2016
Waking up in Ubud
10 September 2016
No problem orienting oneself on waking up in Ubud. No "Where am I?" moment of panic. The morning sounds let one know instantly. Dogs barking and cocks crowing. Certainly preferable to the garbage truck and car alarms below my Paddington window! In the old days in rural Indonesia it was the sound of rice being threshed in wooden mortars - the rhythmic thwack of the wooden pestles in the hollow log mortar. Women's first job of the day. Many an Indonesian legend has the hero or ogre undertaking a gargantuan task (eg. building a thousand temples) that has to be completed before dawn, only to be thwarted by having the women up earlier to pound the rice to set the cocks a-crowing. Come to think of it, it is a sound I have never heard, having woken up in city environments on most of my visits here. And for decades now farmers have been sending their rice to the penggiling, the mill, to be threshed mechanically. A much more common urban sound is the muezzin from the neighbourhood mosque - or rather several competing mosques - calling the faithful to dawn prayer. Somehow in the years I was studying Indonesian back in the 60s none of my teachers had taught us about this cultural phenomenon of daily life in Islamic countries. I remember being rudely awoken on my first night in Jakarta in November 1967 by the sound of wailing and thought some animal was being cruelly slaughtered nearby. Was very distressed until set right by my Chinese hosts at breakfast. No such rude awakenings here in Hindu Ubud. We were never taught about how Indonesians bathe either - the mandi splash bath where you scoop water over your body as you stand on the bathroom floor. With difficulty, on that first morning in Jakarta, I had climbed into the tiled square mandi water storage tub, then could not find the plug to empty it after! Very embarrassing. Needless to say, all students who have passed through my hands in the last 50 years have been taught these essential facts about daily life in Indonesia.
You would think in all these years I have been coming to Indonesia I would have learned that most essential survival tool of patience. Seems not. I was still seething at the inefficiency of the new modern airport. Luggage not coming through until an hour after landing. After taking half an hour getting through immigration still no sign of luggage. And when it came it was two bags at a time, limping along on the vast empty carousel going round and round. To stop myself screaming with frustration I got out a novel and read several chapters before my bag appeared. The people at Wirasana Taxis again recognised me immediately and knew my destination and how much I usually pay before I even opened my mouth. In no time I was in one of their comfortable vehicles, but it took 20 minutes just to get out of the airport. The toll booths to pay the airport charges - money and tickets changing hands and change being given - cause a huge bottleneck, a design fault in the new airport that handles such a great volume of traffic.
Anyway I obviously made it to Ubud eventually. Spent a quiet evening with Josh on the verandah catching up - it was less than two months ago that I was last sitting there. Home sweet home, as my friend Maria entitled her email to me this morning. It is of course another home to me. Disappointing to find Jasmin not here - she had been invited by friends of Petra's to go with them for a long weekend to Lombok (public holiday on Monday). Their son goes to Jasmin's school. We spoke to her on the phone last night. Will be back Monday some time so will have a couple of days with her before I head off to Flores and my second Ombak Putih trip - and she will get to meet Sia and Jon, my Dutch/American friends from the first trip.
Josh is good. Still following his vegan diet - drinks an almond milk coffee a day. Has taken to weight lifting! Bought himself a set of weights! And still only puffing on his electronic cigarette. Looking and feeling fit.
The granny flat is up for rent on a short or longer term basis. The expenses of running this big place are difficult to cover when Josh is now having to pay for it all himself now that Stacy and Roman have returned to the US. He has converted the office into a second bedroom and will put in an electric kettle, etc., so that it is self-contained over here. So far only one lot of guests has stayed while he was in Australia.
Will be meeting Sia and Jon after their week in Sulawesi today. Exciting to see them again. It's been three years since I saw them in the US.
You would think in all these years I have been coming to Indonesia I would have learned that most essential survival tool of patience. Seems not. I was still seething at the inefficiency of the new modern airport. Luggage not coming through until an hour after landing. After taking half an hour getting through immigration still no sign of luggage. And when it came it was two bags at a time, limping along on the vast empty carousel going round and round. To stop myself screaming with frustration I got out a novel and read several chapters before my bag appeared. The people at Wirasana Taxis again recognised me immediately and knew my destination and how much I usually pay before I even opened my mouth. In no time I was in one of their comfortable vehicles, but it took 20 minutes just to get out of the airport. The toll booths to pay the airport charges - money and tickets changing hands and change being given - cause a huge bottleneck, a design fault in the new airport that handles such a great volume of traffic.
Anyway I obviously made it to Ubud eventually. Spent a quiet evening with Josh on the verandah catching up - it was less than two months ago that I was last sitting there. Home sweet home, as my friend Maria entitled her email to me this morning. It is of course another home to me. Disappointing to find Jasmin not here - she had been invited by friends of Petra's to go with them for a long weekend to Lombok (public holiday on Monday). Their son goes to Jasmin's school. We spoke to her on the phone last night. Will be back Monday some time so will have a couple of days with her before I head off to Flores and my second Ombak Putih trip - and she will get to meet Sia and Jon, my Dutch/American friends from the first trip.
Josh is good. Still following his vegan diet - drinks an almond milk coffee a day. Has taken to weight lifting! Bought himself a set of weights! And still only puffing on his electronic cigarette. Looking and feeling fit.
The granny flat is up for rent on a short or longer term basis. The expenses of running this big place are difficult to cover when Josh is now having to pay for it all himself now that Stacy and Roman have returned to the US. He has converted the office into a second bedroom and will put in an electric kettle, etc., so that it is self-contained over here. So far only one lot of guests has stayed while he was in Australia.
Will be meeting Sia and Jon after their week in Sulawesi today. Exciting to see them again. It's been three years since I saw them in the US.