2011
Ubud Days
3 October 2011
The rice fields are glowing in the morning sun as the grains start to form- Several centimetres taller than when I arrived five days ago - (no, I am not out there with a tape measure - I just sense these things, ok?)
Jazz is not here today - though she had stayed the whole time until last night. Her mum and whole family are going north for a week at the beach while I'm at the festival - would not have had much time with her then anyway once the frenzied pace of the festival begins tomorrow night. Cathy and the other two women from my Zumba class, Viv and Sally, arrive tonight at different times. I'll await their arrival at Puri Saraswati with a G and T ready to pour. Cathy won't be here till very late - her flight goes via Jakarta with a long wait there. Alex's dad, Hugh will be on the same flight, so they'll have company and Cathy will share the car coming up to Ubud with him.
Wish I could say I have been doing amazing cultural things with Anne these last two days but actually it has been mostly around Ubud - Anne of course, being a Bali first-timer has the shopping bug - her friends back home are going to be showered with the most wonderful gifts of baskets and jewellery. I did take her on the rice fields walk yesterday (middle of the day - mad!) up to the Sari Organik Cafe way up the track. We met a very interesting Dutch couple on the path and had juices with them in the midst of the splendid views into the distance you can only get if you go beyond Ubud's crazy crowded streets. They have retired to Bali - the wife is one of the Dutch/Eurasians forced to leave their homes (sometimes the family had been here for centuries) and go to Holland in 1958. This is the subject of the novel Departures that I am currently translating for Lontar, so it was especially good to meet her. She was a child at the time and her family told her they were going to Holland for a holiday and they never came back. Until now.
I have to tell you about Anne's adventure yesterday - after a morning at the markets in town (we walked in - 3ks) Anne wanted to go to the hair salon - took her to the place where they'd been so lovely with Jasmin and her knots (hair still knot-free due to my bottles of kiddie de-tangler!) She was having the works - haircut, streaks with foils and all. As it was going to take at least two hours and she needed to go pick up her new dresses from the tailor after, I left her to it and got a motorbike ride home. She did not appear until several hours later (looking great) but had a tale to tell. Just when her hair was ready to be rinsed the salon water supply cut out. With her head a mass a silver paper she was loaded on to a motor bike and driven a long way through town - the wrong way on a one-way street, to another salon with everyone pointing and staring at this Martian-like creature with her glittering head. (Alas, a missed photo opportunity!) She said all one could do was laugh along, which she did. Then they brought her back to the original salon for the haircut. We had planned to go to the Kecak dance last night but she got back too late and was of course exhausted. (I'd had my tidur siang – (arvo nap!) so we put that off. Hope there is another opportunity for her to see a dance - during the festival there is something on every night - poetry slam, cocktail party with Alexander McCall-Smith!!, book launches, etc.
We dropped in on Petra and Dadong/Barbara (Jasmin's mother and grandmother) yesterday on our long walk down the road into town. Saw the professional architectural and landscaping plans of the community of several houses and central facilities / gardens that Petra has designed for a large tract of land they have bought outside Ubud - to start building in January. It’s called Taman Petanu. The plan is to move there in a year or so. Several of her friends have bought parcels of the land to build homes on too. All looks very grand. (Last time I was here Petra asked did Josh and I want to invest in a block too - but communal living is not our thing.) It will be harder to see Jasmin on a regular basis when she is so far out of town. However, hopefully she will still be spending part of her week here with Josh anyway. Had a lovely chatty hour with Barbara as always - only this time instead of the usual Bali-type (non-consequential) topics of conversation, Barbara was really into the Wall Street demonstrations and the financial crisis - she has cable television and is very well informed - watches international cable from Russia and China too and gets a different slant on things. I believe the US press is trying to hush up the size of the demos taking place outside the Wall Street banks and the NYSE (I was there!!) but the news is getting out that the American people are fed up with the banking system.
Josh has taken up woodcarving! A very Bali thing to do. Got himself some tools and a piece of wood and already an impressive face is slowly appearing out of the surface of the wood!
Jazz is not here today - though she had stayed the whole time until last night. Her mum and whole family are going north for a week at the beach while I'm at the festival - would not have had much time with her then anyway once the frenzied pace of the festival begins tomorrow night. Cathy and the other two women from my Zumba class, Viv and Sally, arrive tonight at different times. I'll await their arrival at Puri Saraswati with a G and T ready to pour. Cathy won't be here till very late - her flight goes via Jakarta with a long wait there. Alex's dad, Hugh will be on the same flight, so they'll have company and Cathy will share the car coming up to Ubud with him.
Wish I could say I have been doing amazing cultural things with Anne these last two days but actually it has been mostly around Ubud - Anne of course, being a Bali first-timer has the shopping bug - her friends back home are going to be showered with the most wonderful gifts of baskets and jewellery. I did take her on the rice fields walk yesterday (middle of the day - mad!) up to the Sari Organik Cafe way up the track. We met a very interesting Dutch couple on the path and had juices with them in the midst of the splendid views into the distance you can only get if you go beyond Ubud's crazy crowded streets. They have retired to Bali - the wife is one of the Dutch/Eurasians forced to leave their homes (sometimes the family had been here for centuries) and go to Holland in 1958. This is the subject of the novel Departures that I am currently translating for Lontar, so it was especially good to meet her. She was a child at the time and her family told her they were going to Holland for a holiday and they never came back. Until now.
I have to tell you about Anne's adventure yesterday - after a morning at the markets in town (we walked in - 3ks) Anne wanted to go to the hair salon - took her to the place where they'd been so lovely with Jasmin and her knots (hair still knot-free due to my bottles of kiddie de-tangler!) She was having the works - haircut, streaks with foils and all. As it was going to take at least two hours and she needed to go pick up her new dresses from the tailor after, I left her to it and got a motorbike ride home. She did not appear until several hours later (looking great) but had a tale to tell. Just when her hair was ready to be rinsed the salon water supply cut out. With her head a mass a silver paper she was loaded on to a motor bike and driven a long way through town - the wrong way on a one-way street, to another salon with everyone pointing and staring at this Martian-like creature with her glittering head. (Alas, a missed photo opportunity!) She said all one could do was laugh along, which she did. Then they brought her back to the original salon for the haircut. We had planned to go to the Kecak dance last night but she got back too late and was of course exhausted. (I'd had my tidur siang – (arvo nap!) so we put that off. Hope there is another opportunity for her to see a dance - during the festival there is something on every night - poetry slam, cocktail party with Alexander McCall-Smith!!, book launches, etc.
We dropped in on Petra and Dadong/Barbara (Jasmin's mother and grandmother) yesterday on our long walk down the road into town. Saw the professional architectural and landscaping plans of the community of several houses and central facilities / gardens that Petra has designed for a large tract of land they have bought outside Ubud - to start building in January. It’s called Taman Petanu. The plan is to move there in a year or so. Several of her friends have bought parcels of the land to build homes on too. All looks very grand. (Last time I was here Petra asked did Josh and I want to invest in a block too - but communal living is not our thing.) It will be harder to see Jasmin on a regular basis when she is so far out of town. However, hopefully she will still be spending part of her week here with Josh anyway. Had a lovely chatty hour with Barbara as always - only this time instead of the usual Bali-type (non-consequential) topics of conversation, Barbara was really into the Wall Street demonstrations and the financial crisis - she has cable television and is very well informed - watches international cable from Russia and China too and gets a different slant on things. I believe the US press is trying to hush up the size of the demos taking place outside the Wall Street banks and the NYSE (I was there!!) but the news is getting out that the American people are fed up with the banking system.
Josh has taken up woodcarving! A very Bali thing to do. Got himself some tools and a piece of wood and already an impressive face is slowly appearing out of the surface of the wood!