The first full day in Bali was just spent by the hotel pool: looking out at the sea, a little bit of reading, in the sun, in the shade, a short swim, went down to the room for a while to get away from the heat and to blog. The sea was a beautiful blue, and there were a few reefs just offshore so the waves were huge, really cool, proper surf waves; there are lots of surf schools along the western beaches. I didn't go down to the beach, though, it was busy. On the hills in the hazy distance there was this enormous thing, some kind of gigantic structure which looked out of place and completely surreal. For some reason what I was looking at seemed to me to be some weird statue of a non-realistic monkey with a hat on and its arms up in the air... Mojo-Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls came to mind. I later Googled it and it's Garuda Wishnu Kencana, a 120m-tall statue of Vishnu located in a large park dedicated to the god. I wish I had known about it, I would have gone there.
My sister's friend was joining us in Bali and had flown in late the night before and stayed in a hotel at the airport, so she arrived late morning and came up to the pool. After a while we had lunch there, on the rooftop terrace at a table in the shade. Originally thinking of just a sandwich or something, we ended up having a hot meal – I had grilled chicken in a tasty slightly spicy sauce with steamed rice. A couple of the hotel staff came out to the terrace to look over the street – there would be a parade around 3pm for Indonesian Independence Day. (The archipelago had been under Dutch control for a couple of centuries before the Japanese occupied it during WW2. When the Japanese left in 1945, Indonesia declared independence on August 17th, but it wasn't until 1949 that the Netherlands accepted this.) A convoy of old military cars appeared around 2:30 but then nothing for ages. I went downstairs to the room. After a while I heard music and parade-y sounds so went down to the street (easier than going up to the pool terrace) and watched for a while. There was music, Chinese dragons, and groups of people in various costumes - some plain, some beautiful, some bizarre.
My sister's friend was joining us in Bali and had flown in late the night before and stayed in a hotel at the airport, so she arrived late morning and came up to the pool. After a while we had lunch there, on the rooftop terrace at a table in the shade. Originally thinking of just a sandwich or something, we ended up having a hot meal – I had grilled chicken in a tasty slightly spicy sauce with steamed rice. A couple of the hotel staff came out to the terrace to look over the street – there would be a parade around 3pm for Indonesian Independence Day. (The archipelago had been under Dutch control for a couple of centuries before the Japanese occupied it during WW2. When the Japanese left in 1945, Indonesia declared independence on August 17th, but it wasn't until 1949 that the Netherlands accepted this.) A convoy of old military cars appeared around 2:30 but then nothing for ages. I went downstairs to the room. After a while I heard music and parade-y sounds so went down to the street (easier than going up to the pool terrace) and watched for a while. There was music, Chinese dragons, and groups of people in various costumes - some plain, some beautiful, some bizarre.
The next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and got the 9am shuttle bus to Ubud, a town about an hour away, further north towards the centre of the island, surrounded by the lush greenery of rice paddies and jungle. It’s Bali’s cultural and spiritual hub. That is, modern spirituality – it’s where the yoga places, spas with holistic therapies and detox treatments, and vegetarian eateries abound. Bali as a whole is a very spiritual place, a Hindu island in a Muslim country, and rituals are a deeply-ingrained part of everyday life; shrines are everywhere and temples are on almost every street. The rickety old minibus with no seatbelts and non-existent aircon took two and a half hours through traffic jams in the midday heat to get to Ubud, and there wasn't a single break in the buildings lining the roads along the entire route.
After meeting back up at and checking into the hotel, we spent the rest of the afternoon planning the next three days. For dinner, we wandered round looking at the endless eateries, eventually going into a hotel restaurant which said it had a view of the rice paddies. Turns out because it was windy they’d closed the rooftop view bar, so we ate inside. Still very nice. I had a vegetable yellow curry, which was absolutely delicious. Mild, no chilli at all, but wonderfully spiced, full of flavour. Among the vegetables was something I hadn't had before and didn't know what it was, it had a kind of soft nutty texture and I loved it.
I like cultures where people take off their shoes before going indoors. It's not so convenient in countries like England, where it's cold and wet and it's easier to just keep your laced-up trainers or boots on when you run back inside to grab something you've forgotten. It does make it easier in those places where the climate is hot and dry most of the time so everyone wears sandals and flip-flops anyway, the kind of shoes you can kick off and slip back on in a second. Bali is one such place. You didn't need to at restaurants, but many shops encouraged leaving your shoes at the door if you could, and the hotel staff who brought our breakfast or came to clean the room would leave their sandals on the step, and not even come onto the porch with them on. It makes floors so much easier to keep clean, especially if the floors aren't carpeted and you can just sweep. Shoes may appear to be clean but there'll be dust and microscopic amounts of dirt and muck on them that gradually build up. I guess it also encourage you to wash your feet more often; it's probably a daily occurrence for most people in these cultures, giving their feet a quick wash at the same time as washing their face each morning and evening. There's also just a sense of respect about it, treading lightly.
The Yoga Barn asks class-goers to leave their shoes in the racks at the door of each studio, the main reception area/shop, and the café. Don't just take them off at the door and bring them with you into the room - leave them at the door. Participation for the meditation session was on a first-come-first-served basis so I had to be there an hour beforehand. Everyone (at least fifty people) waited in the main reception area after registering; when the class was due to start our names would be called one by one and we would go up the stairs to the studio. In meditation sessions everywhere, most of the time, silence is adopted from the moment you enter the room. The building was open and airy, with just one wall at the back and the other three sides open to the elements, with a roof of course.
A gong bath meditation (or just gong bath) is where you're, well, bathed in the hypnotic sounds of the gong. Today it's classed as a form of sound therapy, but the practice has been around for thousands of years. It's meant to be really good for deep relaxation, easing stress and anxiety, etc. The studio was dark, we could just about see our way round by the ambient light from the other buildings and nearby streets. I liked that, and the hush that permeates all dedicated meditation spaces. There were several gongs of various sizes hung up on one side, and yoga mats were laid out around the rest of the room with a blanket and thin cushion on each. Many people went to the cupboards at the back and took out a bolster, too. Some sat up on the mats, most people laid down and made themselves comfortable using the bolster as a pillow and covering themselves with the blanket. I hadn't been to anything like this before, so didn't know what to expect, and hadn't seen bolsters used before so didn't really know what they were for so didn't get one... soon wished I had.
The gong-master (I'm just calling him that because I've no idea what he refers to himself as) quietly spoke for a few minutes at the start, then began. It isn't an hour of gongs being struck loudly, as if to announce dinner or the entrance of somebody important, until your mind is kind of numbed. He used the gongs like a musical instrument, softly, creating different sounds and tones and vibrations to form an audible energy that was the music of the universe. It was a cool experience. ...Or rather, I knew it was a really cool thing and could be a great experience, but I don't practice meditation so haven't learned how to relax and let my mind settle, and lying on a wooden floor for an hour became very uncomfortable. A few bony parts of my body hurt at the end of the session, and I may have relaxed a little bit but not significantly. But I'm glad I went, I'd like to go to one again, and want to build up a habit of daily meditation practice.
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