Cambodia and Home

I think I'm finally getting over my massive case of jet lag, so I'm posting some photos from Cambodia. Coming east over the International Date Line threw my system much more than going west over it did, as far as I can recall, although maybe I'm just blocking it out of my mind. (Does anyone know why that happens? I remember it being the same when I went to China with my family a couple of years ago.) Still, I think I'm back on some semblance of a normal sleep pattern, which means you can get a mostly sentient blog post.

Where did I leave off? My parents and I were in Thailand for two days, then flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, on a terrifying little prop jet. We had four days to explore Angkor Wat and the other temples, so we spent the mornings at the ruins and then spent the afternoons, which were probably ten degrees hotter than they'd been in Bali, in the pool hiding from the heat.

So to start, some pictures of the temples. We started off at Ta Prohm temple, which is notable because the jungle grew into it instead of just around it. As a result, a number of trees are now important structural elements; if they were to be cut down the temple would crumble even more than it already has. (It's also a notable temple because it's where part of the Tomb Raider movie was filmed, but we'll put that aside.)

See what I mean? A tree growing out of the roof of part of the temple.

A closer shot of one of the trees. I don't know if the size comes across: the horizontal root was around the level of my head.

 

After that, we went to a smaller, probably incomplete temple (dedicated to Shiva, I think). Whereas the walls of Ta Prohm were intricately carved, the carving on this one stopped about halfway up. There were some steep stairs still intact, though, so we climbed up to the top (and bought some bracelets from a girl sitting up there who knew more random statistics about the United States than I do).

If you look really closely you should be able to see my dad, in a blue shirt, in the center doorway at the top.

 

And, of course, we went to Angkor Wat. The temple complex there is enormous, and everything is intricately carved with patterns, false windows, and images of apsaras, the traditional dancers.

Carvings!

 

What blog post about Angkor Wat would be complete without the quintessential Angkor Wat photo? The teal fabric is where the temple is being restored.

From the center/top of Angkor Wat, looking out over the west (front) gate. Most Angkor temples are oriented eastward, but Angkor Wat breaks that pattern.

We went to Angkor Thom, as well, which is adorned with huge faces on the towers (of kings, I think? I've forgotten). Outside the temple, they had elephants that you could feed huge quantities of bananas (complete with the peel) for $1. Unfortunately, the photo of that is on my dad's camera, so you don't get that one. Elephants are probably my favorite animal now.

I told you there are big faces carved into Angkor Thom. See?

Siem Reap itself was a neat, if odd, city. Everything is pretty new, since most of the city got rebuilt by NGO's after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. When we were there, it was the end of the dry season; after all the green of Bali it really threw me off to see so much dust and concrete. It was interesting to be someplace that so clearly relied on foreign aid and tourism -- most prices were listed in US dollars, and bikes were a huge mode of transportation. Since we mostly just went to temples, I don't know very much about Cambodia or its political history, but I'd like to know more.

That's kind of a down-note to finish talking about Cambodia, so here's a picture of a tuk-tuk.

After Cambodia, we hopped on another (scary) prop-jet and headed back to Bangkok for a day and a half. In the four days we'd been gone, the city seemed to have picked itself back up. I saw a lot more tourists, and businesses that had been closed were open again. At one point, though, we took the Sky Train past the Siam Center, the building that was burned out. Although all the buildings in its vicinity were clearly functioning, the Siam Center was decidedly charred and empty. People typically referenced the protests as "the big problem" or just "the problem." They never sounded completely convinced that the turmoil is over, although the newspapers seem to insist that it is.

Now, as of Monday night, I'm back home. I've been in Bethesda for a few days, enjoying potable tap water and bread, trying to get over jet lag, and baking up a storm. (If anyone wants a recipe for the awesome pizza I made on Wednesday, let me know. I think I'm making it again tonight, it was that good.) This afternoon I move up to the Philly area, where hopefully I have an internship, although I'll know with more certainty next week.

I've really enjoyed blogging my experiences, and I think I'll keep this space up and running. (Although I suppose I'll have to change the name. Any suggestions?) To start with, I have some Balinese recipes if anyone wants them. I haven't quite decided what I'll write about generally, but no doubt you'll see new things up here occasionally. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see!

Nusa Lembongan Roundup

On Thursday, we all presented our Independent Study Projects, which marked the last bit of work for the semester. (I got to read one of my stories to everyone, which was fun.) After that, we had a quick trip to Immigration to get our visas renewed for the last time, which also involved getting fingerprinted. Kind of creepy, but we were assured that it's standard procedure for anyone staying in Indonesia over a couple of months (there's a precise time limit, but I forget what it is).

Once that was all accomplished, it was off to Nusa Lembongan, one of the three small islands off the coast of Bali (still part of the Bali province), for our last excursion. Unlike the other excursions we've taken, where we had classes and lectures to attend, this one was pure vacation, a final hurrah for the group. (The semester ends on the 14th, and has gone by amazingly quickly.) We stayed right on the beach, at a small hotel with fantastic curry.

 The view from the hotel.

Since most of the coast is used for seaweed farming, each day we took another, smaller boat about ten minutes away to a beach better for swimming. Two of the guys and I found a beach even better for swimming that required crawling through a hole in the rock, timing it carefully so we didn't get squished by incoming waves. (Of course, Ary and Yudi then proceeded to find a path over the cliff. Not as fun, though.)

On Saturday morning, we went snorkeling. I found a huge fish with a big protrusion coming out of his forehead that the boat driver said was called a "jacket fish," although I'm not sure why. (Upon a Google search, I think that's wrong. I'm pretty sure it was a "unicorn fish," which is even cooler.)

The next day, we rented bikes and went all around the island. It's not a very big island, and the trip took us maybe three hours, a significant proportion of which was spent hanging out and swimming around in a mangrove...grove (forest? copse?). After the mangroves, we continued on, heading up a huge, endless hill and then down its equally steep side with our questionable rental bike breaks.

 Mangroves!

Aside from the snorkeling and biking, we spent a lot of time swimming and playing scrabble and cards. Then, this morning we returned to Bali, where we're back with our homestay families. Tomorrow and Wednesday are Galungan, a holiday to celebrate each family's ancestors. Almost everyone roasts a pig to celebrate -- not sure what I'll end up eating!

Picture post!

Here are the photos that I didn't have time to put up in the last post.

First, some ogoh-ogoh:

This one is Hanuman, the monkey god, fighting against two naga (dragons).
I think it was somewhere between 15 and 20 feet tall. Later that night, they carried it around.

This guy is Ravana, the king of the Rakshasas (demons), and the villain from the Ramayana.
He was even taller than Hanuman -- note the people standing next to it.

From Gunung (Mount) Batur:

The view from the top! You're actually looking at two mountains. The one in the front is Mt.
Abang,and behind it (you can only see a tiny bit directly behind the first peak) is Mt. Agung.



Also the view from the top. In the left is Lake Batur, and behind it is the Kintamani ridge.
This whole area is one big caldera from an eruption waaaaay in the past.

Prepare yourselves for an incredibly long post.

It feels like ages since I've written a blog post. We've been on an extended excursion for the past nine or so days, but somehow it feels like I've been away longer. Bedulu is starting to feel more like home. When I got back to my homestay, my Ibu gave me a big hug and everyone asked about my trip (and then let me go have time to myself, since I've been up since 3:30 in the morning -- more on that later). After many nights in various hotels, it's a bit of a relief to be back in a familiar room that I can call my own for the time being.

I'm typing this up starting on Sunday night. I've done so much recently that I want to start to get it down before I forget, and I'll most likely not be able to post this until Wednesday. Tuesday is Nyepi, which is sort-of-kind-of the Balinese new year celebration, and the day before is a huge celebration. On the evening before Nyepi, the streets turn into a sort of raucous party, and people parade around ogoh-ogoh that the boys have spent the last month or so making (I think I explained them in a bit more detail last post). During the day, they make offerings to the demons (Balinese believe in a balance between good and evil, and bad spirits must also be respected). The day after (which is Nyepi), the opposite happens. In order to convince the demons that Bali is uninhabited and therefore uninteresting, the entire island shuts down (and I mean entire: even the airport is closed). People can't leave their houses, drive, work, or use electricity. (Although people fudge the rules here and there -- last year, my teacher Mirah went to her neighbor's house to hang out for half an hour or so, something that's technically forbidden.) So basically, with all the hubbub, I won't be getting to an internet cafe anytime in the next couple of days.

Back to the beginning of the excursion. Two Saturdays ago, we met up with a handful of students from Udayana University in Denpasar who major in English, and headed to Ary's (the academic director) village in Tabanan. On the way, we stopped at a semi-organic (it aims to be organic but is still in the transition phase) farm in Batukaru. Unfortunately, the lecture there wasn't very good because a lot got lost in translation (which is a frequent problem), but the farm was beautiful and we got an amazing lunch.

After the farm, we headed to Desa Munduk Pakel, the village. We were going to stop driving partway there and walk the rest of the way through the sawah (rice fields), but before we had a chance it started raining buckets and thundering, so we drove the whole way there. By the time we arrived, the rain had decreased to a little more than a drizzle. When it finally stopped, we hiked up to the sawah to check it out. Then it was back for dinner and to meet our homestay families. Mine apparently was the family of Ary's first husband -- scandalous! (No, really, divorce is quite uncommon in Bali.) We also got to play gamelan that evening.

The sawah near Ary's village.

A lot of the villagers ride their motorbikes up to where the road stops,
then walk the rest of the way. This was around sunrise.

The next day, we headed into the sawah to get our hands dirty and to help Ary's father in their fields. We spent an hour or so hoeing the flooded sawah that will be planted sometime in the future, breaking up dirt and grass clods and smoothing it out. To smooth it out, you walk on the mud you've already hoed, so within minutes we were all pretty dirty. Then Ary's father declared that we'd done enough, and our work ethic clearly devolved. Within about ten minutes, most of us (some of the Balinese girls, and a couple of the guys, ran away) were covered head to toe in mud that we had slung at one another. (I unfortunately don't have pictures of this, but hopefully Ary will post some soon and I can direct you to them -- it was pretty ridiculous.) Once we tired of throwing mud, which is to say once being hit with mud no longer made a person any dirtier, we started racing. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to race through water or snow, but it was kind of like that, only harder -- the bottom of the sawah is slick with mud and if you're at all tired, you'll face plant. After the races, we got to drink and eat some young coconut and then go bathe in the river, something we did every day after that. Then we had some class, ate dinner, and played more gamelan. I eventually figured out the smaller bronze instrument (it looks sort of like a xylophone), but I'm still not coordinated enough to play the faster parts.

The next day -- I think it was Monday -- we went on sort of a salad walk through the forest. We started out in the village garden, picking ginger root, galangal, a sour fruit (the name of which I've forgotten), and coffee beans. Then we walked through the forest, finding all sorts of things. I don't remember all of what we picked, but a few that I recall are turmeric, water spinach, lemongrass, and plant called bongkot that looks like really big lemongrass and tastes kind of like artichoke. When we finished, we went back to Ary's house and made the most amazing sambal (sort of a spread/relish of chopped vegetables, usually mostly chilies) I've ever eaten. (And I have the recipe, so if you remind me when I'm home I'll make you some!) After lunch, we learned how to make bowls from coconuts. After that, we had free time, and I conducted my first field interview with a man who told me a folktale and answered all sorts of questions about it. (He also seemed a little confused about why I was asking him to tell me a children's story.)

On our last full day in the village, some people went hunting with Putu, Ary's son. (I passed. Everyone should be surprised.) Then, in the afternoon, we got to watch a cockfight, which was at the same time fascinating and horrible. The older men in the village run it, and they're all these totally laid-back guys who pass the time between fights gambling on dominoes. The cockfights are designed to be bloody -- cockfights are illegal except for ritual purpose, and the ritual purpose is to spill blood in sacrifice -- and the men tie knives to the rooster's foot before the fight begins. (Sometimes one bird will get two knives, one on each foot, if the owners of both birds agree beforehand that it's otherwise at a disadvantage, i.e. because of size.) Then the fight goes on until one of the birds can't stand anymore. The losing bird becomes food, and the winning bird earns its owner a fair sum of money.

That day had somewhat of a theme to it, since in the evening we went eel hunting in the sawah. It ended up being more of a "follow the guy with the giant eel-catching-pliers and the bucket through the mud and try not to fall in" excursion, since there was only one set of eel-catching pliers and there weren't that many eels. Some of the guys went off to try to catch them with their hands and managed to catch one, which impressed the villager we were hunting with. The eels looked kind of like giant worms, and the next day they were fried up for lunch. Apparently, with the introduction of pesticides (which are used with abandon, since the government originally gave them to farmers for free), eels are rarer. It's problematic, because they used to be an important source of food.

On Wednesday, we parted ways with the Udayana students (which was sad -- they were really cool) and headed to Lovina, on the north coast, for our "spring break." Lovina is right on the beach, and it's near Singaraja, which was a major port town under the Dutch. Because it's easier to get to than the ports of south Bali, there's much more multiculturalism. There's a larger Muslim community there, and also a large number of Chinese people and Chinese descendants. That evening, we went to one of the major Buddhist temples in Bali. A few monks still live there, but not as many as there once were.

The next morning, we went to Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha (UnDikSha), the university in Singaraja. We met with the English majors there and had a discussion on interfaith dialogue, since there are communities in the Singaraja area that have both Hindu and Muslim families, something you see more rarely in the south. It was refreshing to have a discussion instead of a lecture, and also interesting to hear the differences in religious dialogue there. In Indonesia, everyone must declare a religion -- it's on your identity card -- so it's pretty central to daily life. In the mixed communities, usually Hindu people go to the big Muslim ceremonies, and vice versa.

That afternoon, we went to a Bugis village on the coast. The Bugis are Muslim fisherman, and so their customs are fairly different from those of the Hindu Balinese. (They also are the origin of the Boogeyman -- back in the day they were also pretty fearsome pirates and colonizers used to tell their kids they'd give them to the Bugimen. These people definitely didn't fit that description, though.) It's become a tradition that when the SIT students visit the village, they play music and we dance with the kids. I don't think I've ever met such cool kids. They were reluctant at first, but once we got going, they practically wouldn't let us stop. They also loved our cameras, and insisted we take tons of pictures of them and then show them. After we danced, we got to see their mosque, which they renovated just last year.

SIT students dancing with awesome Bugis kids.

On Friday morning, we went with the UnDikSha students to Gitgit waterfall, near Lovina. The waterfall was huge, and afterward we (just the SIT students and Ary's son) took turns jumping off some rocks into a swimming hole of cold water. After that, we went to a Chinese temple, Klenteng, and then to lunch with the UnDikSha students.

The next day (sorry, have I bored you to bits yet?), we left Lovina for Kintamani, on the edge of Lake Batur. On our way, we stopped at Pura Ulun Batur, which is a temple that serves as the starting point of all of the irrigation networks and coordinates it all. Once we got to Kintamani, we had time to rest up before our early wake-up call the next morning.

At 3:30 on Sunday morning, we woke and got ready for our hike up Gunung Batur (gunung means mountain). On our way up, we met up with some Indian guys who were studying in Singapore, and hiked around with them. We got to the top just before sunrise, and had a breakfast of coffee and volcano-steamed eggs and banana sandwiches. (Yes, there is a small warung on top of the mountain.) After sunrise, we hiked around the caldera, then headed down. We were back at our hotel by 9 am, then had some down-time before we left to return to Bedulu.

So that's the round-Bali excursion. While I'm on my writing streak (it's now Tuesday), I figure I'll say a little more about Nyepi, which I am currently experiencing. Yesterday, in the middle of the day, there were big offerings in the street (with chicken sate as sacrifices -- depending on the village, the sacrifice can be as small as a chicken or as big as a cow). In the evening, the boys paraded around all the ogoh-ogoh in the center of the town, while a guy on a loudspeaker cracked jokes about them all. That went on until around 10 or 11 at night.

Today (which is to say Tuesday) is Nyepi, and theoretically everything's supposed to be quiet. It's been a kind of confusing day, though. There are four rules: no fire/lights, no work, no entertainment, and no traveling. When I walked into the bathroom this morning to shower, the light was on. Later, my Ibu was sweeping, and she told me I could wash my clothes (my teachers yesterday had told me I wasn't allowed to). I've been reading all day, and earlier my host sister-in-law was playing guitar to her baby. This morning, my Ibu told me I was welcome to do anything around the house, I just couldn't leave, and at night there couldn't be any lights on. Still, around 4:30 kids spilled into the streets and played for about an hour. When I asked my host sister-in-law why that was okay, she shrugged and said maybe they were bored. My Ibu added that I could go join them if I wanted to, I just had to be back inside in an hour. And now, I've learned that in my room, I can have my light on, I just have to have the shades drawn.

Definitely a holiday of contradictions. But a nice one at that -- I've spent the day reading, lying around, and getting some work done. After the flurry of activity that was the last week and a half, it was nice to have some time to myself with no real agenda.

More adventures

Hi all! Apologies for the long delay in posting. On a day-to-day basis, I've been doing a lot of topeng carving. I'm done with the chiseling component of my mask, which means the face is pretty much blocked out and I've carved out the back. The next time I go, I'll begin working with knives to make the face more detailed; after that, painting begins.

I've started walking home from Mas (where the topeng-maker's workshop is) to Bedulu. It's about a 5km walk (or so I've been told) and it's easier to do that then to try to catch a bemo (public transportation) in the late afternoon. Plus, it's a nice walk -- mostly downhill, and on the back streets of Mas I get to talk to lots of people and see some cool temples and sawah (rice fields). It confuses my host family (and basically everyone else), though. My bapak keeps telling me to call him for a ride home, even when I explain that I enjoy the walk. The people along the street assume I'm lost, which can also make for some entertaining conversations.

Let's see, what else has happened in the last week or so? Last weekend I went with Sylvie (one of the other students on the program) to Klungkung to work on our "archaeological sites" paper, which basically involves going to an important cultural/historical site, exploring it, doing some research, and, of course, writing a paper. We went to Kerta Ghosa (which I may or may not be spelling correctly, apologies), which is part of the old palace in Klungkung.

Sylvie walking up to one of the buildings.

The roofs of some of the buildings are painted in the wayang (shadow puppet) style, and all tell a story. This roof has the descriptions of various punishments in hell, plus I think one of the stories from the Mahabharata (although I may be mixing it up with one of the other buildings).

Interior of a roof at Kerta Ghosa

On Wednesday, we migrated to Denpasar for three days, where we went to Udayana University and met with some of the English students there (and also attended some lectures on Balinese culture). Yesterday, we went with them to Bedugul, which is in the mountains. We went to a temple on a lake and a botanical garden: pictures in the next post when I can upload them to my computer. Now, we're on a free weekend in Sanur, which is one of the touristy/beach towns.

This morning, we went to the University for a large ceremony, since today is Saraswati day and Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge. There were a ton of people there, and a full gamelan orchestra, a dance (I forget the name of it, sorry), and, of course, many offerings and a high priest officiating. We got to take part in the prayers, which involved being sprinkled with and drinking holy water, listening to chants (we didn't know the words so we couldn't really take parts) and making offerings ourselves.

Tomorrow, it's back to Bedulu for the week for more class and topeng making. Next weekend we head to Ary's (the academic director) village for a week, then to the northern part of Bali. Stories to come!

The homestay begins!

Our group has shifted to Bedulu, a small town not far from the oh-so-touristy city of Ubud (where I am right now). Ubud is kind of a bizarre place after being in Kerambitan, because it's full of bule (slang for white people) and people trying to get us to take taxis. We avoid them and hop on the bemos (sort of a bus) instead. I haven't had my camera with me much since we've gotten here, but here are some pictures of Tanah Lot, a temple we went to when we were still in Kerambitan:

The temple just before sunset.

Tanah Lot is on a rocky outcropping right on the coast, so the waves end up surrounding it. Also, the sunset is amazing.

My homestay family here in Bedulu is awesome. Balinese households live in compounds rather than one main building, so there are always lots of people around. I live with my bapak and ibu (my homestay dad and mom), their oldest son and his wife and son, and their third son and his wife and 7-month-old baby. The third son is only a couple of years older than me. There is also either my bapak's or ibu's mother, who is a totally badass woman who carries 20-30 pounds on her head home from the market like it's nothing. I'm pretty sure she only speaks Balinese, because the only words I understand when she talks to me are things like "bapak."

I spend most evenings just hanging out with my homestay parents. Balinese don't eat together, so there's not a lot of hangout time surrounding meals (although the first night I was there, my bapak sat and watched me eat because he didn't want me to be sitting by myself). Before and after, though, people are pretty much always together. Two nights ago my ibu taught me how to put together dried leaves to make part of the offerings they use, and last night I watched Javanese soap operas with her and told her about the snow at home. My bapak tried to get me to smoke with him, and we talked about Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and other movies he loves. He has about 6 roosters for cockfighting (which is illegal in Indonesia except for Balinese religious ceremonies, which means I'll get to see it at some point) that wake me up every morning at dawn (and sometimes earlier). There is also a dog that has learned that I'll pet it if it sits near me.

We have this weekend free, so the six of us are heading to Uluwatu, on the very southern tip of the island. We'll check out the temple in the area, and of course the beach. Next week I'll be back with more pictures, and no doubt some tales about mask-making and batik. (And probably some scrapes and burns -- I'm rapidly getting a reputation as the clumsiest member of the group, after stepping in a tidal pool at Tanah Lot and then stepping on a dead sea urchin a couple of days later, among many other clumsy instances.)

(Oh, and Professor Just -- I realized a couple of days ago that one of our language teachers, De Yudi, worked with the Williams winter study program. I've been hearing lots of funny stories since then!)

Righto -- sambai nanti, everyone!