2017
Jet Lag
23 October 2017
For most tourists Bali in the wee small hours might mean staggering home from a Kuta nightclub just before dawn after a night of partying. For me it means waking up on Australian time at 3.30 am local time, with dawn still hours away. Even a three hour jet lag can have a significant impact.
But it means I can write to you all in the dead silence of the house. Not in the granny flat this time, but in Jasmin’s room for this first week until Barbara and Kate leave. They are loving the peace and beauty of this place - are on a first name basis with Coco and Cookie who don’t even bark when they come in. Josh has been enjoying their company as they share the kitchen of a morning and come over to our verandah with their evening G and Ts. Lovely for me to have them here too.
Jasmin is off school for a week, having been sent home last Thursday with five others after being diagnosed with rubella/German measles. Not very sick but has the rash and joint pains that are the symptoms. Needs to keep away from others of course. She probably won’t thank me, but I wrote to the principal of Pelangi school last night asking them to email us some homework for her to do! She’s doing a lot of her marvelous cartoon drawings and talking excitedly of the opportunities to follow art studies in Oz. Wants to do art at high school and go to the university art college and study animation. She is so clear about her future at age 11! Ironically she comes from Ubud, the centre of art in Bali, but is not interested in Balinese art!
On the way up from the airport on Saturday I called in at Sanur to the villa where my great friend Marg de Wit happened to be staying on a visit from Holland. She was leaving the following day so it was a chance not to be missed for one of our surprisingly regular catch ups in different parts of the world. Some of you may recall I stayed with her in The Hague last year. And will hopefully see her there again next year. We talked for a solid hour over a G and T by the pool (bit of a “G and T” theme here - the default drink of the tropics!) then continued the drive to Ubud with Ketut Yogi, my loyal driver friend who had met me. He has been driving Barbara and Kate around and is ever reliable and friendly. We are off with him today to explore the World Heritage rice field site of Jatiluwih, up in Central Bali-again.
So what’s doing with the volcano? The short answer is nothing! But the long answer is that the threat /alert level is as high as ever and 140,000 Balinese evacuees are still living uprooted lives in camps all over Bali and requiring vast amounts of support. I have just read Rio Helmi’s 7th report on “News from Under the Volcano”. His writing is very personal as he makes these almost daily 200k motor bike round trips from Ubud into the danger zone and to various camps on roads I never knew existed. These accounts are so readable and will become a vital part of the record of this time in Bali’s history. And his photos are stunning. His role in making these trips is vital to spread information of the potential danger to those villagers he finds who have not evacuated, and also to report back to the NGOs in Ubud what the needs are in various places. Here in Ubud there is no sense of living on the periphery of all this chaos. Ubud itself will be abuzz soon enough with its own excitement - the Writers Festival. I will see Rio there and can’t wait to congratulate him on his reports. I see from the festival website that five writers have pulled out. I don’t know if for reasons of concern over disruptions from the volcano, or some other contingency.
The Ombak Putih has just returned from another voyage to the Spice Islands and I met up yesterday with Sue Fredrickson who had just sailed on her to hear her tales and see her photos. The trip of a lifetime, of course. At the festival I will also see Jeffrey, who led the trip, and Ian too, who led the one two weeks earlier from Flores, and will get their stories. Sue has her daughter up from Sydney for a few days after the trip, staying at the lovely Ananda Cottages down the road. We had a splendid Javanese lunch at Kamasan. You already know it is my favorite hang in Ubud! Barbara and Kate loved it too. Am sure I’ll be back there in the coming days with other fans of the food and ambience there.
Already been swimming at our usual lap pool yesterday morning. Josh chickened out - too cold for him!! Just sat and watched me and Kate.
As you can see I have slipped quickly back into my Bali life! It will be weird once Josh and Jazz are living back in Sydney not to escape here so often. I will still come for the Writers Festival, of course!
Already Trump, Nth Korea, the plight of the Rohingya and other momentous world problems, have slipped out of my consciousness.
So, selamat pagi from Ubud, my friends, even though there is still no sign of dawn breaking.
But here is the view from the veranda in first light from yesterday. These kelapa gading, ivory coconuts, are used in temple offerings. The rice is fairly early in its cycle, but is growing apace.
But it means I can write to you all in the dead silence of the house. Not in the granny flat this time, but in Jasmin’s room for this first week until Barbara and Kate leave. They are loving the peace and beauty of this place - are on a first name basis with Coco and Cookie who don’t even bark when they come in. Josh has been enjoying their company as they share the kitchen of a morning and come over to our verandah with their evening G and Ts. Lovely for me to have them here too.
Jasmin is off school for a week, having been sent home last Thursday with five others after being diagnosed with rubella/German measles. Not very sick but has the rash and joint pains that are the symptoms. Needs to keep away from others of course. She probably won’t thank me, but I wrote to the principal of Pelangi school last night asking them to email us some homework for her to do! She’s doing a lot of her marvelous cartoon drawings and talking excitedly of the opportunities to follow art studies in Oz. Wants to do art at high school and go to the university art college and study animation. She is so clear about her future at age 11! Ironically she comes from Ubud, the centre of art in Bali, but is not interested in Balinese art!
On the way up from the airport on Saturday I called in at Sanur to the villa where my great friend Marg de Wit happened to be staying on a visit from Holland. She was leaving the following day so it was a chance not to be missed for one of our surprisingly regular catch ups in different parts of the world. Some of you may recall I stayed with her in The Hague last year. And will hopefully see her there again next year. We talked for a solid hour over a G and T by the pool (bit of a “G and T” theme here - the default drink of the tropics!) then continued the drive to Ubud with Ketut Yogi, my loyal driver friend who had met me. He has been driving Barbara and Kate around and is ever reliable and friendly. We are off with him today to explore the World Heritage rice field site of Jatiluwih, up in Central Bali-again.
So what’s doing with the volcano? The short answer is nothing! But the long answer is that the threat /alert level is as high as ever and 140,000 Balinese evacuees are still living uprooted lives in camps all over Bali and requiring vast amounts of support. I have just read Rio Helmi’s 7th report on “News from Under the Volcano”. His writing is very personal as he makes these almost daily 200k motor bike round trips from Ubud into the danger zone and to various camps on roads I never knew existed. These accounts are so readable and will become a vital part of the record of this time in Bali’s history. And his photos are stunning. His role in making these trips is vital to spread information of the potential danger to those villagers he finds who have not evacuated, and also to report back to the NGOs in Ubud what the needs are in various places. Here in Ubud there is no sense of living on the periphery of all this chaos. Ubud itself will be abuzz soon enough with its own excitement - the Writers Festival. I will see Rio there and can’t wait to congratulate him on his reports. I see from the festival website that five writers have pulled out. I don’t know if for reasons of concern over disruptions from the volcano, or some other contingency.
The Ombak Putih has just returned from another voyage to the Spice Islands and I met up yesterday with Sue Fredrickson who had just sailed on her to hear her tales and see her photos. The trip of a lifetime, of course. At the festival I will also see Jeffrey, who led the trip, and Ian too, who led the one two weeks earlier from Flores, and will get their stories. Sue has her daughter up from Sydney for a few days after the trip, staying at the lovely Ananda Cottages down the road. We had a splendid Javanese lunch at Kamasan. You already know it is my favorite hang in Ubud! Barbara and Kate loved it too. Am sure I’ll be back there in the coming days with other fans of the food and ambience there.
Already been swimming at our usual lap pool yesterday morning. Josh chickened out - too cold for him!! Just sat and watched me and Kate.
As you can see I have slipped quickly back into my Bali life! It will be weird once Josh and Jazz are living back in Sydney not to escape here so often. I will still come for the Writers Festival, of course!
Already Trump, Nth Korea, the plight of the Rohingya and other momentous world problems, have slipped out of my consciousness.
So, selamat pagi from Ubud, my friends, even though there is still no sign of dawn breaking.
But here is the view from the veranda in first light from yesterday. These kelapa gading, ivory coconuts, are used in temple offerings. The rice is fairly early in its cycle, but is growing apace.