Bali

We are staying in an opulent luxury resort with winding pools and drinks in coconuts served by saronged young men. We are on the beach. Our beds have white tasseled scarves overhanging. We are in a bubble. This is not Bali. This is Bali giving the westerner what he demands.

Yesterday, we stepped outside the bubble.

We joined a bike tour. After a lovely breakfast overlooking the mountains, we were driven to our bikes set alongside the farmer’s fields. We mounted and peddled through villages, shrines, rice fields. In traditional regions of Bali, families live in homes called compounds. The compounds appear as temples to a westerner. Beautiful, statues, shrines, stone carvings, all mingled with the bedroom, the kitchen, the garden. The extended family lives here: Grandparents, parents, children. When a man marries, his wife joins the compound. If a family has only daughters, a husband will come to join her compound instead. When people die they are buried for 5 years, then exhumed and cremated. The remains are placed in a coconut and sent out to sea.

Everything has a shrine. Little banana leaf square bowls are shaped and filled with food and flowers for the spirits. There are so many, you see them scattered and trampled on like litter in the street. Every home, every car, every stairway has a little offering placed for it. Large Banyan trees are believed to house spirits-they are wrapped in sarongs to honor the spirit. Statues, likewise. Little fabric sarongs in black and white checkers to represent yin and yang.

All this on the bike tour. Then through rice fields. What was wrong with me? I was hot and tired. I felt like such a pussy. I wanted it to be over! I’m riding a bike through real Bali! What’s wrong with me? Then finally I get to the end and they tell me I’ve ridden 15 miles. And I look at the sun burns on my hands and back, and I feel like less of a pussy. But only a little. There were entire families in those fields walking with their hooked knives, sowing and plowing by hand in the heat all day, and taking time to offer food and flowers every few yards to whatever spirits would accept them. Shrines everywhere. All day in the field, working and smiling and waving at the girl on the bike and making offerings.

Beautiful. Difficult. More beautiful because it is difficult. These people are exquisite.

At the end of the tour, our tour guide took all 15 of us to his home. We sat in his garden, lush with banana trees and flowers, and ate amazing food his wife prepared. We drank local bear and talked to him about travel lust. Then he took us around town, shopping with local artisans, wood carvers and silver smiths.

Today I was a tourist. I walked on the beach, I lay by the pool, and I ordered piña coladas in coconut shells. I might be a little drunk while I write this. But it is my last night in Bali.

I am in love with Bali. Don’t forget me, Rama-Sita. My heaven is to be a spirit wandering the world, and maybe if not in the flesh, I can come back again like that, and fly over those rice paddies enjoying your offerings.

No related posts.