March 2, 2007

Ubud (BALI)

Bicycling Bali, Shucking Rice, Caving with Bats, and a Balinese Performance

Rather than heading south for the tourist capital of Kuta, I spent another day enjoying the laid-back nature of Ubud. I met up with several Dutch girls, and we rented bicycles for a day of touring the surrounding countryside. Riding through the rice paddies without any passing cars and only a few motorbikes was the perfect way to unwind. Each town we rode through specialized in a handicraft, and we stopped several times to look through the small shops that made up a town center.

After stopping for lunch, we decided to add a sense of purpose to the day by visiting some of the famous temples in the area. Most of the places we stopped at were well off the tourist trail, and required a bit of searching to find.

The most memorable place we visited was Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave. As usual, we paid someone to watch our bicycles while we adorned ourselves in sarongs for the Hindu shrines. The elephant cave (honoring Ganesh, the god of wealth and prosperity), was nothing exotic - but the surrounding area certainly was.

After rejecting the services of several park guides, we continued chatting with them since there weren't any other tourists around. They told us how to find several trails that would take us deeper into the surrounding jungle. We took their advice and headed off in curiosity.

The first place we came across that is worth mentioning was a rice field with elderly woman shucking rice. It was a messy affair as one woman would pound the rice stalks against a hard surface in order to knock off the rice kernels. The other women gathered the debris into a sifter and separated the rice (still encased in shells) for bagging.

After contributing several rupiah for showing us the process we continued on another trail that took us along a steep slope of jungle habitat. The recent rainfall made the habitation come alive, and we were in the midst of a variety of jungle noises.

After passing a small waterfall I spotted a cave that sparked the adventurer in me. Perhaps I am still attached to childhood impressions created by Indiana Jones, but caves have a tangible mystique about them.

I decided to go in despite not having any source of light, and I was thankful when the Dutch girls decided to follow (albeit maintaining a safe distance behind me.)

It is difficult to explain how frightening it can be to walk straight into darkness. There was absolutely no light after I had gone 20 feet, and every five steps I would take a picture with the flash on, and then study the topography in the LCD. It was definitely slow going.

After another 20 feet there was no remaining light from the tunnel entrance, but I could still hear the girls. Crouched in a circular tunnel roughly 5 feet in diameter, I took another picture and saw that the tunnel took a four foot climb just ahead. I slipped my camera into my pocked and began pulling myself up the incline.

Just after clearing the top I began to straight myself up when a bat flew across my face. I yelled out in shock and fell back down the incline in terror - the bat came out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere. Ignoring a bump on my head that would later balloon in size, I hauled ass out of the cave only to find the Dutch girls keeled over in laughter. "The highlight of their trip," they claimed. Understandable for them to find it so funny, I suppose, but you can understand why I was still tempted to slip a snake into their bed for a bit of revenge.

The snake would have to wait as the girls made it up to me by inviting me along for a Balinese ceremony later in the evening. We were all exhausted from the long day of riding, so it felt great to sit back and enjoy the traditional chanting and performances. Video is a real must for appreciating the ceremony, but be warned: the video clip may take ten minutes to download.

The final performance of the evening involved an enormous pile of burning coconuts that were crashed by an "evil spirit." The chanting continued while the man (barefoot) kicked the burning coconuts into the crowd and walked across the ashes with ease. I left with several holes in my clothing from the flying sparks and my face was covered in ash, but it was easily worth it.

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