Before and After

This is us very exicted to leave Philadelphia on January 27th, 2012.












This is us a few shades darker and very sad to leave Bali on February 27th, 2012

Can you spot the difference?

We still haven’t posted about our last two days in Nusa Dua.  We went to the beach, we got ripped off on a crappy boat trip, and spent some more time at the beach.  We also stuffed ourselves silly at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. 

Bali is an amazing place, and were really sad to leave.  Life just moves a little slower there, and it is hard not to be in a good mood all the time.

Hopefully we can go back again in the near future.

The end

On our first day in Bali, Dov (who fully admits that he is not good with change) freaked out and said "what are we going to do here for a month??" Before we even left, Dov was already talking about a return trip. A month can go very, very fast.

I could definitely go back and spend more time in Bali, but there are several things about home that I was looking forward to as well. These include: clean drinking water, hot showers, my kitties, friends and family, and earning some money. I was also becoming a little tired of feeling like "the tourist". The Balinese really do like tourists, mostly because they bring in money. But they have what I feel to be a skewed perspective of us too, and one that I am happy to shed. All they see of us westerners is that we are constantly on vacation (something that most Balinese have never done) and that we seem to have limitless amounts of money to spend. Currently the exchange rate between the Indonesian Rupiah and the US dollar is about 9000 to 1. So it is fairly cheap for us to travel there. You can get a decent meal in Bali for about $1-2 if you go to the locally owned restaurants - I am told that other parts of Indonesia where tourism is not so prevalent are even cheaper. So to the Balinese, it seems like we just have tons of money to spend, and they want us to spend it! Call me crazy, but being seen as a rich upper class by the locals makes me feel a little uncomfortable. To top it off, many of the ex-pats who live in Bali take advantage of the cheap labor and really do live like noblemen. Remember a few weeks ago when we were getting laughed at by old Balinese ladies while we worked in the garden (I wrote about it in an earlier blog post)? The foreigners who live here hire the locals to do their cooking, cleaning, gardening - pretty much all the housekeeping. The locals thought it was funny to see us working in a garden! I don't think they realize that when we tourists go back home we work too, just like them. We have jobs, clean our houses, cook our food, do our own housework. We don't all have a crew of housekeepers like the majority of expats in Bali. But really, how would the Balinese know that? TV? Most Balinese don't have TV's and even if they did get western shows, what would they see? Newspapers? Do you think they are really reporting about what happens in our daily lives back in America? Books? Maybe, but it would depend what literature has been translated to Indonesian - most Balinese don't speak fluent English. And to be honest, I don't know what access they have to books and literature. There is no public library system. And the only bookstores that I saw in Ubud were targeted at tourists.

I didn't do any real research, but as far I can tell, the locals don't really pay taxes in Bali. Not that they get much either - there is very little infrastructure. There is no trash collection or water sanitation. Public schools exist, but they are not completely free. The kindergarten where I was volunteering had a small monthly fee for the students. Jose told us that when families cannot pay, they get help from the community. I don't think the teachers get paid very well either, and the classrooms were small and crowded. But all the students do go to school up until grade 9. For the final years of high school until grade 12, it seems that the fees for school increase. Or maybe it is that there is no community support if you cannot afford the monthly cost of high school? I am not completely clear on all the circumstances, but for many poor families, finishing high school is not an option.

Anyhow, back to taxes. There is no sales tax at the locally owned shops. I don't think that they have anything resembling income tax or property tax. Only foreigners pay taxes to operate their businesses in Bali. Its like when the cops here pull over cars with out-of-state plates and write them tickets. Same concept. Why take money from the locals when you can take money from someone else? This was never more apparent to us than at the airport when we were trying to catch our flight home. We had already paid $45 each for visas before we left the USA. At the airport you have to pay an "International Departure Tax" in cash. And then they told us that we had overstayed our visas by one day (huh? the visa was issued by the consulate in NYC, who had copies of our flight itinerary!!) and more fees had to be paid. By the time all was said and done, we had shelled out a fair amount of cash just for the privilege of being able to travel there. All the fees and hassle at the airport really put a bad taste in my mouth, and made me happy to be headed home.

Once upon a time, Bali was not a huge tourist destination. They lived their lives and did their thing and no one else really went there. The locals grew and made what they needed, and traded with nearby islands for what they couldn't get on their own soil. Most tourism to Bali began in the 80's, and now millions of people visit Bali every year. With all of our money and all of our influence comes a lot of change. Throughout our trip I had been struggling to reconcile with this. Outside of the popular tourist destinations, most of Bali exists in third world conditions, but I don't want to change Bali or the people there. They are wonderful people (very kind, trusting, and helpful) with a very intricate and unique culture. But by being just another tourist, aren't we part of the problem? At some point we were in a car with a Balinese driver, and he mentioned something about tourism and all of the changes that have taken place. I asked him point blank if he thought that the changes in Bali were good or bad. In slightly broken English, he answered something along the lines of "It is good and bad together. Always there is good and bad together". I loved his answer and his honesty.

In any case, here we are back home. I miss Bali already.

A land without water fountains

One of the few luxuries that I am looking forward to upon returning home is drinkable tap water. There is none in Bali. They do not have any sort of water purification system or treatment facilities. You simply cannot drink the water straight from the tap. There are several ways to go about this: 1) boil your water, 2) buy bottled water, or 3) treat the water yourself. For the most part, we went with option #3. Rather than using iodine tablets or things like that which they often sell in camping stores, we opted for non-chemical treatment and bought ourselves a “Steripen”. The steripen uses UV light to kill all the bacteria and bad things in the water. Apparently this is how some municipalities in the USA treat their water anyway, so we figured it was good enough for our purposes. The steripen is made for travelers and treats 1 liter of water at a time and takes about 90 seconds per batch. We had a morning routine in Bali in which we would start each day by treating about 4-6 liters of water.
    
The amount of money that we paid for the steripen ended up being about the same (maybe slightly more) than what it would have cost to buy bottled water for a month. But we both feel better about refilling our own water bottles and not creating a whole bunch of extra trash by dumping several plastic water bottles a day. Also, the steripen worked great. Yes, it was a bit fussy at times, but never once did we get sick from the water. I call that a win.

The first stop in our many legged journey back to Philadelphia was the Singapore airport. For the first time in a month, there were water fountains! As far as I can tell, there is not a single water fountain anywhere in Bali (why would they have them when the water isn’t drinkable?). In many towns in Bali I think that running water itself is still very rare (hot water is even rarer) but we were in Ubud and other towns where there is some amount of tourism infrastructure and money. When we were in more rural areas, we definitely saw people bathing and washing clothes in the streams. In any case, water fountains were a welcome sight! I think I will appreciate our drinkable tap water in the USA more than I ever really thought about before. The steripen came in very handy, but now it can be put to rest until our next travel adventure.

Nusa Dua day 1; The relaxining

We arrived in Nusa Dua on Saturday at about 11 am and got right to relaxing.  Nusa Dua is the resort town in the south of Bali.  It is drastically different then the rest of Bali we saw.  There are nicely manicured lawns everywhere, and immaculate sidewalks. The sidewalks were what caught our attention.  In Ubud the sidewalks were tiles that could be removed to access little streams that were overflow from the streets, and possibly sewage.  It was not uncommon for tiles to be missing, broken etc.  So nicely maintained sidewalks were a bit of a shock.  Especially since no one walks in Nusa Dua.  Everyone takes a taxi, or drives.  It looked like Florida, but with more statues like the one to the right.  It’s hard to see but that is a squirreel of some kind, attached to a garbage can.  Except the quirreell has a vert strange expression on his face.  Like he is rabbid.  There are massive resorts everywhere, with small armies for staff, who all speak English very well.

 

 

 

 

Speaking of resorts, this was our room.  In case you can’t tell, our room opened right on to the pool.  We could open our sliding doors, and jump right in!  We took a lot of pictures of the room, so we might make a separate post just about the room.  After dropping off our stuff, we got right to relaxing!  We went out to the beach, and found a little hut, and sat down.  We were brought cold bottles of water, cold wash clothes (to put on our necks) and a little mister bottle to spray ourselves down.  It’s pretty hard to not be relaxed in a place like that. 

 

 

 

 

 

We started getting hungry, so we walked down the main road to find some cheap food.  Along the beach it is entirely resorts, and the restaurants are all very expensive.  They are not just expensive by Indonesian prices, they were expensive for places in the USA!  So we walked out to the road, and the difference was night and day.  The beach felt like any beach resort town in the USA, but the road felt like Indonesia again!  Stores selling the same touristy junk, little to no sidewalk (our resort was not in Nusa Dua proper, but the next town north called Tanjung Benoa)  We found a road side stand that sold us two meals, dessert, and filled up our water bottle for $5!  And the food was delicious!  For dinner we went to a small warung where a few of the employees from our hotel were eating.  That’s how we knew we were eating in the right place.

 

After some more relaxing at the beach, we went back to our room to take a bath.  Our room came with a bath set which had some mineral salts, candle, and flower petals.  It was VERY relaxing.  We soaked for a while enjoying the flickering candle as the last of the day light faded.  It was incredibly romantic, which is not something we do often, so it was a nice change of pace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After feeling fully relaxed we went to one of the Hotel’s restaurants (It had 3) to see some Balinese dancing(left), and have some dessert.  Dessert was delicious (if a little expensive) and the dancing was mediocre.  The picture of the dancers didn’t come out so well, but the picture of the stage did!.  It was a beautiful night, and we could see a bunch of stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our goal was to come ot Nusa Dua to relax, and on our first day we had done a terrific job!

Om Swastiastu!

Om swastiastu is a formal Balinese greeting which can be roughly translated in Hebrew as "Shalom" or in English as, "Have peace and safety". Technically this is a Sanskrit phrase and along with Hinduism, it originated in India and was brought to Bali later on. Anyhow, the corresponding symbol is also quite popular here. It is associated with well-being and luck and it's pretty common to see this symbol on houses, gates, and jewelry.




At first it is a little strange to see this symbol displayed so prominently, since we usually associate it with something else entirely. The first few times we saw it around it threw us off guard a bit. But once you get to know the people here and a little bit about the culture, it becomes just an an ordinary sighting in Bali. The people here are among the friendliest and most welcoming that I have ever met. They are very accepting of the numerous tourists who visit their island, no matter where you are from or what your background. They might look at you funny if you are doing something that doesn't make sense in their culture, but that is about the extent of their cultural insensitivity. Considering how friendly and helpful everyone has been, I really stopped noticing the symbol on houses except when I was looking for it. Around here we were able to stop thinking of the symbol as "something bad" every time we caught a glimpse of it on someone's house. However, I think if I were to see this symbol in most other parts of the world I would be far more uneasy.

This one was on a sign pointing to our hotel in Nusa Lembongan.

And this one is on Ganesha's hand in our home-stay in Ubud.

Leaving Ubud

Today we are leaving Ubud :(  We are going to Nusa Dua for our last weekend.  Nusa Dua is the fancy beach resort town, and we are looking forward to relaxing in the sun on the beach before getting back on the plane to head home.

We will miss you Ubud!

Klungkung. Not just a sound your pipes make!

Yesterday was our last full day in Ubud.

We woke up early to go on a nice bike ride up north.  Most of the bike ride looked like this.  Beautiful rice patties, with a back drop of palm trees.  On occasion we would get glimpses of Mount Agung, which is a giant volcano towards the middle of the Island.  This mountain is very important in Balinese culture.  Each town has a temple of death, and normally the temple is on the Moutn Agung side of the town.  Also when giving directions, Balinese do not use north and south.  They have a word which means toward the mountain and away from the mountain.  Obviously this direction changes depending on which side of the mountain you are on.

During this bike ride we went in to a store and took this picture.  Thats a lot of cats.  CATS CATS CATS CATS CATS CATS.
















After the bike ride we decided to get Balinese massages.  This was a GREAT idea.  They were about 7 dollars each, for an hour of relaxing soothing massaging.

We had to go to the Bumi Sehat office to get our volunteer t-shirts, and used this as an excuse to go through monkey forest one last time.  And this is what we saw.  There were a bunch of monkeys swimming in a small ravine trying to cool off.  It was incredibly cute.  We watched them frolic in the water for a while, and then said our final goodbyes to the monkeys

Once we got over our jealousy of the monkeys for being able to go for a swim,  we got a taxi to Klungkung, which was the old central kingdom of Bali, until they were slaughtered by the Dutch around 1908 (Jerks).  We went to the hall of Justice (what a great name).  This was the supreme court of the Klungkun kingdom.  There were two main huts, one for the supreme court, and one for the king.  They both had ornate illustrations on the ceilings, telling traditional Balinese stories.  We tried to take some pictures, but the pictures do not really convey how crazy these buildings are.

There was also a small museum which talked about the Dutch conquering Klungkun, and how the Dutch won easily since they had guns, and the Balinese had spears and daggers.  The whole complex was quite beautiful, and was well worth the visit.  And we also took this picture.

After Klungkun we went to Petulu.  This area is noteworthy since every evening thousands of white herons return from finding food during the day.  Every where you look you see these white herons.  They roost in the trees, and litter the road below with their feces.  We were even lucky enough to see some baby white herons.  It was hard to take a picture of them without a zoom lens, since they often roosted quite high in the trees.  Every morning they leave, and then come back in the evening.  The birds just started roosting there in the late 60s.  Legend says that these birds are reincarnations of thousands of Balinese that were slaughtered during the Indonesian communist regime in the 60s.  These birds are considered holy by the Balinese.

By the time we got done with all of this, we were quite tired, so we went home to rest up, and have dinner with the volunteers who will be replacing us.  The highlight of the night was dessert, when we went to a Cuban themed restaurant.  I had Tres Leche cake.  It was DELICIOUS!  They also had a very good Latin music band comprised entirely of Indonesians.  We were VERY impressed.  There was also salsa dancing, which we are terrible at, but we gave it a try anyway.  There were some very good dancers though, so that was fun to watch while we ate.  Then we headed home for sleep.

Now we are packing to leave Ubud, which we are very sad about.  We are off to the beach to spend a few days in the sand and sun before getting on a plane for 36 hours of travel home.