth it. We hired a cab driver for the day (more on that, later) and he took us around the grounds, wielding stick to scare off the monkeys. Yep. Anyway, he timed it pretty perfectly. We had a great time looking around, taking photos, and got good seats for the performance. This performance was a kecak dance - done without instruments, but instead with a group of men chanting and singing rhythmically. (Because it's such a popular tourist thing, you can find video of the performance I attended here - about 4 minutes in you can see them accompanying dance). Really beautiful to see this performance as the sun was setting.
Food:
Going to indonesia, I was a little nervous. As someone who doesn't eat a lot of seafood in the past, I was not anticipating an easy time. I was wrong. Indonesia is the home of tempeh, they love chicken satay, the seafood I did consume was deliciously fresh, and they were big fans of fresh juices (hell yeah!). I loved every single meal I ate in Bali - seriously. It was easier for us to just eat out, not really having a kitchen in our home stays or hotels and ended up trying lots of things. Annie and Made definitely helped in that department, taking us to their favorite warungs. Nearly every meal came with a delicious fruit salad (papaya, banana, pineapple, dragon fruit, and lychee) and you could get pretty much any fresh juice at all the warungs. I eventually tried avocado juice - I don't know that I'd consume that regularly, but it was pretty tasty!
The cab driver pretty much planned a day for us, and dropped us off at a restaurant literally ON THE BEACH where we had the opportunity to pick out the animals we wanted to consume for dinner. This was just outside of my comfort zone, but whatever. I picked out some shrimp and called it good. Super tasty, nice relaxing time on the beach just after dark.
Wow. Early morning visit to the market - what an over stimulating experience!
One of Annie and Made's favorites - really spicy fish. These fishes and their faces were a little out of my comfort zone, but I went for it. I think it was spicy enough that even if the fish was bad, I wouldn't have noticed :)
For lunch one day we stopped at one of Annie's favorite spots from when she was studying in Bali. Everything on the menu was vegetarian… we had no clue. They ordered us a sampler platter sort of thing and everything I tasted was delicious, and some things were strangely meat like!
Drinkin a young coconut. Yummers.
Suggested Reading:
While I was in Bali I read Fragrant Rice - a book recommended to me by the college counselor at my school. She read it when she visited Bali some years ago and said it enriched her experience. Even though buying english books in Korea are more expensive… I decided it was worth it, and I was right! I loved reading about Balinese culture from a western (Australian) perspective while experiencing it. The author married a Balinese man and they own a hotel and a couple restaurants in Ubud. We went to their restaurant, Casa Luna and it was seriously incredible. If you go, you must get the black rice pudding. Anyway, it was helpful to have cultural/spiritual things explained as I experiencing them. The spiritual life is so intertwined with daily life in Bali - it's part of what makes the air and feeling so different on the island. I felt awful, continuously stepping on beautiful flowers on the ground… but it was so unavoidable. These offerings are made so regularly, you see them EVERYWHERE.
Offerings in a temple:
Offerings on the sidewalk (partially squashed):
Decorated entrance to our home stay:
Another shot of the over-stimulating market - many materials for offerings sold at the market :)
All in all - such a wonderfully enriching and relaxing vacation. I had a great time traveling with Sydnie, and her family was so welcoming and helpful. I learned a lot and had a great time. Flights to Bali can be pretty spendy, but once you get there everything is super cheap. I think I ended up paying $20 a night for hotels and home stays - and they absolutely fine quality. Meals were always under 5 dollars, unless I went nuts with a fresh juice AND a beer with my dinner. Seriously - you all should go.
Hit me up if you plan on going, I'd love to go back with you! :)
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