JBR part 2 March 18 - 30 trip
Ubud to Permuteran
On Thursday morning March 22 we wanted to have breakfast out of the hotel and got dropped off at Casa Luna. The place was empty. Sorry to say, but we were virtually the only people in every restaurant we went to in Ubud, except of course for Mozaic and a lesser extent Indus. Mozaic was the only restaurant we had to book the whole time we were there. Breakfast was OK but I would have thought Casa Luna could have done a decent cappucino. It was boiling hot. Oh well, sing can can.
One of the most interesting things about Casa Luna (and Indus) is the traditional Balinese tonics (some based on ayurvedic medicine) eg hot drinks with fresh turmeric that it serves. Janet de Neefe, the Australian owner, is a big believer in the health benefits of traditional Balinese medicine and herbs.
I had seen an ad for Ubud's new Botanic Garden (opened only in June 2006 and a short drive from Ubud). I thought it would be a beautiful place as well as a great spot for the kids to run around in. We got dropped off there and were immediately impressed. It was stunning. We met the German director, Stefan, who was the prime mover behind the gardens, I believe, and who used to be a writer.
There were many gorgeous complex gardens within the Gardens - there was a pitcher plant trail, a Heliconia Hill, a bamboo grove. The little green café is set next to a stream and called the chocolate house; there is a gorgeous circular meditation garden dripping with moss and housing an ancient Banyan tree, there were lotus ponds, an orchid house, a labyrinth of green hedges, which the kids loved, a pretty Islamic garden and even more things we didn't get to see.
I spoke to Stefan for awhile and he said that local elders had given the land, as it wasn't being used for anything, and then it took two years of work. Amazing how quickly things grow - the place looked like it had been there for years. Stefan said there was no govt money involved, not surprisingly - all private money.
I would recommend anyone visiting Ubud to visit this Botanic Garden - I think not a lot of people know about it yet. We were the only people there when we went but it was exquisite. Here's the website address and you can have a look for yourself - but it's even prettier than the photos on the website because things have grown since those photos were taken. Here's the website:
www.botanicgardenbali.com/
We spent a few hours at the Botanic Garden - we could have spent longer but Sophie was getting tired. We were picked up and decided to have lunch at Café Lotus. The setting is magnificent even by Balinese standards: a large lotus pond framed by ancient flowering trees with one of Ubud's main temple complexes, Pura Taman Kemuda Saraswati, as a backdrop. It was beautiful but tiring because Soph kept hanging over the railing and we were worried she was going to drop into the lotus pond (she was fascinated by the ginormous carp) so we had to keep dragging her back and trying to get her to sit down.
The food was good; I had Chinese crispy duck and even the smallest serving was more than I could eat and delicious. Duck in Australia has become very tasteless like the chicken but Balinese duck, like Indonesian chicken, is really tasty. Jules had the pork belly, which he liked but said the pork belly at Tegal Sari was better!
The café had some traditional Balinese drinks such as Jamu, which I liked. A hot drink full of spices - clove, nutmeg, ginger. I might try to recreate it at home. They had white mango juice, which we hadn't had before. A Belgian man and his Balinese wife were at the next table and they wanted to talk to us. The Balinese woman was very direct, wanted to know exactly how long I'd breastfed Sophie and important things like that.
Afternoon in the pool with the kids and then the babysitter came and we were off to see the Kecak and Fire trance dance at Puri Agung Peliatan (I think). We would have liked to take Sam but he wanted to stay with the babysitter. We'd tried to see the Kecak earlier that week but it was cancelled several nights in a row because the men were all busy at the temple birthday I mentioned earlier.
To be honest I wasn't expecting that much from the Kecak, I'm not sure why. I might have seen a very small bit of it on our last trip, in a village, and I guess the difference between seeing it at our villa and seeing it at the Puri in Ubud was like the difference between seeing Miss Chloe's Academy of Dance end-of-year concert and the Australian Ballet.
All of us tourists sat outside under a giant fig or banyan tree in a semi circle around a burning torch. We were facing a long flight of palace steps. The kecak men entered down the steps, all fifty or more likely 100 of them, singing in their distinct rhythmic way. They formed several concentric circles and sat down, still singing and percussioning, with one keeping the beat like a particularly persistent frog 'binging' away in a pond.
That would have been fascinating in itself but then the beautiful dancers came down the steps - Rama and Sita and Rama's brother and most entrancing, the child dancer dressed up as the golden kijang or deer, prancing around the circle. Rama had three incense sticks burning in his headdress - a rather neat way of showing just how all round terrific and godlike a hero he is, shedding fragrance with every movement - and the scent was intoxicating. The dancers were extremely athletic, particularly Hanoman the white monkey king, bounding up and down the flight of palace steps. Hanoman was very funny, bounding into the audience to pick fleas off of us (including me) and then springing away again. The whole thing was riveting, one of the most enchanting performances I've ever seen and all with music supplied only by the chanting men.
That was followed by the fire trance dance, which I believe is part of an old tradition even though I know the Kecak in its present form dates from the 1930s though aspects of it come from an older tradition. The dancer is meant to be lulled into a trance by the voices during the Kecak. After the Kecak is finished a fire of coconut husks is built up and allowed to die to embers and then the dancer comes out riding a hobby horse. He rides around the fire and then dashes through it, scattering the embers towards the audience. I don't think anyone got hurt the night we went but some Japanese girls did scream loudly. The dancer dashed through the embers again and again. When it was over he sat panting and looking dazed, his feet absolutely black and a priest (I assume) blessed him with holy water. I hoped he was OK and didn't have burnt feet to deal with later.
We had dinner at Lamak - the restaurant was very quiet but the meal was wonderful. We had the best cocktails - almond coladas, in which the bacardi was replaced with amaretto. I'm not a big pina colada fan but the almond coladas are divine. I had tea-smoked duck broth for entrée, delicious, and a heavenly sesame encrusted scallops on a delicious puree - celeriac or something like that. Jules had lobster lasagna - mmmm. He had the ginger and orange crème brulee for dessert. I had the coconut cake. Utterly delicious.
The next morning was Friday morning and time for us to leave Ubud. Tegal Sari had arranged a really lovely driver for us, Wayan (narrows the field, doesn't it?). Wayan told us the day was auspicious for weddings and sure enough we passed many of them on our way to Permuteran which is at the extreme northwest end of Bali, near Java. We passed more Ogoh-ogoh too.
Wayan drove us along little back roads from Ubud to the main road past Bedugul and the three lakes and on to Munduk. This was a fascinating drive, particularly the narrow ridge high above the three lakes, both sides of the road lined by fields and fields of hydrangeas, or hundreds of hydrangeas packed into containers by the side of the road. We drove through a little monkey forest, with the monkeys by the side of the road, and Soph was beside herself of course, wanting to touch them. We saw an old couple herding ducks along the road.
We stopped at a great café near Munduk. It was very high on a ridgeline and we were supposed to be able to see plantations of coffee and cloves and other spices but the mist had come swirling right down. We had coffee and something to eat and Wayan told me about his Javanese wife working long hours at the Zen spa in Ubud and his new baby being looked after by neighbours. That must be hard. Of course his wife, being Muslim, had had to convert to marry Wayan. Luckily her parents were OK about it, he said, but I guessed that he didn't mind not seeing too much of them. Before we left the mist cleared enough so we could see the spectacular view all the way down the mountains to the northwest coastline of Bali.
Another two hours or so and we'd pulled up at Taman Selini, Permuteran, in a torrential tropical downpour. And so began the next phase of our trip.