2018
Home away from home
22 October 2018
My Bali world is still here, welcoming me back, full of the usual contrasts of crass development and crazy traffic along with glimpses of the beautiful Bali I have known for fifty years. The staff and Ibu Agung (another Ibu Agung, this one the charming woman from the royal family who owns Puri Saraswati - she lives upstairs, above my room) were very welcoming, though the new young lad at the desk when I first arrived did not know me! Thirty years since I first brought my Sydney Girls High student groups to stay here in September 1988 and again in September 1989 - (one of them, Anoushka, whom you've met in previous emails, has kept up a relationship with the Puri Saraswati family ever since.) It was a simpler place then but still the same layout and splendid gardens that enclose each bungalow in its own private tropical world. Until you walk out into the heart of Ubud’s busy main road you have no sense of being right in the heart of town. Next door is the Lotus Pond and temple that feature large in my earliest memories of Ubud in January 1968.
My sister Jann’s 1st Year high school teacher once famously said to her when Jann, asked for her religious denomination during the first roll-taking session, announced she was an atheist , “Jann, look into the heart of a flower and tell me there is no god”. The teacher may have had a point when one looks into the lotus, but I am sure she was not thinking of the non-theistic spiritualism of The Buddha at the time!
Breakfast with the statue of Dewi Saraswati, Goddess of Wisdom and Learning, above my table. One gets the most generous brekkies at Puri Saraswati Bungalows. They have been the same exactly for the 30 years I've been coming here. Fruit salad as well as fresh fruit juice from the blender, eggs and toast, and a banana pancake with freshly grated coconut and palm sugar. You get the lot! One eats it all the first few days, but later you become a bit more selective!
A friend already here, Barbara, who had spent a month in Josh’s granny flat this time last year, came round to see me soon after I arrived on Sunday night and after a chat on my verandah we went out to eat. However, with the long day’s travelling and the three-hour time difference I found I could not eat. Most unlike me. I guess maybe because my stomach knew it was 11pm. Still it was great to see Barbara and hear about her research and writing plans post-PhD on Bali-related women and art issues. A serious scholar. ( i was interviewed at length years ago for her PhD research into why Australian women keep going back to Bali!!)
Have been up to the festival office and collected my pass and a copy of the new anthology. Plus a very fat envelope of rupiah, payment for the translations, which will nicely cover my hotel bill here for the next nine days. The festival’s emerging writers program pays more generously than any other of my “employers”, especially now that this year the rate has risen after staying the same for ten years. Very welcome.
Spent the day visiting - caught up with Janet Molloy whom some of you know from trips to Bali or her stay with me in Sydney a few years ago. Thirty years ago she was the local employee of the company, San Michele Travel, that organised my first school trip - it was such a mind-blowing experience for all of us, students and teachers alike, largely thanks to Janet! She now lives in her son’s village where her silver factory is, close to her beloved grandkids. Has renovated some of the silver factory buildings into a very comfortable small home for herself. It is in the same compound as her son and his family, and is now working on one building to let as airbnb. She is a compulsive decorator and renovator - has brilliant ideas - I should have taken some photos! Her former beautiful home nearer to Ubud is let too. I had a wonderful chatty time with her over a nasi bungkus, a brown paper packet of rice and side dishes from the local warung. And while we were seeing around the compound a racket out in the village lane attracted us. An enormous procession of the entire village, which Ketut, my driver friend, explained was this particular village’s way of ridding itself of evil spirits - and all the men (not the women for some reason) were painted in white chalk and face paints, plus sunglasses or other “disguises” so the spirits would not be able to recognise them again. Some carried bamboo and leaf “brooms” to swish away the evil spirits and a variety of noisemakers to scare them. It went on in a long stream for maybe twenty minutes or more. Not the sophisticated, expensively-costumed parades one sees around Ubud! This is what I love about Bali - one comes across such events taking place in local villages regardless of the booming tourist “culture” existing parallel to it.
Have been up to the festival office and collected my pass and a copy of the new anthology. Plus a very fat envelope of rupiah, payment for the translations, which will nicely cover my hotel bill here for the next nine days. The festival’s emerging writers program pays more generously than any other of my “employers”, especially now that this year the rate has risen after staying the same for ten years. Very welcome.
Spent the day visiting - caught up with Janet Molloy whom some of you know from trips to Bali or her stay with me in Sydney a few years ago. Thirty years ago she was the local employee of the company, San Michele Travel, that organised my first school trip - it was such a mind-blowing experience for all of us, students and teachers alike, largely thanks to Janet! She now lives in her son’s village where her silver factory is, close to her beloved grandkids. Has renovated some of the silver factory buildings into a very comfortable small home for herself. It is in the same compound as her son and his family, and is now working on one building to let as airbnb. She is a compulsive decorator and renovator - has brilliant ideas - I should have taken some photos! Her former beautiful home nearer to Ubud is let too. I had a wonderful chatty time with her over a nasi bungkus, a brown paper packet of rice and side dishes from the local warung. And while we were seeing around the compound a racket out in the village lane attracted us. An enormous procession of the entire village, which Ketut, my driver friend, explained was this particular village’s way of ridding itself of evil spirits - and all the men (not the women for some reason) were painted in white chalk and face paints, plus sunglasses or other “disguises” so the spirits would not be able to recognise them again. Some carried bamboo and leaf “brooms” to swish away the evil spirits and a variety of noisemakers to scare them. It went on in a long stream for maybe twenty minutes or more. Not the sophisticated, expensively-costumed parades one sees around Ubud! This is what I love about Bali - one comes across such events taking place in local villages regardless of the booming tourist “culture” existing parallel to it.
Seeing we were so close to where Jasmin’s mother Petra lives, Ketut drove me over there to see her and deliver the donations I had collected for the relief effort in Sulawesi and Lombok that the organisation IDEP is working on. It was most happily received. So much still to be done, with many still not having received primary aid weeks later. Good to also see two of Jasmin’s siblings who were at home. Petra will be seeing Jasmin in Sydney next weekend after a work related trip to Queensland this week! More homes built in her “eco village” of Taman Petanu since I was there last year!
Quiet night after the long day out - late afternoon turned into bedtime and I did not even go out to eat, so am salivating right now about the breakfast waiting for me!
Festival friends will be rocking into town in the next couple of days. Can’t wait for it to all begin!
Quiet night after the long day out - late afternoon turned into bedtime and I did not even go out to eat, so am salivating right now about the breakfast waiting for me!
Festival friends will be rocking into town in the next couple of days. Can’t wait for it to all begin!