Homeless Hartlens II: Bali Part 2

I am enjoying my break from social media. I am not ignoring it completely, I still find time to enrage my friends, and friends of friends with my political views on the news of the day: from BREXIT, to gun control. However, while actually meeting locals in a comparatively impoverished culture wildly different to anything I have grown up knowing, it is becoming all the more clear to me that breaks from the mass media, and social media parrots are a remedy all should experience far more frequently than any of us no doubt do.

So our new Balinese besties Kadek and family went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Despite the fact that they were gearing up for one of the biggest days on the Hindu calendar (Saraswati Day) they insisted that we come to their family home just around the corner from Weaving Astiti where we were staying. They prepared a traditional Balinese breakfast of sorts while the women prepared offerings for the ceremony. I will not pretend to know how any of it is supposed to go, but everyday all around Bali you will find little banana leaf offerings of food to the various gods and goddesses, for various different purposes (check your righteous western ideals of sustainability and waste at the door here). We were then photographed and generally fawned over for about an hour; these people were truly gracious and beyond excited that we took time out of our day to visit their home. We were made to promise that were we to ever return to Bali, we must stay with them at the family home.  We attempted to give a bit more money to our driver, Kadek, who was the son of Astiti where we stayed, a bit more money for his efforts in driving us around, but he vehemently refused, and then insisted that he be allowed to drive us around for the remainder of our time in Bali for the agreed upon rate, equivalent to about $40/day. This was no small task. We are a family of five with an irritable two year old. Balinese traffic makes Edmonton, or Auckland rush-hour look like a walk in the park. So my point, despite all of the anger and frustration in the world, here are some people, absolute strangers before a couple days ago, prepared to drop everything and put language, religion, race and all else aside to welcome us into their family and their society. All at a time of cultural significance. I wonder, would I do the same at home if a random family from Indonesia, or elsewhere came to my home? During Easter, or Christmas, or Thanksgiving? I would like to say yes, but the reality is probably opposite. I realise that Bali is far from the political hotbed of hate and racism as other places are, but it is nice to know that genuine un-motivated kindness and love still exist out there despite what Facebook and the mass media would have you believe.

Our time is nearly done now in Bali, soon we will be off to a brief stopover in Singapore before carrying on to Malaysia. From Ubud (the tourist mecca of Bali) we saw most of the key temples, my favourite being Ulun Danu Bratan(the temple on the lake) and the drive through proper Balinese country-side to see the rice fields was a nice insight into the local agrarian economy. A bit more nerve wracking was the Fire and Ice show, which culminated with a fire demon of some description kicking the smouldering embers of a meter high fire at the audience, which included a front row Brynn. She escaped burns, but the lady beside her was not so lucky. I guess we will think twice before sitting in the front row next time. (in the distant future I will post a YouTube video to show you just how intense this experience actually was, I don’t think my words here do it justice!)

One of our favourite experiences has been blindly stumbling into Saraswata festivities. This was certainly not planned, we are ignorant to these sorts of things. I had not even been aware Bali was a Hindu island until recently. But the music and chanting, and people parading around in their fancy white ceremonial dress as they made their way to temple with offerings perched precariously on their heads was, certainly a treat.
Other highlights so far include the monkey forest, where both Stephanie and I had monkeys jump on to us in search of food/high priced electronics for them to take back to their monkey black-market, and waking up to monkeys outside our hotel room door that the girls can then play/run-away from. #whatarethingsyoucantdobackhome

Tomorrow, we bid farewell to Bali and prepare to open up our wallets and haemorrhage money as we say hello to Singapore, but not before one more trip with Kadek, and a trip to Tanah Lot.