Summer Vacation
Charles Galbach
changed in two weeks. We are currently recovering from a short 15 day visit
to the US Pacific Northwest and the Canada Pacific Southwest. The return
redeye flight east across 3 time zones proved more tiring than the flight
west.
The trip began with an uneventful flight to Seattle/Tacoma Airport, WA,
landing late at night. A short trip in a rental car to a non-descript hotel
ended the day's rather low level of activities - mostly sitting around at
the airport for a couple hours and sitting on an airplane for 5 more hours.
After a too-short night's rest, it was on to Seattle proper, where the
activity level increased considerably.
Someone had mentioned that traffic in and around Seattle was terrible. We
found it not too bad, though one thing I noticed was somewhat annoying.
Several times we found ourselves behind drivers traveling abreast of each
other across 2 or 3 lanes, at 5 to 10 miles below the speed limit. There
was thin or no traffic in front of them, and they were seemingly
deliberately impeding traffic flow, but more likely just half asleep. Not
knowing the local driving habits, or laws, we just followed along. Here in
Pennsylvania, it is illegal to cruise or drive slowly in the left lane, but
maybe not in Washington.
Activities at Seattle began at Seattle Center on the old site of the Seattle
world's fair. The only item of real interest at that site was the visit to
the top of the space needle. What a spectacular view of Seattle and
environs. It was a very worthwhile venture. Weather was very good for
viewing the closer areas, although some haze prevented seeing the more
distant mountains very clearly. The apparently new Music Center was pretty
outlandish to an outsider. I realize that it is supposed to be a work of art
and makes some Washingtonians proud. But to the unkempt of the east it
appeared to be simply a way to employ a bunch of old Boeing riveters on a
large public accessible project. The theme is apparently of a group of
broken guitars. Granted it looks like something broken. But close up, it
also looks more like the results of a bunch of old airplane workers gone
awry, with it's closely riveted curved aluminum panel construction.
After a walking tour of the area and some souvenir shopping, it was off to
downtown on the elevated monorail. Nice, quick ride to town. Downtown is
very enjoyable. We spent much of the day visiting the Pike Street Market
district. Lots to see, do, eat, enjoy. We hadn't planned to spend any real
time in Seattle, so we didn't see too much beyond Seattle Center and Pike
Street. Then it was off on an evening drive to Vancouver, BC, where we
checked in to an in-town hotel and parked the car for 3 days.
The first day in Vancouver was spent mostly walking (blindly) about town.
Later, we found out why there are supposedly so many young people on the
streets of the city. It is apparently a place of very high drug availability
and use. After seeing some areas of the town that is not too hard to
believe. However, there are many very interesting sights and sites. Some of
the more interesting sounding places we set aside as somewhat distant and we
expected them on a later planned organized tour. One of the most spectacular
places, however, was Granville Island and the markets. It was a two-dollar
(ca) per person water taxi-ride each way from the small Hornby Street dock
downtown. All the shops and restaurants are, for the most part, privately
owned - that is, not a chain. We haven't seen such a tremendous variety of
enticingly fresh produce, flowers, seafood and other fresh food products
anywhere in the east.
My wife was also quite taken with the wood workers coop. The stuff was just
beautiful beyond description. A gorgeous driftwood and whalebone desk
tickled her fancy but even with the very favorable exchange rate of 1.44/1,
$24,000 CA was wayyyy beyond our means. Even a very fine specimen sewing lap
desk at $600 was seemingly pretty pricey. But for someone with no concern
over price, the quality of the worksmanship was just superb.
We spent part of the next day on an organized tour of Vancouver. High points
were Stanley Park, Chinatown (one of the largest in North America) and a
re-visit to Granville Island, along with numerous smaller or less notable
points of interest. The remainder of the day was spent privately revisiting
some of the guided tour places. Food in general was quite good. Since we
don't live near water at home, we indulged in plenty of seafood. No raw
(sushi) or especially (ugh!) fried seafood for us, however. All seafood was
poached, baked or broiled.
The final full day was long and tiring but exciting and spectacular. We
joined an organized tour to Victoria, the BC province capitol, on Vancouver
Island. It was approximately an hour and a half ferry ride to Victoria
aboard the newest BC Ferries vessel (the name escapes me). Warm clothes were
recommended and much appreciated as we were able to spend the last half of
the trip to Swartz Bay past the gulf islands on deck. Scenery was just
gorgeous. Again, haze prevented a good view back toward the mountains of the
mainland. Mt. Baker should have been visible, but as in Seattle, there is
air pollution in Vancouver that inhibits some potentially spectacular views.
However, later from Victoria we were able to see the mountains of the
mainland rising above the haze.
The tour of Victoria began with a drive from Swartz Bay to Victoria and then
east to the Oak Bay area for some exceedingly scenic vistas. Then on to
Royal BC Museum to point out our later meeting point and thence up
Government Street to Pandora Avenue where we commenced an individual walking
tour back down to the museum. Sights included Fan Tan Alley, at one meter
wide, supposedly the narrowest alley with shops in North America and the
site of several movies scenes including a motorcycle chase in a not too old
movie whose name I can't recall. Then down to Bastion Square and many side
streets, home to lots of shops and excellent eateries.
Later in the day, we spent an hour or so, but not long enough, visiting the
Royal BC Museum, after which we met our tour group and headed north. The
next part of the tour is essentially indescribable. We spent a couple hours
in Buchart Gardens, which for my horticulturally inclined wife was virtually
a life enriching experience. The gardens occupy most of the 140-acre
property of a wealthy cement manufacturing tycoon of the early part of the
twentieth century. His wife began by creating a sunken garden to improve the
look of the factory's limestone pit on the back of the property where their
home was located. As the gardens grew in variety and size, they spilt onto
much of the remainder of the acreage. Now still privately owned as a
commercial sight seeing spot by descendents of the family, it employs some
600 of which 65 are full time professional gardeners. The head gardener even
has a residence on the property. Whether engaging in micro-photography or
macro-photography or both, one could spend many days and literally dozens or
even hundreds of rolls of film and not run out of subjects. The gardens were
certainly one of the highlights of the trip.
Then it was back on the ferry to Vancouver, arriving in time for a late
dinner and a good nights rest before proceeding south toward our destination
in Oregon. The trip past Seattle was not too bad, in spite of the traffic.
There are thru lanes that assist one in bypassing much of the local traffic
and ease the way past the city. Unfortunately, the weather had turned cloudy
and rainy and the trip to the Washington and Oregon coast proved somewhat
disappointing. Also, I hadn't realized the devastation of the communities
caused by the decline and/or automation of the lumbering industry. Some of
the towns looked just as bad or worse than some former steel towns in
Pennsylvania or worn out former coal towns in Appalachia. There seems to be
enough money to support the usual chain stores like the McDonalds and
Walmarts, but finding a decent non-chain place to eat was difficult.
Strangely enough, at least to me, was that there were some fairly decent
Mexican restaurants in the region. That's about all we could find for a late
lunch and we enjoyed it nevertheless. The scenery at the mouth of the
Columbia river was quite inspiring but limited by the cloudy and rainy
weather. The Oregon coast proved equally affected by the weather, so we
proceeded to Portland Oregon for a night's visit.
We spent no appreciable time in Portland, but it seems to be a very nice
city. It is larger and much more spread out than we expected and might prove
worth a real exploratory visit some time in the future. We continued south
to where we were expected. After a couple days in a small college town
visiting and resting, we accompanied our hosts to the east to a private
lakeside cabin high in the Cascades. We thought this might be a place for
additional rest and solitude and took along some reading material. We never
had the time to read. After long scenic and invigorating hikes in the
mountains, preparation of meals, very enjoyable lakeside breakfasts and
dinners on the boat dock and some of the most spectacular star gazing in the
world, sleep came easily and soundly.
One of the most awesome experiences of the vacation began the second day of
the visit to the mountain retreat. While returning from a long hike, but
still a couple miles from the cabin, we heard a long low-pitched sound, sort
of like a moan. I thought it might be a bear. But our host told us there had
never been a bear sighting in that particular area. Without running, we
proceeded directly back to the cabin, but several times we heard rustling
sounds maybe 20 to 40 yards off to our right and were pretty sure something
was following us. We had our host's dog, a large very beautiful border
collie with us. It is solely a people dog and did not wander off to
investigate the sounds.
The next morning I found out what had likely followed us from up on the
mountain. The border collie loves to chase a Frisbee. I was tossing the
Frisbee for him when a very large animal appeared and ran toward the dog. It
had every appearance of a wolf and was more than twice the size of the 56
pound collie. The collie froze, but the wolf seemed only interested in
playing, jumping about almost like a domestic dog. The collie does not play
with other dogs and after a few moments gingerly came to my side. The wolf
stayed back. But it did not leave the area.
Later when talking to a woman from a neighboring cabin I learned that the
wolf had appeared at a lodge about a half-mile down the lake a couple years
before. It was young and very emaciated but full grown. The wolf had
apparently been attracted to a pet dog owned by a lodge visitor. People at
the lodge began to put out food for the wolf and it continued to stay nearby
and attempted to play with dogs visiting the lodge. As it gained strength
and size, the local game warden heard about the wolf and it's attempts to
play with dogs. Being concerned about this, he tranquilized the wolf and
gave it the usual domestic dog shots including that for rabies. No one knows
if the wolf is full-blooded or a cross-breed. But it certainly looks exactly
like pictures of full-blooded wolves and is of the appropriate size of
between 110 and 120 pounds.
Some don't think it is full blooded since it has become more and more
domesticated. The neighbor woman had tried to reach out and pet it last year
but it drew away. This year, our host, my wife, myself and the neighbor
woman were all able to briefly pet the wolf, but mostly when it's attention
was on the collie. I managed to get a picture of my wife petting the wolf.
It came right to her and did not pull back when she slowly raised her arm
and petted it's cheek. It did walk off after several seconds of this and did
not return to her. The picture does not do the scene justice. The head of
the wolf seemed even bigger than my wife's, but in the picture it seems
about the same size. Two dimensions don't always convey things accurately.
It is obvious, however, that the wolf is almost the size of my 130 pound
wife. It is very gentle but quite skittish when a human is touching it. The
tail drops and is still, the ears stand straight up, and it only remains
there for a few moments while being petted.
It is very obvious that one should refrain from sudden movements around this
thing. The only other thing I noticed is that the wolf does not respond in
any way to human mouth noises. When one whistles, clicks the tongue, talks
or makes other mouth noises, most domesticated dogs will at least look at
the person. This wolf did not acknowledge hearing anything. But when
approached, even from a distance, by another dog, it heard it turned
immediately toward it. It also responded to the sound of a dog barking
softly way off in the distance.
After returning from the mountains, we embarked on more normal tourist
ventures. A visit to crater lake was just awesome and hard to describe.
There are many potential dangers just visiting this place since there is no
barrier in many places to a potentially deadly fall into the abyss. At one
point I was simply walking along a concrete paved sidewalk past a broken out
section when I realized that from the broken section it was many hundreds of
feet straight down to the lake with nothing to grab or impede one's fall. It
was a pretty scary sight. But all of the scenery was beautiful and
spectacular.
Likewise was the visit to Mt. St. Helen's. I did not realize the park
service's closest viewing site looked directly into the maw of the exploded
side of the mountain from a mere six miles away nor did I recall that the
explosion was of the magnitude of 2700 Hiroshima sized atomic bombs. When
one stands there and turns around 180 degrees and sees huge flattened tree
trunks on a hillside almost twice as far away as the volcano and realizes
that this spot on which one is standing was a 100 percent deadly point
during the eruption, it is an indescribable feeling and scene. Some of the
close up flattened tree trunks are immense - and they were no more than
toothpicks in the face of the blast and heat of the 1980 eruption.
The final place we tried to visit was Mt. Ranier. We were told that the best
views were from within the park. So we paid our $10 entrance fee, went to
several viewing points and were disappointed in catching only hazy glimpses
of the mountain through small gaps in the clouds and haze. We finally gave
up, as it was late in the day. After declaring defeat, leaving and resuming
our drive north, we were suddenly presented with the most spectacular views
of Mt. Ranier right from WA route 7. We laughed at how hard we had tried to
get good views and how they just simply happened after we quit for the day.
The remainder of the trip was spent on some minor souvenier shopping,
getting several rolls of film developed, a restless night at another
non-descript chain hotel, re-packing the luggage, getting rid of the rental
car, sitting at the airport and suffering a seemingly long night flight
home. The flight was only 4 hours, but with the time zone change will take a
couple days from which to recover from a most enjoyable vacation.
That's about all the vacation story I'm able to muster,
Chuck
FMMN
Long tripolog!
The place is totally different without you.
Charles Galbach wrote:
>
> Well, its time to catch up on the newsgroup events. Seems not much has
> changed in two weeks. We are currently recovering from a short 15 day visit
> to the US Pacific Northwest and the Canada Pacific Southwest. The return
> redeye flight east across 3 time zones proved more tiring than the flight
> west.
>
> <snip tripolog that took awhile to write>
>
> The remainder of the trip was spent on some minor souvenier shopping,
> getting several rolls of film developed, a restless night at another
> non-descript chain hotel, re-packing the luggage, getting rid of the rental
> car, sitting at the airport and suffering a seemingly long night flight
> home. The flight was only 4 hours, but with the time zone change will take a
> couple days from which to recover from a most enjoyable vacation.
>
> That's about all the vacation story I'm able to muster,
>
> Chuck
--
f. m. mcneill Business: http://www.fuzzysys.com
"You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it, 'You're nothing but a pack of neurons.'" Francis Crick 1994
"To explain something in terms of its interacting components does not mean you explain it away. For example, if a physiologist were to publish a paper explaining the neural basis of sex, i.e. in terms of the activity of neurons in the hypothalamus, septum and other limbic circuits, and if .... were to read the paper, would they suddenly stop having orgasms or stop engaging in sex? Or would reading about the detailed physiological mechanisms and evolutionary origins of digestion suddenly stop you from enjoying or digesting food?" V. S. Ramachandran 1999
CLScott101
especially of the wolf. Some of your trip duplicates what I did a year ago.
However, you saw much more of Vancouver, and I didn't get to take the trip to
Victoria which I hope to some day.
Thanks for sharing.
-Connie S
Charles Galbach
news:20000804180956...@ng-ff1.aol.com...
If you plan to take the trip to Victoria and expect to stay only a short
time, as did I, I would strongly suggest the bus tour. The bus tour includes
paid fees for the ferry (with a vehicle, the fee is I think $28 CA each
way), includes tickets to Butchart Gardens and the Royal BC museum, and
includes guided tours of Oak Bay and several other scenic areas in and
around Victoria. Were you to go on your own with a vehicle, the tickets and
fees would amount to some $80 CA. The tour price was $104/person CA if I
remember correctly (I haven't gotten the bills yet). So the tour really only
costs one around $25 CA. With the usual talkative driver, one gets a better
perspective and a broader though quick view of many sights while on the tour
compared to traveling with just a map and tour book. In fact, I'm pretty
sure we would have gotten lost a few times without the driver. The hotels
are happy to arrange for the tour and can apparently do so quickly. I don't
know about availability on weekends though. The senior discounts apply only
to age 65 and over and are quite small - just a couple dollars for the
Victoria tour. Unless you are planning a car load of people and/or a longer
stay, the tour is reasonable and a good way to get a lot of sightseeing in a
single day. The day was quite long - about 13 1/2 - 14 hours with a fair
amount of walking. So if you tire easily, it might not be practical.
We thought Vancouver (the city), Granville Island, Victoria and Butchart
Gardens were all just excellent sightseeing places. Opportunities for
photography are everywhere, for every taste. Food was likewise generally
very good to excellent. People were exceedingly friendly and helpful and the
experience was, in general, superb.
Chuck
Rumpelstiltskin
<galb...@pgh.net> wrote:
Thanks, and very timely. My house-guest is thinking of visiting
Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. I printed your posts out for him.
Connect
wolf/dog was interesting and kind of sad too. It sounded like a
misfit that had difficulty surviving in the wild but couldn't accept
the offers of domesticity. It remains the lone and lonely wolf still
looking for the pack.
Doris Carter Ford
: I enjoyed your description of your travels. The story about the
The part I liked about that story was the fact that he was given
the necessary shots not destroyed as most systems would have would have done.
He seems to have found a way to survive in a tolerant enviorment.
Many, all too many human 'missfits' dream of such a life.
Doris F.
FMMN
--
Ponce de Leon
<Connect @introuble.net (AJ)> wrote in message
news:398c1073...@news.rdu.bellsouth.net...
Charles Galbach
news:NRVi5.637$T9.46@firefly...
> In soc.retirement Connect wrote:
> : I enjoyed your description of your travels. The story about the
> : wolf/dog was interesting and kind of sad too. It sounded like a
> : misfit that had difficulty surviving in the wild but couldn't accept
> : looking for the pack.
>
> The part I liked about that story was the fact that he was given
> the necessary shots not destroyed as most systems would have would have
done.
>
> He seems to have found a way to survive in a tolerant enviorment.
> Many, all too many human 'missfits' dream of such a life.
>
> Doris F.
My wife tells me I screwed up the wolf story a bit. She says the neighbor
lady said it was the US Forest Ranger who tranquilized the wolf. It wasn't
clear if he administered the shots or if they had a vet or someone else do
it. The lady said "the wolf dog was given rabies and other canine shots
after the Forest Ranger tranquilized it". Anyway, there was no mention of a
game warden. I'm from Pa and here a game warden would likely do something
like that, so I just screwed up the story with a Pa type twist.
I noticed someone mentioned they shoot wolves on sight. I've heard that some
folks, especially sheep ranchers, think the only good wolf is a dead wolf. I
suppose there's plenty of controversy in lots of things to do with "nature",
not just in politics. For my part, both my wife and I were happy to have had
the experience such as we had with this animal. It was really beautiful - at
least to us. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you've just
lost several thousand dollars worth of your assets to a wolf or anything
else, you've likely got an entirely different perspective on that - and
there's no real resolution that'll make everybody happy.
I understand that coyote's have really spread all over the country in recent
years. They've been spotted in our area. The only place I've personally seen
them was in Colorado Springs - but that was right in town. They supposedly
have a reputation for ganging up on and killing both pets and farm/ranch
animals. So far, at least, I've not heard of anyone trying to "save the
coyote". Must be lots of them.
Chuck
Ward Stewart
If travel articles are of general interest I would cheerfully post one
of a trip to Bali some years ago.
ward
---------------------------------------------
"We, as a people are in far far greater danger from
those who would abrogate the constitution for some
notions of what should or should not be published
than we will ever be from one or another piece of
pornography, however disgusting."
Ward
---------------------------------------------
Gene P. Ledbetter
: If you plan to take the trip to Victoria and expect to stay only a short
: time, as did I, I would strongly suggest the bus tour. The bus tour includes
: paid fees for the ferry (with a vehicle, the fee is I think $28 CA each
: way), includes tickets to Butchart Gardens and the Royal BC museum, and
: includes guided tours of Oak Bay and several other scenic areas in and
: around Victoria. Were you to go on your own with a vehicle, the tickets and
: fees would amount to some $80 CA.
Here in Victoria (virtually speaking), I've noticed the locals grumbling
about the disappearance of available parking space, so you might have
difficulty parking a vehicle.
Gene Ledbetter / ub...@freeet.victoria.tc.ca
Charles Galbach
news:3998c1ae.17206793@news-server...
Well I doubt that I'm the only one but I'd like to hear about Bali.
Chuck
Ward Stewart
<galb...@pgh.net> wrote:
>"Ward Stewart" <wste...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
>news:3998c1ae.17206793@news-server...
>> On Sat, 05 Aug 2000 05:57:59 GMT, PleaseDonot...@nowhere.com
>> (Rumpelstiltskin) wrote:
>>
>> >On Fri, 4 Aug 2000 15:36:12 -0400, "Charles Galbach"
>> ><galb...@pgh.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks, and very timely. My house-guest is thinking of visiting
>> >Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. I printed your posts out for him.
>> >
>>
>> If travel articles are of general interest I would cheerfully post one
>> of a trip to Bali some years ago.
>>
>> ward
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------
>> "We, as a people are in far far greater danger from
>> those who would abrogate the constitution for some
>> notions of what should or should not be published
>> than we will ever be from one or another piece of
>> pornography, however disgusting."
>> Ward
>> ---------------------------------------------
>
>Well I doubt that I'm the only one but I'd like to hear about Bali.
>
>Chuck
>
I'll drag it out of my hard-drive
ward
-------------------------------------------------------------
The 1964 Civil Rights Act is "the single most dangerous piece
of legislation ever introduced in the Congress"
He later opposed a national holiday for that
"pervert" Martin Luther King Jr.
Who but? Jesse Helms
-------------------------------------------------------------
Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it
has gotten into the wrong hands.
Senator Jesse Helms (R.-North Carolina)
----------------------------------------------------
Ward Stewart
<galb...@pgh.net> wrote:
>"Ward Stewart" <wste...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
>news:3998c1ae.17206793@news-server...
>> On Sat, 05 Aug 2000 05:57:59 GMT, PleaseDonot...@nowhere.com
>> (Rumpelstiltskin) wrote:
>>
>> If travel articles are of general interest I would cheerfully post one
>> of a trip to Bali some years ago.
>>
>> ward
>>
>
>Well I doubt that I'm the only one but I'd like to hear about Bali.
>
>Chuck
>
Here it is -- I hope it is not too large to go through the various
filters -- if it gets cut off, let me know.
-----------------------------
Ward & George 2085 Ala Wai, Honolulu
Shaloha Friends -
We made it to Indonesia and survived! Bali was tough
going but Java, Jakarta and Jogjakarta were pure hell complete with
running open sewers. Reeking of Feces; swirling with flies;
pullulating with beggars, hustlers, cut-purses and pickpockets of
every noisome degree of depravity. Dirt and disorder everywhere. All
the public streets and markets were as crowded and chaotic as the
stateroom in the Marx Brother's film.
We have gradually fallen into the middle-class
misconception that takes as an article of faith the notion that the
nearer human beings come to some sort of eighteenth century
approximation of "noble savage," the more they will be in harmony with
nature and appreciative of Gaia and all that muffle-headed malarkey at
the root of our liberal delusions. Basta! These people charge ahead
with a palpable contempt for the land and anything in or on it. They
strew filth and bio-indestructible plastic about them with such
abandon as to make Coney Island on a July Sunday look like the
balaboss' kitchen. A choking toxic fog fills the air as they try to
burn this sodden rubbish in little smudges in every gutter. The only
thing not floating in the open sewers are condoms. They are breeding
like bunnies and fouling their nests and if asked would probably blame
it on the Israelis. If what comes out of the back of your vehicle is
not actually aflame no-one pays any attention. There are virtually no
sidewalks in Jakarta and those that one finds are covered with little
filthy food stands running grease down into the dusty streets. To
finish off the quality of the ambient gasses, (one hesitates to call
it air) the locals incessantly smoke hideous cigarettes laced with
cloves. (up to one third by weight) This sounds as if it should be
aromatic and pleasing; actually, it smells like they"re smoking
feathers! The cloves anaesthetize the cough reflex and conceal the
damage being done. (oil of cloves is old-fashioned tooth ache drops)
The result is that if you don't soon light up another of these
poisonous coffin nails you will cough to the point of hemorrhage.
Desperate hoiking and yoiking and gasping and garfeling are
everywhere, part of the background music.
In these foetid streets there swarm bizarre and
disintegrating vehicles of every ramshackle description. Since it is
literally not possible to walk more than a few hundred feet in any
direction everyone rides in some sort of conveyance. Most of them are
driven by infernal combustion but many are hitched to miserable little
ponies with the general rickety wretchedness of wet dogs. The balance
were rickshaws of one kind or another wherein the poorest of the poor
draw one another about in the littered and greasy streets. They drive
with fiendish push and bland unconcern for life and limb -- all is
Kismet -- if your number is up God will take you and if not, nothing
can harm you. No one seems to have thought of Ben Franklin's tonic
dictum that perhaps, "God helps them that helps themselves." This
mischief is done to a steady katzenjammer of horn-blowing and further
is done on the left side of the road at high speed.
We did see, in Jakarta, the last really major wind
ship harbor in the world. There were miles of extraordinary Bugis
schooners moored at stone piers with their bowsprits soaring overhead.
These ancient and creaking vessels have, for centuries, followed the
trades from Madagascar to Irian Jaya and then back on a year long
trip. They were being unloaded, mostly of teak lumber, by an army of
barefoot lascars bringing the timber out a few lengths at a time and
walking it down narrow log gangplanks and over broken stoneyards into
stacks. The ships were being reloaded, again on peoples backs, with
sacks of cement and refrigerators and cases of Pepsi-Cola and ivory
and apes and indeed, every other imaginable item of commerce. All
this was to be found after traversing a neighborhood which, according
to our guidebook had been condemned by the Dutch in 18O9 due to
"unsanitary conditions." It was sold to Chinese traders who are
still here along with the rats.
Barely pausing to try to draw breath, we fled the
reeking chaos of Jakarta. This flight was accomplished by rail, very
comfortably ensconced in "Air Conditioned Class." We rode through
green and fertile country cultivated with astonishing intensity. It
seemed as if all the hillsides had been terraced into irrigable
fields, some as small as two square yards. The local climate allows
for three crops of rice a year and it was being grown everywhere by
dint of back-breaking labor. Although a third world poverty was the
economic note there did seem to be abundant food. We rode for some
twelve hours through green and pleasant country with occasional
glimpses of volcanos as majestic and symmetrical as Fuji. This trip,
of about six hundred miles, cost about fifteen dollars and meals were
provided.
This pleasant journey brought us to Jogjakarta where
all the travel writers promised artistic treats and perfumed delights.
All that was wonderful in Java was, we were told, to be found there in
the ancient capital and in the historic locales of graceful Jogya. If
you should ever be tempted to follow in our foot steps do not believe
one word in any of the guide books! Jogya is just as shitty as any
part of Java. (Or, indeed, of the world!) We ate twice, gratefully,
at Kentucky Fried Chicken so you may imagine what the food was like.
Again, the few broken sidewalks were covered with vile little food
stands. One of the local specialties at these stands seemed to be a
barbecue of chicken heads standing out all day under a blanket of
flies to be served out on a bed of gritty looking rice. George
wouldn't even look. The only good thing to be said about them was
that most of the feathers seemed to have been burned off.
We visited the dusty palace of the Sultan (Intensely
touted by the travel writers!) and found a series of gaudy sheds
looking rather like a neglected mid nineteenth century railway
terminal decorated by Disney and littered with Victorian tall clocks.
Frowsy glass cases held half melted wax replicas of royal personages
decked out in their moth-eaten finery. We followed past panoramas and
photographs of these same ineffably greasy royals first murdering each
other and then collaborating with the Dutch, then with the Japanese
and finally again with the Dutch. They had been immortalized in
hideous, enormous oil paintings, badly framed. These had been
executed, fortunately, on what looked to be window-shade cloth and
were hanging in dusty tatters. (Time as art critic!) We came at last
to a display of the personal effects of the penultimate sultan, dead
less than a decade, and passed through a room full of boots and suits,
chipped crockery, a shoe horn, some rather grubby hairbrushes, a small
kerosene stove and some kitchen tackle. I asked the charming and
uninformative guide if she felt herself improved by looking on this
rummage. She admitted that she did not but suggested that I was
missing the point. "You must understand -- this is a museum." The
woman was rather like fudge, sweet and dense.
Nearby was the ruin of the eighteenth century palace
of a prior regnancy. It had been built on, in, under and around an
artificial lake and a moat, now dry. Called the Taran Sarai, (Water
Palace), it had been destroyed by earthquake and volcanic ash fall
some time near the turn of the eighteenth century and had been
abandoned. It was altogether more ambitious in scale and, from what
might be deduced from the remnants, measurelessly more felicitous in
architecture and ornamentation. Amid these Piranesi-esque ruins a
small city of artisans and a public market specializing in rackety
birds had been built and then partially cleared away so that the
remnants of the palace might be seen. A splendid sight.
In Jogya we did see a performance of part of the
Ramayana Ballet. It was entirely wonderful and the dancers and
costumes were glorious. Unhappily it was being attended by only a
handful of tourists. This is Muslim territory and one must remember
that Rama and Sita and all the gaudy rest are Gods and anathema to
Islam. In Bali the same sort of performances were done before packed
houses with all the unsold spaces filled with locals taking great
pleasure.
A few miles out of Jogya are the restored ruins of an
unbelievably vast Buddhist stupa called Borobodur and a slightly less
ancient Hindu temple, called Prambanan, of soaring, startling beauty.
-- Climbing and puffing around these buildings; one could not escape
the observation that one of the great blessings of European
architecture has been the idea that in a flight of steps all the
risers and treads should be uniform, or at least harmonious, in size.
A freestyle approach to steps is found here in modern and ancient
buildings alike and does not accept arthritis or bifocals with grace.
Descending a series of risers ranging randomly from twelve to eighteen
inches in height yanks every muscle attachment, sinew and tendon to
the max. Finding that the last step is of only 2 inches will then
rattle your vertebrae like cast dice. Chiropractic heaven!
During our few days in Java we met only one person we
would ever wish to see again. She was the proprietress of a tiny, two
table, restaurant. The food was the usual stuff but was unaccountably
delicious and the woman was civil and evidently pleased with her
uniquely clean establishment. It developed that she and her family
were survivors of the terrible anti-Chinese pogroms back in the
sixties. The remnants of the Chinese community have been required to
conform their names to the Indonesian standard, display no Chinese
pictographs on their places of business and eat, at least in public,
with forks and spoons or their fingers. When we had the temerity to
leave behind a fifty cent tip this good lady came chasing after us on
the street to return our money.
Distracted by Vietnam and our own paranoia about
Communism and the Chinese Mainland we averted out eyes while Sukarno"s
government and these gentle smiling people slaughtered uncounted
hundreds of thousands of their brightest and best citizens. The
analogy to the expulsion and slaughter of the Jews of Spain springs to
mind and it is clear to me that, without someone to plan for the
future and think of the present, the country is running with wet
spark-plugs and will perhaps share the dismal fate of Spain, which
went on to silly ventures. The Armada and the Inquisition, the tragic
conquest of South America, and half a millennium of poverty and
disorder. It was explained that the Chinese owned all the business
and controlled all the banks and all the money and so on. Where have
we heard this before? Poland and the USSR are sinking, perhaps, in
part, as a result of the same hideous folly. I must admit that the
Germans seem to be rising above it. Perhaps it is punishment enough
just being German.
Back to Jakarta, where we never left the aerodrome,
and on to Bali! Bali was entirely a mixed bag, almost as smoky and
dirty as Java but filled with the most graceful and comely people
imaginable. They have avoided the stifling monotheism of the covenant
of Abraham and the gruesome and iconoclastic crusades of Islam and
Christianity. They continue, for the now, to cheerfully worship
anything which will stand still. Our hotels were littered with tiny
squares of banana leaf with a few grains of rice on them and with
little leaf trays of flowers. These were to be seen in front of every
home, every place of business, every old tree and almost any large
rock along the wayside.
There are three major possible visitor destinations on
Bali, Sanur, has luxury hotels but the town is shut off from the rest
of the world by a gate and a guard. I am never able to view such a
structure without feeling that it is me that they are seeking to
exclude. We were told that in the resort hotels of Sanur, gift shops
and hired performers bring Bali to the guests so that they never have
to struggle into Bali to see Bali. It is brought to them on wool
carpeting, air conditioned and sanitized. We gave Sanur the pass.
The next is something called Kuta. We visited there
for an hour and came away, like Lot and his missus, without a backward
glance. We were told that Kuta is the Waikiki of Bali. This is a
gross canard on Waikiki. Kuta was filled with exceedingly gloomy
Germans and frenetic Australians fleeing winter down under. Every
visible inch of the shop fronts was devoted to the hectic peddling of
slimpsy goods of all kinds. The beach was narrow and dirty and filled
with gruesome folk, The female of the species were, many of them,
sunning themselves without the mercy of a concealing bustier. In some
odd way this bimboizing was nastily discordant compared with the
matter of fact display of the bosoms of the Balinese in rural
precincts. Hawkers and peddlers swooped and shrieked like gulls over a
garbage scow. The water was a drab grey, not at all the turquoise and
cerulean we have become accustomed to in Hawaii. The Aussies were as
the Gadarene Swine meeting the sea. We fled.
Ubud was our choice. It is at an elevation of about a
thousand feet and, although we were on the Equator and the days were
warm, the nights were cool and we slept, without air-conditioning,
under light blankets. It was explained to us that July is winter in
Australia and that cool air sweeping from down under is the reason for
Bali"s temperate climate. This sounds a pleasing theory and may even
be true.
Our hotel, there in Ubud, was of a peculiarity. It
was counted as one of the best in town and cost thirty dollars a night
for the two of us. It was built on the model of the home of a wealthy
and important person and consisted of a series of beautifully carved
and ornamented stone and brick pavilions with thatched roofs. These
were scattered in a lovely garden. The garden gave access to a
glorious acre of lotus pond and a temple. In the garden were a small
army of fighting chickens, each in a wicker cage, each singing loudly.
These nasty foul were doted on by their owners who were to be seen at
all hours of the day and evening carrying them around the town under
their arms and talking to them, presumably words of encouragement.
They were silent only at night. (And, T.G., in the stew pot.)
Ubud and nearby Pejang and Teges are foci of some of
the oldest Balinese culture and the shrines are of millennial age.
Actually, few of the structures are of great age. The brick and stone
of which they are built and which is so lavishly and fantastically
carved are startlingly soft and weather with astonishing speed. The
stone is what we call, here in Hawaii, Lithified Sand. Added to this
is the hazard that we are very much in earthquake country and
everything is shaken down every century or so. The result is new
temples, continually being worked on and replaced, and ancient idols.
These icons have been preserved from a series of prior temples and
many of them have been reduced by time and trauma to all but shapeless
lumps of soft stone. They are taken out at intervals, dressed, fed,
draped with flowers and worshipped with great devotional vigor.
We attended one of these renewals at a temple
identified by a roadside sign as being, like the Omphalos at Delphi,
the "Navel of the World." We were the only foreign visitors, although
only five miles away from mobs of tourists, and were made entirely
welcome. In the forecourts there were several kinds of gambling and
card games and what appeared to be fortune telling. These were played
with cards of exotic shape. Some were round, some looked like
dominoes and others had odd pictures. Chicken fights were going on
both as devotion and as gambling. There was an exuberant commerce in
food and fabric and novelties and small household necessaries of all
sorts. The serried rows of ancient idols had been brought out and
were frocked in sprightly fig. The temple set of fantastical Barong
Masks and costumes had been brought out and they were being worshipped
unrestrainedly. We were told that there would be Barong dancing from
midnight until six in the morning but gave it the go by. Dog Fights
were also promised for later but we missed them. (There are hordes of
nasty quarrelsome snapping curs on every street in Bali and exposure
to them was enough to relieve us of all prejudice in the matter. One
could only wish for a grand tournament with the sole survivor to be
drowned!)
Happily, Ubud is a great art center and there was
nightly performance of one or another classic dance or opera. These
ranged from paralyzingly boring to utterly thrilling and we missed
almost none of them. Kecak, Legong, Barong, Baris, Wayang, Trance,
Keris. Each offering had been trimmed to about one to one and a half
hours and was tolerable. The idea of six hours of gamelan, all
through the night, was paralyzing. The music is glorious, shimmering
and silvery but, to our unaccustomed ears, not particularly various.
The music is intoxicating when played at a distance on a quiet
tropical night. These performances were devotional and each offering
was opened by a Brahmin priest aspersing holy water over the gamelan,
the dancers, and the audience. In spite of their wonderful repute we
found the shadow puppets tedious.
The Ramayana and The Mahabarata, Hindu epics, which
are the matter from which all this is drawn seem to be sweeping sagas
of good guys and bad guys. They wear black hats and white hats so
that we shall not be confused. The bad guys seem to be as
motivationless as Iago; simply bad for the sake of badness. They are
inevitably defeated. The good guys always win, the bad guys always
lose, and nothing changes The ladies are hopelessly ditsy: they
comport themselves like a 194O"s movie heroine fluttering hopelessly
over a broken shoe heel. No one seems to learn from the last chapter
and with each opening the good guys, often egged on by the greed or
silliness of a woman, commit some new folly. The gamelan crashes and
shimmers, the singers scream through their noses, and the posse rides
out again.
The history of Bali is no less complex than that of
anywhere else and is bewildering at times. As nearly as we were able
to make out there were aboriginal people called the Bali Aga. (Still
to be found in isolated pockets.) They subscribed to a sort of
pantheism or animism and all the usual human practices of social
savagery. There were a few people to be seen in the cities who did
not look at all like the rest. Shorter and darker and shabbier than
most, they drifted quietly through the throngs. Most of the women
were wearing necklaces of what looked like coins. When we asked who
they might be we got blank stares as if they did not exist. Were
these the Bali Aga? They were identified as "tribal people ... not of
interest." To our eyes they might have been Gypsies and were keeping
apart like our Gypsies.
During the 14th century Javanese Buddhist and Hindu
idolaters and eaters of pig were driven out of Java by Muslims. These
Javanese refugees then seized power from the Bali Aga and today"s Bali
came into existence during the ensuing centuries. They created a
syntheses of Hinduism and Buddhism with the various preexisting
Animisms. It is as if Judaism, Islam and Christianity had merged and
then conformed themselves to the many templed polytheism of Rome. One
of the tenets of this amalgamation is that Bali sits somehow in the
middle of the universe and unless worship is carried out continuously
and meticulously the entire engine will grind to a halt.
The Balinese maintained their isolation and did little
trading except for selling off their surplus citizens as slaves. The
Dutch were unwelcome and little interested in the island until the
middle of the Nineteenth Century when they decided in their lumpen and
hoydenish manner that the intensely civilized Balinese were in need of
further refinement and gin and stuff. There followed the usual coarse
and atrocious process of empire building. After plenteous slaughter
they allowed the rulers to immolate themselves and installed a new
arrangement of more compliant boot lickers. It must be admitted that
they did eradicate the slave-trade.
The Hollanders were driven out by the Japanese who,
for a few vivid years, surpassed them in savagery. Finally the
Japanese, in their turn, were driven out by the allies and back came
the Dutch who fought murderously to preserve what was not theirs.
(With arms supplied them by freedom loving Americans.) In the late
forties The Hollanders were finally driven out again and the
Indonesians, (read Javanese) took control of as much of the
archipelago as they could grab. Java is overpopulated and cultivated
to the maximum and is, therefore, exporting Muslim Javanese to the
rest of the archipelago in spite of local resistance by the
beleaguered citizens. In Hoc Signe Vinces!! (or was that us?)
Manifest Destiny! That was us.
And so, we arrive in the Bali of today. A lovely
place filled with lovely people mired in the confusions of the third
world. Coming, as we do, from Oahu we were forced to compare Bali
with home. On the grounds of scenery, landscape and the like it falls
far short of home. There are spectacular volcanos which, unhappily
were visible for only a few minutes at a time, in the morning. By ten
a strange vog or smog of some kind appears and they and the horizon
are lost from view. They are bombastically named Gunnung Agung and
Gunnung Abang and loom threateningly, trailing plumes of volcanic
discharge. Unlike the tamer volcanos of our own Big Island they are
inclined to sudden and explosive eructations. Bali is only three or
four islands away from Krakatoa. Surprisingly, there were relatively
few flowers to be seen. Here in Hawaii there are public plantings of
all sorts and every vista is floriferous; there, there seemed to be
but little in the way of visible flower gardening.
In Bali, cremation is the usual funerary practice.
The newly dead are buried while the families marshall their resources
for a gala send-off. The custom is to wait for a year or two until
there has been mortality enough to allow for a pooling of funds and a
group cremation. While we were in Ubud twelve of their recently dead
were cremated. First, they were disinterred and the osseous remnants
ceremoniously packed up and taken home with a freshly sacrificed pig
(such squealing!) for final adieux and a farewell feast. After two or
three days they were brought back to town in noisy processions and
loaded onto gaudy palanquins. These and a series of towers and
sarcophagi were fastened onto huge bamboo frames and tottered out of
town with drumming and boiler factory music by mobs of men in a
chaotic procession. Part of the point of the exercise is that it be
done on a winding and indirect path so that the spirits are not able
to retrace their steps. The sarcophagi were in the form of beasts.
There were huge Garudas, Lions, Bulls and Cows. The bovines were
impressive indeed. Ten feet tall, covered with the brightest red
velour paper, ornamented with gold-paper jewelry, gaudy to a fault;
they had the most extraordinary genitalia. The females were equipped
with raised tails and vulvas two feet high, six inches wide, lined
with red velour and fringed with wreaths of black cut paper. The
bulls were equipped with phalluses gilded and decorated to a fault and
sized appropriately to the females. Rather like barber poles they
were. These formidable embellishments were suspended on cords under
the animals so that they swung and bobbed about in what can only be
described as an eye-catching manner.
This chimerical procession proceeded to the cemetery
grounds, still pocked with the yawning graves so recently vacated;
and, oddly enough, not filled in. There, after prolonged hubbub and
ceremony, the carnival gear and the remnants were set fire to and the
spirits sent on their final journey in hopes that they would not turn
back. I certainly wouldn"t. The cosmology of the Balinese seems to
be swarming with spirits both malign and benevolent. At contrast with
our notions in this area, these creatures seem to be singularly
obtuse. All too easily baffled; unable to follow a crooked trail or
get through a doorway if a wall forces them to make a turn. This must
be contrasted with our notion of a wily, resourceful Satan, able to
trick the almighty himself into tormenting his loyal servant Job and
lying in wait to trap the rest of us at every turn. Old nick is a
worthy, coony, opponent and not to be fooled by beating on pots and
walking a crooked path. We find ourselves beset, beguiled and tempted
by the "ancient foe," who has a complex agenda and subtle purposes.
Altogether a more challenging prospect.
Ubud is the home of a "great renaissance" of easel
painting, most of which we found either boring or dreary. They would
be, perhaps, appropriate for lobbies or hotel rooms where they would
not be subjected to prolonged or critical scrutiny.
In crafts, however, the entire archipelago is
Aladdin"s cave. Both old and new material of all sorts. The Balinese
seem to have the Asiatic taste for retaining the old forms and have
little interest in antiquity or age or innovation. They are
continuously in process of replacing their temples in soft stone and
the carving skills have been retained as they reproduce the old. At
the same time they are generating floods of tourist goods, some of it
charming but much of it hideous. (there is a run of sales on fake
Aztec themes and they are being ground out in carload lots.) In
between these extremes there are quantities of wonderful stuff being
made. We became fascinated by the character masks for theater and
dance and bought a great many. They are entirely fantastical
representations of animals and creatures of fable and of human faces.
They are astonishingly various and expressive and one could easily
find several hundred without repeating a design. They are made mostly
in the town of Mas, a few miles away from Ubud and a stroll down the
main street or up into any of the narrow lanes of that town will find
hundreds of practitioners in every possible price range. Most of our
masks cost between five and ten dollars but a few were to be seen
priced up into the many thousands and showing their value in the
interest and liveliness of the things. The distortions of feature and
scale are incredible. Some are all mouth or all teeth or all cyclopic
eye. Amazing stuff. As New England house builders in the Eighteenth
Century they seemingly can do no aesthetic wrong. Expressive,
beautiful, humorous, vivacious, entirely successful as sculpture,
craft, and (for all I know) as art. Exotic and glorious fabric was
everywhere, tie dyed, batik dyed and Ikat woven. We managed to resist
most of it. Fortunately the palette of much of it is subdued earth
colors which do not suit our present faisandé style of decoration.
The people of Bali are, as I remarked above,
remarkably comely and graceful. They are further of an astonishingly
amiable temperament and are congenial toward the swarms of goggling
tourists in their midst. Indeed, they seem genuinely to like us. We
were the objects of intense scrutiny; but, when we caught their eyes,
they would flash beatific smiles of real pleasure. My weight and size
were the focus of lots of entirely amiable comment by young and old.
The children, in particular, would reel around with their tummies
pooched out screaming with pleasure and yelling things like "Beeg
Baas!"
These amiable children are part of an observation
which has interested me. They seem to be entirely cheerful and
biddable. We never saw an adult struggle with a wilful child or
correct or scold one. It is as if there were no two year olds. How
do they "achieve autonomy?" The children all seemed to treat each
other with the utmost kindness and fond attention. Handholding and
cuddling were the rule for both sexes until well past adolescence. We
saw none of the kind of rough arm-punching and strutting and
swaggering of our pubescent boys. Here at home they are struggling to
establish their masculinity, their pecking order and the degree of
competitiveness and aggressiveness deemed appropriate to our society.
Little League games with screeching parents and over invested children
seem impossible in Bali.
These same children grow up to drive maniacally in the
tumultuous anarchy of their roads. A remarkable thing about this
driving was that although they are all squeezing and rushing into the
same few square feet of pavement they are astonishingly calm. No
screaming out the window, no adrenaline storms, no clenched teeth no
white knuckles. (This is the drivers, not us, we had plenty.) The
only time a driver of ours spoke negatively of one of his fellow
maniacs was when we followed, for a time, a truck overloaded with
young people who looked to be in danger of tumbling into the road.
Being cut off or bullied into the gutter seemed to have no aggressive
content. How this bland emotional tone will fit these people for
entry into the competitions of the twenty-first century is a
puzzlement. How these eerily pleasant smiling folks manage to build
up such a rusty load of anger or something that they so
enthusiastically slaughtered their Chinese neighbors is another
puzzlement.
In almost all of Indonesia the food was so so. (In
Jakarta it was gut wrenching slumgullion!) Flavor and interest was
here, as in many places, inversely proportional to price and decor.
One of the better meals we had was in the reeking market place of
Ubud. Up to our ankles in festering mud, covered with flies, septic
to a fault, we were served nearly the best meal we had on the trip.
The other really good meal was in Ubud at a very pleasant, clean,
rather dull eating place called Oly"s, in the Monkey Forest Road.
There, we took a shine to the proprietress and her sweet family.
After six or eight pleasant, inexpensive, pedestrian meals we
suggested that since we were leaving on the day after tomorrow and had
been eating Chinese food and American and Indonesian and Australian
food and ordinary stuff she might be willing to prepare us something
uniquely Balinese. She was delighted and next day we sat down to a
gorgeous spread of nifty roast chicken stuffed with lemon grass, green
chilies and green onions. Beside this there was a sort of cooked
salad, rice, a kind of dry tofu dish and some other delicious
oddments. All this, and two large bottles of beer, cost us five
dollars each and we were able to eat less than half of what had been
set before us. None of these lovely lovely things was on the menu!
Why not? Well you may ask, but don"t look for an answer.
Indonesia is not a place of answers to any of the
myriad questions gripping one. The people we met were sweet and
amiable but little interested in information and questions were
answered by vague shrugs and smiling blankness. One can easily see
how Hyerdahl and the kon-tiki folks were led up the garden path by the
Easter islanders. If we should ever return, I think that the best
course might be to enter into correspondence with the schools and try
to hire an English teacher or historian as a guide for at least part
of the visit.
After two weeks of tolerable Ubud we flew home on
Garuda. On the return trip we crossed the date line and arrived in
Honolulu at almost the same time on the same date that we left
Denpasar. As if this were not confusion enough we had airplane
problems and stopped off for four hours in Biak. This seems to be an
outpost of some kind in Melanesia and we were entertained by charming
black people chanting a monotonous song and dancing a sort of shuffle.
After a few minutes they all went home to sleep and we were stuck for
the next four hours. After two hours the airline arranged a treat and
brought us several cases of lukewarm water in plastic bottles. At
last, home to Kansas, safe and sound, Toto and all.
-----------------------------------------------------
Justice is not allowed to cast off her blindfold and
look down the pants of persons requesting a marriage
license to see if they are eligible.
Craig K. Gowens
-----------------------------------------------------
brian
Ward Stewart wrote:
> >> If travel articles are of general interest I would cheerfully post one
> >> of a trip to Bali some years ago.
> Shaloha Friends -
>
> We made it to Indonesia and survived! ..... At
> last, home to Kansas, safe and sound, Toto and all.
Ward, wonderful tale. You have a gift. My only question, how long ago was this trip?
brian
A traveler must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to
flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to
hear all and say nothing.
--Thomas Nashe
Connect
there' needs revision as applied to Indonesia to 'I wouldn't want to
live or visit there but instead I can read stories such as yours.
Interesting and except for the 'nice' people that country seems to
have little going for it. Wonder if it's improving?
Circe
>We made it to Indonesia and survived! Bali was tough going but Java,
> Jakarta and Jogyakarta were pure hell complete with running open sewers.
>Reeking of Feces; swirling with flies; pullulating with beggars, hustlers,
> cut-purses and pickpockets of every noisome degree of depravity.
Aloha, Ward, I loved your post. It was a long time ago I was in
Jakarta, but I must agree with you. It has to be the worst place I've
ever been and nary a drop of booze to put a few stars around the edges
of the dirt. I had arranged to meet a friend from Germany there at a
fairly decent Japanese hotel, but she hated the place so much she
left me a message at the Embassy saying she had gone on to Jogya.
Needless to say I beat it out of there as fast as I could, but not
before taking an evening taxi tour of the docks with a swedish Prof I
met at the coffee bar. What an evening that was! In retrospect I
think we might have put our lives in jeopardy. I've never met such a
seedy bunch of characters in my life. Herbert Lom and Boris Karloff
would have lifted the place up a notch or two..
>Jogykarta, where all the travel writers promised artistic treats and
> perfumed delights. All that was wonderful in Java was,
> we were told, to be found there in the ancient capital and in
>the historic locales of graceful Jogya. ...Jogya is just as shitty as any
>part of Java.
Ramadan was going on while we were there . I checked in at the
Embassy and joined my friend who had booked two tiny rooms for us.
Mine was overlooking the dining room where the only door out of the
room led into the dining room. I was awakened between 5 and 6am to see
more than 50 Muslims stuffing their faces like animals trying to get
as much food into their systems as they could to sustain them until
late that evening. I was quite nervous peeping out at them through
that curtain, I can tell you. It put me off my food for days. If any
Muslim is reading this I love you all. You're nice guys but you do go
at it in the mornings during Ramadan.
We took a trip out to Borabadur. I just loved your description of the
steps. It's hysterical. "Chiropractic heaven!"
I was robbed on the road to Solo in a minivan but I had a good
experience in Jogya. I left my purse with my passport and most of my
money on a cycle rickshaw. When I met my friend and realized I had
left my purse behind we raced back really alarmed that it would be
gone forever, and I would be left minus a passport in Jogya. Yikes!,
The cyclist was looking for me with my purse intact and the sweetest
smile on his face. I rewarded him more than handsomely. There are good
and bad people everywhere.
Wherever we went in Jogya we were followed by children. There were so
many homeless children. The cycle rickshaws were filled at night with
sleeping children. It tore my heart apart to see them. Our children
are so lucky, and we are so lucky that we are the haves of this world.
I was glad to get to Bali.
>There are three major possible visitor destinations on Bali,
> Sanur, has luxury hotels but the town is shut off from the rest
> of the world by a gate and a guard. I am never able to view
>such a structure without feeling that it is me that they are seeking
> to exclude. We were told that in the resort hotels of Sanur,
> gift shops and hired performers bring Bali to the guests so that
> they never have to struggle into Bali to see Bali. It is brought
> to them on wool carpeting, air conditioned and sanitized.
> We gave Sanur the pass.
I was in Bali twenty years ago and spend about five weeks there. We
made our base in a bungalow right on Sanur Beach . In those days it
was not gated and Balinese children walked freely around the beach.
If they begged it was only for pencils, pens, rulers, paper. Who can
resist such begging?
At that time there were only two hotels on the beach . One was the
Hilton and was a bastardization to the Balinese because it was higher
than their highest temple, the only high foreign edifice in Bali at
the time. Any Balinese who worked at the Hilton were sent to Coventry
by the Balinese people. It was very hard for them.
We were at the Hilton for dinner only once and who should be there but
my Swedish guy from Jakarta. He teamed up with us for a week before
leaving for Malaysia. My favorite restaurant close to Sanur was the
Swastika (the good luck sign). Beautiful food. Sometimes our
houseboy would bring us a lunch from the Swastika over to our
bungalow.
I had previously traveled to over 40 countries and felt Bali was the
most beautiful place I had seen. While there I was lucky enough to be
invited to a private Balinese wedding where I watched the tooth filing
ceremony from the stage on which the bride and groom's teeth were
being filed by two Brahmins They used a chisel and a file. . As far
as I remember the canines were filed first followed by the upper
incisors. I was impressed by the bride's stoicism and the groom's lack
of it; and the bride it was who bled. The filing is considered an
offering to the gods of sexual love, but an older Man at the wedding
later told me that they filed the canines so they wouldn't look so
much like dogs when they went on to their next lives. The dogs house
the evil spirits. I didn't see a twinkle when he told me that.
Twenty years ago there were half as many dogs as people in Bali, and
I've never seen such mean looking curs in my life, but they are quite
likeable because they are so well-treated by the Balinese. They don't
want to mess about with evil spirits and they firmly believe the evil
spirits live within the dogs.
>In Bali , cremation is the usual funerary practice. The newly dead
>are buried while the families marshall their resources for a gala send-off.
I was there for the biggie at Boona. They bury their dead every three
years at Boona so there were quite a few bodies to be burned. The
bodies were dug up from shallow graves in the rainforest and were in
varying stages of decay from old bones to a fresh newly buried body we
were told. . I followed the Gamelan led procession of a few hundred
people down into the rainforest. They made it such fun! There was
lots of twirling of the tall-tiered bamboo pagodas which contained the
strange sarcophogi and the dead persons' possessions. There was the
usual food, palm leaves filled with rice and other goodies. The
burning of the bodies was spectacular.They set the tower ,offerings
and sarcophagi alight with a magnifying glass because matches are
considered unclean. I had to stand in the smoke filled center to
take just one photograph. Your description of the cremation you saw
was fascinating . You certainly have a way with language .
>Ane so, we arrive in the Bali of today. A lovely place filled with
>lovely people mired in the confusions of the third world.
What made Bali especially interesting for me was that it was
colonized by the Durch and unlike the British they didn't stick
missionaries on the Balinese people. Consequently the Balinese have
retained many of their ancient religious rituals which are
delightful. .
I loved the temple festivals and because there are more than 20,000
temples in Bali you can find one every day Many Balinese have temples
in their gardens. . One evening we walked six kilometers through the
countryside to see a large Temple festival. We joined up with many
Balinese walking the same way. At each small village we were met by a
bunch of those ugly , but sweet curs of dogs. I found if I sat on my
haunches when I entered a village and stared the leader in the eye
they didn't follow us through the village. No rude remarks,pulease!
There is so much to tell about Bali, the dancing, the art work, the
quasi - Hindu animist culture, the Galungan and Kuningan festivals
when every ancestral spirit returns home to much celebration, and I
think you've covered most of it. Like you I spent a great deal of
time at Ubud and bought a number of large paintings from Oka Kartini's
gallery. (I think that's how it's spelt) Is she still there?. One
time in Ubud we spent the night at a Princess's house because she had
hot water and a courtyard surrounded by huge cages containing exotic
birds.. Everywhere else in Ubud only had cold water Some American
had set up a small solar heating system for her. Unfortunately we
found there was no cold water in the shower. Our cold water was
brought to our room in buckets. We couldn't use the shower. We had
had such hopes. So much for the princess. There were no 30 dollar a
night hotels in Bali back twenty years ago. I think the Princess's
place cost us $8
I saw, Ward that you were close to the Monkey Forest. I walked around
that forest a few times. Is that big monkey who steals cameras still
there?
Your post didn't show up on my server. Luckily I found it on Deja.
Wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Circe
Ward Stewart
wrote:
>On Tue, 08 Aug 2000 10:30:40 GMT, wste...@hawaii.rr.com (Ward
>Stewart) wrote:
>
>
>>>
>>
>>Here it is -- I hope it is not too large to go through the various
>>filters -- if it gets cut off, let me know.
>>
>Not too large at all, and fascinating! Even the Lonely Planet
>accounts of Indonesia do not get down to the real stuff.
>
>You might be interested in an essay by the anthropologist
>Clifford Geertz,
>
>"Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight", Geertz, Daedalus, Vol.
>101, N01, Winter 1972
>
>Geertz describes attendance at a cockfight and how he and his
>wife fled the police along with the "natives" -- I believe this is
>the essay in which he ultimately confronts the same question
>you asked, that is how the Balinese, a warm and graceful
>people, ultimately could engage in slaughter of their
>neighbors.
>
>This essay is in one of his books, but which one I cannot
>remember. He wrote extensively on Indonesia, and he is
>considered one of the leading anthropologists who combines
>a literary style with his observations.
>
>I will look his books in the library and try to find the exact
>reference.
Thank you, so shall I.
ward
-----------------------------------------------------
"Let me say this carefully, but clearly. Anyone who
elevates their prejudices to the position where they
are defended as the will of God is evil.
Anybody who justifies their denigration of another
person's being based upon a quotation from an ancient
sacred text called the Word of God is simply out
of touch with contemporary scholarship. Anybody who
will not open themselves to the new knowledge readily
available in medical and scientific circles because
it calls into question their uninformed attitudes is
profoundly ignorant."
-- John Spong
-----------------------------------------------------
Ward Stewart
Perhaps I neglected to sufficiently mention the GLORIOUS scenery,
GREEN hills, BLUE skies -- odd and pleasing buildings (out of the
cities) and the thrill of being in an entirely DIFFERENT world hung on
different strings, different premises than ours --
Ward Stewart
wrote:
>
>
>Ward Stewart wrote:
>
>> >> If travel articles are of general interest I would cheerfully post one
>> >> of a trip to Bali some years ago.
>
>
>> Shaloha Friends -
>>
>> We made it to Indonesia and survived! ..... At
>> last, home to Kansas, safe and sound, Toto and all.
>
>Ward, wonderful tale. You have a gift. My only question, how long ago was this trip?
>
1995, prior to my retirement -- ward
>
>brian
>
>A traveler must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to
>flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to
>hear all and say nothing.
> --Thomas Nashe
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