Batik in Bali

One of the main reasons I wanted to come to Bali was to learn about batik in Indonesia. Well I also was curious because so many people I know and have run into rave about this place and describe it as “magical”.  But back to batik.  For those of you who don't know batik is a process for decorating fabric using layers of wax and dye. I do it once a year with a group of amazing women in Northern CA almost every summer. Sometimes I do it at home as well. I found a course here and took it for five days. I made three batiks and learned some new things my batik friends at home will love. The best part where the teachers, a master artist and his apprentices, one of whom was his son. They were all great teachers, the master a big personality but some how not a big ego. Hanging out in their family compound for most of a week felt like a way to experience Bali and the art that is a part of much of the life style here on a more participatory level. Dave joined me one day and Anika another. Most people only come for a day and they have it down so you can get one batik done in a day. A few other people came other days but much of the time I was alone or it was me and one other person. Needless to say I got a lot of one on one attention. For my batik friends here are some things I learned I will explain further when we see each other:

How to use only bees wax or only paraffin to get greater effects

How to remove boo- boos  (unwanted blobs of wax) with a hot spoon and water (!)

There are dyes you can boil to take out the wax that hold their color.

Stamps are used for any big fabric otherwise the style here is more like painting with water colors and wax. the stamps they use are made out of metal.

Here is picture of one of my batiks at various stages. Two of the batiks I did were based on photos I took on this trip.

This is the main room where we worked. The room is open on one side to the central courtyard of the compound. That is Anika's back on the left.

At work adding color after the initial wax.

One layer of wax and color.

Second layer of wax and more color.

The finished product.

Bali Days, Hanging out in Ubud

Well I just read Dave's last blog and I should have known better. Now I am intimidated. Who knew the guy was such a good writer? But here goes anyway.

As I said n my last blog, we visited the Sacred Monkey Forest twice. Anika has lots of pictures from it on her blog Sweet Dreams & Lots Of Traveling. But here is one strange monkey we saw -

The Dave Monkey

We have been in Ubud over three weeks and have about two and a half to go. I keep thinking of all the people I know who have been to Bali and their memories of it. I think anyone who was here before 2000 would be shocked by the level of development every where but especially Ubud. It has been interesting how easily we have settled in and the days have flown by. We really have only been out of town about 3 times not counting the day we went river rafting, which was close to Ubud. In Ubud we have been going to yoga and eating lunch at various recommended restaurants. We met an couple from Hawaii who have been coming here every year for 12 years and they gave us tons of good recommendations and help. One typical day went like this:

Wake up have tea/coffee on our front porch. Dave and I go across the street to the farmers market and stock up. We talk to one of the farmers who has seen us every week at least once a week. He mentions there is a ceremony in his village to honor the animals. There will be cock fights (very popular here) and animal sacrifices. Nice way to honor the animals! He invites us along and we say we'll think about it and come back before the end of the market if we want to go. I have not been invited t a ceremony yet but Dave has been to the big cremation ceremony in town. After eating the home made organic mulberry/almond muffins we got for breakfast we discuss the day. Our plan had been to find a spa (of which there are many) and get massages. Ceremony for the animals or spa day, hmmm. Spa day won. I wrote post cards and Dave carved for a while. We went to the post office, mailed the cards and headed to the spa recommended by some fellow Cruzians we had met at the Green School (more on the Green school in another blog). Dave had 1 ½ hour massage. I had a 2 hour treatment that included massage, a body scrub, shower wash (never had a masseuse wash me before!) yogurt skin treatment and ended with a flower bath. As I lay in the bath surrounded by fragapini, rose and bougainvillea petals, sipping ginger/lime tea, I felt like a princess. I twirled the petals in my fingers and laughed out loud. Sometimes I feel so lucky to be on this trip having this time to relax and disconnect from my normal life!

Men admiring each others birds. Getting ready for the fight?

What was Anika doing during all this and what is she doing in general? Well she keeps busy. As I said in the last blog, Anika has been volunteering at a local private elementary school three times a week helping in the garden. She also has been spending time doing her school work mostly on the computer. She is doing math through a computer online program and playing chess with the computer. She reads a lot and her teacher is encouraging her to blog and do other writing. There have been more times here than before on the trip where she has not joined us in exploring or adventuring around. She is not taking any art classes, except for the one day she did batik with me. She loves having the house and is spending her time there as much as possible. Some times we make her come along, others we let her stay home.

There are two kinds of days for me, travel vacation days, like I described above where you mostly float through the day and relax, explore, enjoy, and travel work days. I am finding that you are always looking for a balance between exploring and experiencing and having down time and time to take care of business. We have had plenty of days where we tried to get laundry done, food shop ( Besides the farmer's market we also go to a more Western super market for some things.) make trip plans (Japan is taking lots of planning time.), catch up on email and blogs writing, or take care of paper work.

Here's one of many travel work things we have had to deal with. When we go there we got a tourist visa for 30 days, but we are staying for 42. So we talked to people, called our embassy and found out how to get an extension. It takes three visits to the main Immigration office by the airport an hour away and you have to leave your passports there. How people do it is they pay a Balinese person, who does this as a job, and this person goes back and forth dealing with all the paper work for you. So we did this. It is very scary to give your passport to anyone and have them drive off with it. But everything came back and we are good to go. Figuring all this out took some time and that is part of how a work travel day is spent. Lots of time is pent figuring out where to go what to see or do  how to get there how much to expect to pay how long it will take and a million other details. Thank goodness for Lonely Planet, the Internet and the advice of others!

This is us in Petulu a town right out side of Ubud. People go there to see the flocks of white storks and egrets that roost in the trees around the rice fields. We couldn't get good photos of the birds but our driver Radhay did get a good picture of us.

Bye Bye Thailand, Hello Bali Indonesia

Final Days and Thoughts on Thailand

Our last four days in Bangkok left me liking the city a little more. It is hard for me not to like a place where the food is consistently great. I also went by myself to the Jim Thompson house which is an oasis in the city of calm and beauty. Dave and I explored the Bangkok Art and Culture Museum which is one of the best contemporary art museum's I have been to in along time. And lets not forget dinner at Cabbages and Condoms an excellent Thai restaurant where you get a condom as you walk out the door and the first place I have ever seen mutilple art pieces made out of condoms. (It is run by a non profit that promotes family planning, something that has been very effective in Thailand.)

Final Thoughts on Thailand

There are next to no sidewalks in Thailand and people do not like to walk. Unless its in a mall. They have the biggest, fanciest malls I have ever seen (haven't been to Mall of the Americas so who knows) Shopping is a serious activity, every town has multiple markets, day and night, and the big cities have malls. Seeing older Western men with younger Thai women started to bother me. You never see Thai men of any age with Western women, of any age. They have these strange sort of fan shaped brooms you use with one hand that look like they could not possibly work but are super effective. There are ads every where for skin whitening and brightening creams, lotions and pills. It is sad that women want to be lighter/white. You do not see Thai people in the ocean, maybe on the beach or in the pool. There are lots of Thai tourists and a much larger middle class than I imagined. Overall Thailand was more Western and more developed than I expected.

I will never forget the day Dave and I spent going form one end of Bangkok to the other to get bus tickets to go to Chaing Mai. Along the way we got various food items. We had a bowl of noodles next to a road almost like a freeway. We sat on the curb, cars rushing by and slurped them up. They were incredible. In the Sky train stop along the way we got a mini waffle filled with some kind of sweet green custard. It was sooooo good. It was almost worth going across town through the traffic and the smog just to eat along the way.

Would I go back? Yes to do certain specific things and eat.

Ubud, Bali

Getting here was super easy. We arrived in Ubud in the Central highlands in the afternoon at Ketut Madra Homestay. This lovely place was recommended by my uncle and cousin. The older couple who run it are very kind and gracious. We stayed there for two nights while we looked around for a place with a kitchen to rent that was in waking distance of some of the things we want to do. We found a "villa", kitchen ed and bathroom on the first level, another bedroom and open balcony on the second. We are a few building down from the ARMA art center that has regular performances and classes so we often hear gamelon music. There are rice fields on either side and some brown cows and chickens who wander around. All this is right off one of the main roads in Ubud.

We have been here about ten days and have only gotten out of Ubud once. We are walking distance from yoga and dance class so Dave and I have been doing that. Anika is doing home school (algebra online among other things). She also is volunteering at a local private school three times a week helping them start a garden. I am taking a batik class that meets one more time. I am on my third batik, I'll take photos soon to post. 

Its hard not to compare countries as you go. Thailand was red and gold and white with orange monks. Bali is terracotta, gray  and green with white priests. The food here is good but not as good as Thailand. People are much more friendly, always starting up conversation. And they speak much better English. Both are full of temples but some are Buddhist and some are Hindu. People here are constantly making offerings and having celebrations. Their religion takes up a lot of their time.

The monkey below looks a lot like the one who stole my camera in the Sacred Monkey Forest. We live right down the road and went by to check it out. Dave got my camera back but he had to use a cucumber to make a deal with the monkey.

We did get out of Ubud one day to see the country side and some old temples. This photo below inspired a batik.

Lotus Farm Cambodia

 I don't know why but it wouldn't let me add these to the last blog. Hope you don't mind hearing from me again on the same day!

Day two in Cambodia

 Day Two – Around Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Rest of the Tour

The next day Art took us to a floating village. Now our tour said two days at the ruins, and there were more ruins to see, but at this point it was just Erin and us and we all went along with what Art thought we should do. We saw more of Cambodia and one day of ruins felt like enough. Cambodia has the biggest fresh water lake in South East Asia. It is the home for many people and livelihood for even more. Fish from this lake is the country's number one source of protein. Depending on the time of year the lake depth fluctuates from 2 to 22 meters deep or so and the size shrinks and expands accordingly . I have never seen anything like the floating village. There are houses, stores, schools, health centers, restaurants, all on floating rafts. They all move when the area becomes too shallow to another deeper part of the lake. The trees are under water at this time of the year and we could only see the top branches sticking up like bushes. This is not a village on stilts as we saw in other places, all these structures are floating and movable. The people are mostly fishermen. There is quite a bit of tourism too. This is a very different way of life.

A floating store.

One way kids get around on the lake.

We next went to an art insititute where they are trying to preserve the ancient, traditional, art techniques of Cambodia. Students are picked from allover the country to come here and study a partiular art form and go back to their village to set up shop, or continue ti wir in Siem Reap at the institute. The arts included where lacure painting, wood and stone sculpture, metal work. The quality was beautiful and I really wish we had bought something. But we are always worrying about carrying more so we just looked.

The day ended at the National Museum a big brandnew building. By the time we were done in there we were ancient historied out. The day was very eye opening as we drove aorund and stopped at these and other places (like a lotus farm). We saw how people were living, the effects of recent flooding (its the rainy season) and snippets of day today life. I really liked Cambodia, as Dave said “Cambodia, the best thing about Thailand!)

Back to Thailand and then on to Bali in the next blog.

How to comment and Photos from Angkor Wat

I have heard it is hard to comment on this blog from several readers. All bloggers love getting comments, Anika says its a sign of a successful blog. Please send comments to my email address, lysat@cruzio.com.  I can post them here if you like. Either way I can hear what you think. Or now we have a post office address for the next month or so. We will be able to pickup mail until Oct 15. You can write a regular old fashioned letter or card to me and send it to:

 Lysa TABACHNICK
 Kantor Pos  Ubud 80571
 Bail, Indonesia

Here are a few of the many photos we took at Ankor Wat.

The first temple we saw.

Our guide Art

One of many long corridors

Us in the temple used in several US movies

Temple # 2 This one we could climb to the top.

Apsara dancers Angkor Wat third temple

Anika in the first temple

The Angkor Wat temple the whole place is named for. Like many ancient ruins it is constantly being restored.

Buddah from the first temple

Daily life from the first temple

Cambodia

Ankor Wat and Cambodia

(When you don't blog for a while you get way behind! We are now in Bali, Indonesia but I haven't even gotten to this. Photos will have to wait, all this computer communicating is time consuming!)

Getting There

Over a week ago we left Ko Chang and the rain, and headed for Angkor Wat, near Siem Reap Cambodia. We got to the end of our time at the beach and the choice was either more beach on another island or Angkor Wat. After all the rain making some days really not beach days and knowing that all the travelers we know who have been there loved Angkor Wat we choose the Wat. Also on the advice of traveler friends we went on a package tour. This is not a tour in the sense that you may be thinking. No big group, no big bus, no being rushed around. Here's how it went.

We were picked up by a mini van in Ko Chang. It took us to the ferry and then up to the boarder crossing in eastern Thailand. We were the only ones on the mini van. Near the boarder we were dropped of a a road side restaurant where there were many travelers eating lunch or waiting. They asked for our passports and some photos to make our visas for Cambodia. The travel agent who had sold us the tour didn't tell us anything about needing photos for the visas but we were prepared. I dug through my bag and produced passport sized photos proving it is worth planning ahead, something Dave and I do very differently. Off they went to make visas. We ate (the tour included all meals) and waited a short while then a young man came up to us and told us to get in a car with him, he would take us over the boarder. A drivers took us to where you have to get out and walk and dropped us and our bags off. The young man, who's name was Nee, took our bags and told us he would meet us on the other side. He gave us our prepared papers and sent us in the right direction. Now Dave can tell you I do not like have my bags out of my sight, let alone to see my bags go off with someone but we put our trust in this guy we just met. We went through the Thai side of immigration and then walked to the Cambodian side. It was very much like crossing from Costa Rica to Nicaragua, you could tell you were going from a more developed to less developed country right away. Everything was more run down, less organized looking , more cobbled together. The Cambodia immigration building was even smaller and more run down but we got through in a few minutes. And there waiting for us with our bags was Nee. He hustled us onto a bus that went to a new looking building right out side the boarder town call something like “forgein passenger welcome bus terminal”. After just a few moments there he said here is the car and deposited us in another car and said good bye. We shared this car with a young Western man who never talked to us or responded in any way. Who knows where he was from but he looked like Justin Beeber's big brother so that is how I referred to him after that which Anika thought was very funny. This driver took us to Siem Reap about 2 hours away. We had started out at 7:45 am and it was now around 1:00pm.

Driving through Cambodia we passed through towns ad country side. It was clear not everyone has electricity or running water. Water buffalo, which are rarely used now in Thailand, were used every where. Old style wooden carts, now mostly turned into garden furniture and other things in Thailand, were still being used as carts. There were many more men around and women were less visible. The dogs were much more mangy and hungry looking. (How stray animals look always tells you something about a country I think. In a place where there is extra food they look fed, in a place were there isn't enough human food they look starved or they are gone because they got eaten.)

We arrived at our hotel in Siem Reap and were dropped off. Justin Beeber's older brother finally started talking to the driver but we didn't get to hear him. He appeared to be like several other sullen back packers or traveling Europeans we have run into. They don't smile or say hi even when you do. So you feel like an overly friendly American, oh well things could be worse. At our hostel we were told it was full and they sent us down the street in a tuk tuk (which has a different name in Cambodia we didn't learn) to another hostel about a block away. It looked brand new and was nothing like a hostel to us as we had our own room and bathroom. Very nice. After a rest Dave and I went out to take a walk while Anika went into a media induced stupor in front of the TV (what hostel has a TV in your room with cable?)

We walked down the street and saw an entire cow cooking over a spit. When we walked back only the skeleton was there and the restaurant was full of Cambodians eating away. We turned the corner and went into a Wat/temple area that was peaceful but had people and monks wandering around. After walking around all the shrines and buildings we stopped to read a posted in English about all the community development projects the Wat was involved in, there were about six. A young monk (maybe in his mid 20s) saw us and stopped to see if we had any questions. We had a long conversation, his English was quite good, about all the projects and his part in them. He had a great way about him and I wish we could have gone back to talk to him more. He made me want to come and work at one of his projects, he was one of the administrators for three of them. Or maybe I just felt great sympathy because, like me in my last job, he had to run more than one school at a time! (Most of the projects were education oriented.) Like many young Cambodians we ran into he spoke English better than most Thais we met.

At dinner that night (someone just shows up and says “I am here to take you to dinner”, and you go.) we met the other two people on our tour a young English woman and an older Australian man. The woman had been volunteer teaching English in Thialand on the island of Ko Tao and the man was traveling around Thailand on vacation. They were both pleasant company. We really liked Erin, the woman, who ended up traveling back to Bangkok with us and spending time with us there.

Day One- Angkor Wat

The next morning our guide Art picked us all up and we were off to Angkor Wat. Art was a very knowledgeable guide who also knew how to pace things and deal with his clients. We spent two days with him showing us around Siem Reap and the ruins and talking about Cambodian culture and history. He is primarily a birder who takes foreigners birding so we heard a bit about that too as well as environmental issues in the country.

I do not think I can describe the ruins of Angkor Wat well enough with only words. Magnificent, magical, other worldly, old, beautiful, stunning, none of those alone do it justice and all together they don't sound real. It was an experience something like going to Pompeii in Italy or Tikal in Guatemala or Anasazi ruins in the southwest or the Alhambra in Spain. But the temples and buildings of Angkor Wat are so big and cover so much land and there are so many of them it is not the same. Maybe Machu Pichu is like this, we'll have to see if we get there. Several temples, including the one actually called Angkor Wat, have detailed stone bass relief carvings telling the stories of Hindu myths, Khmer history and daily life in the past. Many of them are in incredibly good condition. Many of the statues that could be more easily halled off are in museums around the world ( I saw some of them in Philadelphia in the art museum growing up). Cambodia was a French colony ( we had excellent, fresh out of the oven, baguette for breakfast in the mornings so much of it ended up there, but the French also helped rebuild and excavate large parts of the area. Hopefully we can post some of the photos and they can paint a better picture than I can.

We spent a very long full day walking the ruins with Art. When we are at the one where they have left the trees growing through, around and on top or it (it has been in several Hollywood movies making it almost feel familiar) it started to pour rain. Being the only one in our family to forget their raincoat I got drenched. But it is so hot by the time we got home my pants were dry! The day ended for me taking one last look back toward the main Angkor Wat temple across the wide stone walk way leading up to it, with the lotus pond to one side, the five towers reaching to the sky, and up to the many dragon flies floating and flitting in the air over our heads, silvery in the late afternoon light.

That night we went to an Asian buffet. It was like being at a Las Vegas buffet, but with different food, half of which you have no idea what it is and no one can tell you. I wished I had an extra stomach because there was no way to try everything with just one. After there was a performance of Cambodia traditional dance. Some was ceremonial from all the way back to Khmer empire times and some was more like peasant folk dance. Many of the costumes were very elaborate and detailed. We got some great photos.

I left out the most difficult part of the day. After the ruins Art took us to what he called “the killing fields”. I don't know if this is a specific place or if anywhere the Khmer Rouge did killing is called a killing field. They used temples and schools (many schools and temples share the same grounds like in Thailand) as prisons and concetration camps. We stopped at a wat and Art took us to a monument full of human skulls. He proceeded to tell us about the Cambodian civli war that started in the 1970s, during our Vietnam war, and Pol Pot the leader of the Kehmer Rouge. If was clearly difficult for him to talk about and it was the only time when we were with him when he did not answer questions well. It was difficult for me because I felt a lot of shame for the part that the US government played in this genoicide. They basically used a country on the brink of a civil war to create a power vacume they thought they could use to their advantage but instead it paved the way for one of the worst genocides in history. The photos at this sight looked like they could have been from German concentratin camps. Half the population of Cambodia today is under 18 and we got a strong feeling that the healing from this tradgedy is still going on. It is not yet taught about in the schools. Pol Pot died in 1998 which is not very long ago. We left with many questions about what can be learned form this and how could it be prevented from happening again.

More Cambodia next time and photos!