I’m sitting on my rattan-covered balcony of my room at the Mushroom Beach Bungalows, on Nusa Lembongan, a tiny island off the east coast of Bali. I am the only guest here. (The tourist industry is suffering hugely with Indonesia’s political turmoils, even here in quiet, lush, peaceful, Hindu Bali.) We are perched on a little promenatory at the far end of the sandy beach, and in the restaurant I can eat looking out over the sea. I think the staff here are drugging my food. Last night I slept 10 hours, and I still woke up feeling groggy and comatose. Every morning for breakfast I have fresh squeezed lemonade, pineapple slices, and eggs on toast. For lunch and dinner it’s fish, fish, fish. I have to be careful where I walk, because everywhere around this complex are placed little banana leaf baskets filled with flowers, rice and incense, placed there as offerings to the gods. Every morning, I find one placed at the entrance to my room.
There is a gecko or something monstrous hiding in my shack somewhere. At night he croaks really loudly and very suddenly Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh! It wakes me from deep sleep several times each night with a sudden subconcious sense of shame, as though I were a potty-trained toddler child caught peeing in my trousers by my mother. It rains at night, and is really humid, but the days are clear. I have been swimming every day, and the water is green and clear, like old glass. I can see the sandy bottom as I swim out far, far, from shore, but diving down I cannot reach the bottom. It’s so calm I feel like I could swim all the way to Bali, which I can see in the far distance across the straight, its high volcanoes ringed in cloud.
Yesterday I rented a bicycle and cycled around the dirt paths of the island, travelling past mangrove swamps, garbage dumps, lush groves of tropic trees, bamboo and rattan shacks, narrow white beaches, and ornate, colourful, and seemingly abandoned Balinese-style Hindu temples. In the middle of absolutely nowhere, far, far down a road that petered out into a deadend, I came across a little rattan shelter with one plastic table, very clean, and a sign saying Cold Coconut. A young Indonesian lady intercepted and virtually tackled and wrestled my bike to the ground shouting “Hello, hello, come for cold drink.” But she had a big smile and a nice vibe, and I was (a) totally lost (b) totally knackered and (c) totally sweaty, so I did. She served water, coke and coconuts. I had a coconut milk to drink. I asked her if she served anything to eat and she went running away back to her house, and brought back some rice and tuna dumplings. I was somewhat dubious about eating them, as they looked like they had been cooked several nights before, and under God knows what conditions, but they were delicious – spicy with ginger, garlic and chili. And happily, so far, no Bali belly.
She said I was only her second tourist in four days. I didn’t both to explain the logic of location, location, location. She had kept a list of the names and addresses of each tourist who had paused for refreshment at her shack, and called them her “friends”. She lamented that some of those friends had promised to come back, and had not yet done so, and was genuinely hurt by this. She pointed out each person on the list who had promised to come back at some point. It struck me rather forcefully that we in the West throw promises out without a second thought, believing that the recipients will properly distinguish between a sincere promise and something more akin to a social politeness or an expression of a desire. For other, less cynical cultures, it’s not like that. I resolved never to promise anything I didn’t have full intention of fulfilling. As I got on my bike to leave, I told her that I would probably not be coming back, but that I would remember her and Cold Coconut forever.
A sudden clouding over, and cool breeze and a huge rainstorm: everything is dripping…
Aside from tourism, the economic mainstay of Nusa Lembongan is gathering seaweed, which is left out in the sun to dry until it looks like those clear plastic jelly sandals, passed through a paper shredder. It is sold to Hong Kong as a thickening agent for cosmetics, soups, and other stuff. (Hopkins, I think this Borscht needs a touch more Clarins.) The people of Nusa Lembongan get about Rp 2000 per kilo of this stuff which they gather. Folks, that’s about 12p a kilo, for backbreaking labour in the hot sun. Investment banking is starting to look attractive again, at this ancient remove...
One of the things which I like best about Indonesia is that nobody EVER seems to get an English speaking person to proofread their marketing materials. Thus, one is always deliciously surprised by unexpectedly humorous typos. Thus, I discovered today that on Nusa Lembongan, I am staying on the Quit Beautiful Island. I thought, OK, it won’t be easy to leave my beauty behind, but if everyone is doing it… Then I wonder, what if it’s a cult?
Well that’s pretty much it for now. I decided yesterday to chat up this cute blonde boy who is staying at one of the neighboring establishments. I knew he was Canadian from the huge maple leaf he had tattooed on his back. That tattoo, and a number of other similarly ugly ones, also told me that he was straight. Nonetheless, he was very nice and he invited me to join him on his surfing lesson this morning, so that’s where I’m headed now…. I’ll report back later.
Later… Oh My God. So I’m out there on the waves. The boat has just dropped us off. The waves look pretty big to me, but not too intimidating. Yet I’m still feeling pretty nervous, seeing as I have no idea what I’m doing, and everyone else looks pretty au fait. (I can tell; it’s something about the war markings of zinc oxide on their faces) Suddenly our Balinese instructor – I heard his name as Gnome - starts shouting “Go, go, go, go!”. I turn my head to look behind me…and….it is upon me, I’m off my board, tumbling in the surf, not too frightened yet, but then the wave is so strong that it snaps the leash which ties my surfboard to my foot. When I surface, my board is far ahead, shooting away from me on yet another wave, and I’m swimming as fast as I can trying to fetch it, with another large wave about to break over me. Suddenly it’s a different ball game, because I am far, far from shore, and the waves are pretty big when you don’t have anything buoyant to hang on to like a surfboard, and you’re in the breaking zone of the waves. Gnome, who turns out to be a pretty awesome surfer, saves the day by catching a wave and riding it all the way to my errant board, just as I’m ducked under the surface by another huge wave crashing over me. I am grounded. Gnome sends me to sit on a floating pontoon for the rest of Michael’s lesson until the boat comes to pick us up.
I don’t feel so bad though. It’s beautiful sitting here in my detention spot. My pontoon is situated at the edge of a wave break which stretches for miles, from the region called Playground (where we were surfing) out to Shipwreck (where the big boys play). And as the waves crest they catch the sunlight and are transformed into a crystaline green-blue gem, set in a foaming white surf. The bigger waves are folding over on themselves, and I can look straight down the hollow tubes, I’m so perfectly situated. I watch the surfers and decide that it’s a pretty cool sport, and that I’d like to learn how to do it, but I think I need a straight month of being in the water every day. Michael and Gnome eventually arrive back, and Michael reports that he didn’t catch a single wave; they were all too big for him, and he too felt intimidated with all the experienced surfers. I feel totally, absolutely, joyously vindicated in my failure.
Back at base camp, I decide to stay at Mushroom Beach Bungalows just one more day to attend a Hindu purification ceremony which is being held tomorrow in the nearby village. Apparently there was a very auspicious birth of two children recently (I couldn’t understand if they were twins or not) and after a specified period of waiting, the whole village has to undergo a ritual cleansing. Ketut, the guest relations manager of the lovely hotel where Michael is staying, has invited him, Evalina and me to attend. Evalina is an Australian girl that Michael has been travelling with. I think they were doing the dirty together at one point, but things seem to have gone horribly sour between them and now they’re “just friends”, although from my observations of what they say to each other I would not exactly use that word to describe them! Only the fact that they have an travel itinerary seems to keep them together. I ask, “Does the village use Clarins or Kiehl products in its ritual cleansings?” but Kathu doesn’t understand. Nor does Michael. Evalina would have understood, were she paying attention, but instead her entire brain cell is totally occupied in sucking back her 11th or 12th cocktail of the day and staring at Michael with a look composed of equal proportions of lust and hate. I have to leave them.
Today, was a miraculous day, filled with blessings from the universe. But first let me tell you about my awesome diving trip this morning. Went on an outrigger boat to Nusa Penida. I am briefed that it’s a drift dive. Water is clear and coral looks very good. I back-roll into the water, and whooooooosssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh: I am flying away. Swimming as hard as I can into the current, I don’t move. Thank God the visibility was excellent, because it was kind of frightening, the strength of the current, and I could well have panicked otherwise. For some reason, the current seems to carry me much faster than it does my Balinese dive master, and I keep having to find a spur of rock or dead coral to hang onto until he catches up. The water is crystaline and very warm, and the fish and coral life was fantastic. Saw a stone fish (yes Mum I was careful and I didn’t step on it), two moray eels, some lobster hiding under outcroppings. It’s much better than the Great Barrier Reef, which Michael told me is being killed not by the tourism and diving, but rather by growth in the ozone hole which is letting too much UV light. I achieve perfect neutral buoyancy, and suddenly it’s like I’m flying in an alien world, swooping over strange coral formations, with no effort, no strain. Magic.
The diving was great, but the real deep joy today came from the Hindu ceremony I attended. We were immensely priviledged and lucky; it was one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen. We went first to Ketut’s house, where we were properly attired by his wife in Balinese ceremonial garb. Three pieces of beautiful embroidered silk were wrapped tightly around me to construct my sarong, and I also wore a shirt and a Balinese headband called an udang. Then we set off with Ketut, his wife and his four year old son, Putut. We arrive in the nearby village of Lembongan, which is thronging with all its four and a half thousand inhabitants – all immaculately dressed. We are the ONLY Westerners. There are no others. I can’t believe I’m actually seeing this.
The reason for the cleansing ceremony is quite interesting. There has been a birth of twins – a boy and a girl - an event which makes the whole village dirty by virtue of the fact that there is presumed to be incest inside the womb. This requires the village to undergo a process of ritual cleansing after a set number of days following the birth. Birth of twin boys or twin girls is nothing special, only the family, and not the whole village, must then be cleansed, as with the birth of just one infant. (The need for cleansing upon the birth of twins has something to do with a previous Balinese king having had boy-girl twins, and the ordinary Balinese having to differentiate themselves from the King somehow, but Ketut lost me on exactly how this fits in.) The only people who don’t participate in the ceremony are the families of those who have given birth to a baby AFTER the twins were born and who therefore are uncleanseable until the waiting period is over. A gamelan orchestra sounds, and proceeds down the street. The instruments in the gamelan orchestra are calling the gods to note the ceremony, in which all the symbols of the Hindu gods from all of the temples in the village (and there are many) are carried in careful procession down to the beach, and given a ritual cleansing. Later, I ask Ketut if the family who had the twins attend the ceremony. Apparently not. They are in Germany; a Balinese guy from the village married a German girl, but because he’s still considered part of the village, even though living in Germany, cleansing is required.
Ketut takes us into his family temple, and we observe his family and relations praying and giving offerings to the gods. Then we join the procession for a long walk down to the beach where the icons are cleansed. The ladies sing the whole way down. Some people fall into a mystical trance, in which they shake and yell and dance. They are thought to be communing with the gods, and so are given the masks of the Gods to wear. One comes up in front of me, just as my film runs out (wouldn’t ya know it) and he shakes and he quakes in my face. I’m fearful that he’s going to hit me. And remember, all of this is not for our benefit. Michael, Evalina, and I are the only Westerners there out of 4 and a half thousand people. Ketut tells me that only once every year does the village hold a ceremony this big, and usually it’s for something mundane like New Years Eve, not as spriritually significant. He also tells me that the “whole village ceremonies” of this type have largely been abandoned in the island of Bali proper.
No one seems to mind our presence, save for quaking trance man who is clearly carrying the spirit of one of the more violent of the Hindu Gods, and who wants to hit me. I tell him, “no thanks, no hitting required, thank you, thank you very much. I suffered big time in the year 2000. 2001 is the year when the Gods do not smack me viciously, so please move on, thank you.” He leaves me alone.
All too soon it is all over. I feel so honored and blessed and lucky to have seen this. These Balinese people live their religion intensely, and moreover they seem to enjoy it to. The adults were happy, laughing and chatting, and the children loved it. All the adults treat their children affectionately; you see fathers hugging their infant daughters, strangers patting Ketut’s son on the head or cheek, and the children never seem to cry or misbehave. I didn’t hear one toddler or infant cry during the whole two hour long ceremony. The religion is clearly part of the Balinese’s strong cultural identity, which is an intrinsic part, very clearly, of Balinese people’s personal identities as well. What a wonderful way to live. I feel, in a small way, I’ve gained something spiritual from seeing it.
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