Home Again!

Sat in the bay window of my grandparents' house in Newlyn, Cornwall, it seems for a moment as though the last 8 months never happened. Looking down over the rooftops of the village and the tangle of yellow-masted trawlers that huddle in the shelter of the stone-walled harbour, the sea sparkles blue in the May sunshine. The promenade curls round to the town-houses and church spires of Penzance, where the battered, but still gracious, old bathing pool points out into the bay. Overseeing all of this, the enigmatic, castle-topped St Michael's Mount faces proudly seawards, just as it always has.

This has been our bolt hole for the last 2 weeks after our return from Hong Kong and it has proved perfect for the purpose. Cornwall in May can be a match for anywhere in the world and this May has been blessed with some glorious weather. The hedgerows are awash with wild flowers and it has been mostly warm enough to walk the cliff tops in shirt-sleeves.

The first things that we noticed, though, was how calm and ordered and peaceful everything seems and how polite (with the odd exception) everyone is. For the first time in 8 months, we don't feel the need to sharpen our elbows when we join a queue!

For anyone needing a release from the stresses of life, a hike along the remote parts of the Cornish coast takes a lot of beating. The air is clean and fresh, with only the sound of the gulls and the rush of the surf to distract from the stunning views of rugged cliffs and sandy coves. Watching the infinite patterns of the ocean crashing onto the rocks, it is easy to lose all sense of time and question how we manage to make our lives so complicated.

It's great being here before the main tourist season is in full swing, which has allowed us to get to places that would be swamped in July and August. We've walked in splendid isolation along the cliffs to Lamorna, Porthcurno, Cape Cornwall and around the Lizard and even found a parking space in St Ives! From the house, we have also had our daily walks along the promenade to Penzance and around the headland to Mousehole.

The promenade between Newlyn and Penzance was nearly washed away by the winter storms here and everywhere there is still evidence of the damage wrought, with broken paving slabs and twisted railings. In places the concrete path has disappeared altogether, reclaimed by the beach, and the art-deco bathing pool remains closed and filled with rubble blown in by the storms. But it's still an enjoyable walk and lots of work is ongoing to restore and improve it, with new paths, lawns and flower-beds.

Newlyn is a thriving working village, famous for 2 unlikely bed-fellows: fishermen and artists! The fishermen value it's sheltered harbour and it's location at the far south-west of England, jutting out into the Atlantic; the artists it's wonderful light, natural setting and unpretentiousness. It's a quirky mix, quite different from the usual tourist impression of Cornwall, which is refreshing. I have been coming here since I was a young boy and I never tire of it.

The path to Mousehole has been our favourite over the past couple of weeks. We follow the road out of Newlyn, which rises up above the harbour (always colourful and full of interesting activity) and then cuts down to the shore, where a cycle path follows the rocks. Atlantic grey seals and dolphins are regular visitors and we nearly always seem to spot at least one seal as we walk. Our ultimate target though has invariably been a small shop in the village that serves wonderful pasties and ice cream!

On the subject of Mousehole, I need to get something off my chest: what is it with everyone pronouncing it Mowzel?! It seems as though everyone has to put on a broad Cornish accent suddenly, which is akin to visiting Glasgow and pronouncing it Glazzgee - I think you'd probably get a 'Glazzgee Kiss' if you tried that one!

Mousehole (pronounced as it reads unless you have a Cornish accent!) is the quintessential romantic idyll of a Cornish fishing village, with old stone terraced houses crammed around narrow lanes, alleys and a small harbour. It is buzzing with life from spring to summer, but sadly little more than a ghost town in the winter, when most of the shops and restaurants close, as three quarters of the houses are second homes or B&Bs. The one pub in the village (The Ship Inn) does a roaring trade, but the owners are incredibly rude people (or they were to us), so we gave that a wide steer.

All of this makes it sound like we have been having a holiday down here. And indeed we have to some extent (Sue, in particular, has found this a haven), but this only tells half of it. We have had the small matter of 8 months of post to deal with and all sorts of personal administration to catch up on, not to mention the logistics of planning for the coming weeks and months.

We have decided that we will spend the summer months in the UK and we have managed to arrange a series of house-sits in Suffolk and Sussex to take us through to nearly the end of August. We're hoping that this will give us the time and space that we need to start thinking about our longer term plans and we both have some projects that we want to start working on. We also hope to continue catching up with friends and family, hopefully not boring them too much with our photos and travellers' tales!

If you liked the sound of our bolt hole down in the west of Cornwall, then I should tell you that you can stay there yourself and I have even negotiated a 10% discount for anyone who mentions this blog! You can find details at www.cornwall-online.co.uk/pengullyn-newlyn

So, this brings me to the end of the Tamworth Two blog. We hope that you have enjoyed reading our 'Grown Up Gap Year Tales'. Our travels have probably been tougher even than we had anticipated at the start, but we have seen many wonderful sights, met many interesting people and come away with experiences that will live with us forever.

We have made it hard on ourselves at times, but we wanted to see some of the world from ground level. As we travelled (from Europe to Russia, across the vast Siberian plains and Mongolian Steppe and on through China into South-East Asia and Australasia), patterns seemed to emerge. Europeans are a bit like Russians, who are a bit like Mongolians, who are a bit like Chinese...with more in common than divides. The laughter of children is the same, whether they are leaping into a muddy river in Laos or riding a boogie board in the surf at Manly; teenagers strut with the same swagger as they search for their own identities; adults lose themselves in the same anxieties for maintaining and improving their lives and elders look on with the same world-weary wisdom.

We have also been awe-struck by the landscapes that we have travelled through and enchanted by the wildlife. This was tempered by dismay at the amount of destruction and degradation by human hand that we witnessed. As populations continue to grow rapidly and developing countries, in Asia in particular, rapidly improve their standards of living, the pressure on the natural environment is only going to increase. We have seen evidence everywhere we have been that the earth is creaking under the pressure and without radical solutions to significantly reduce humanity's impact, we fear that nature will wreak her revenge - and we will have only ourselves to blame.

I will finish, though, with a more personal parting thought. One of the the foundations of this year for us, was that hopes and dreams deserve to be given a chance to become real. It is easy to keep them in one's mind, always finding reasons for putting them off. Of course there are risks involved and the reality may not be quite what one expected, but the biggest risk in life is surely of looking in the mirror one day and seeing looking back only unfulfilled potential and regret.

Looking out over Mount's Bay from our 'bolt-hole' in Newlyn

Bluebells and other wild flowers fill the hedgerows and meadows in May

The beach at Coverack

A secluded bay near Land's End

A view of Porthcurno from the Minnack

And finally...thanks again for reading!

 

The last port of call

Eight months, seventeen countries, well over a hundred different beds slept in...and here we are, down to the last one! As I reported in our last post, we have decided to make Hong Kong our last stop and we will fly back from here to London on 3rd May.


It feels like an appropriate place to end our journey. Hong Kong is one of the world's great cities: where east meets west; communism meets capitalism and high rise modernity disguises a tumultuous history.

We decided to avoid the hustle and bustle of the centre of Hong Kong and opted to stay instead in the relative peace of Lantau Island. The Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong (as it has been known since the final departure of the British in 1997) comprises some 262 islands, plus the mainland areas of Kowloon and the New Territories. Lantau is the largest of these 262 islands, but historically has been barely populated. Even today, there are fewer than 100,000 people living here, but that is changing rapidly. The north-east of the island is now connected by a road bridge to Kowloon, but more important was the opening of the spectacular new airport on reclaimed land just off the north shore. Development continues apace, with the construction of a 200,000+ capacity new town just south of the airport and the recent opening of Hong Kong Disneyland in the north.

Our home for 10 days, though, has been away from these developments in the small traditional town of Mui Wo. It is largely surrounded by steep hills on three sides and the South China Sea on the fourth. Before all of the developments mentioned above, it was the largest town on the island, but it's geographical restrictions means it will probably never get that much bigger. It's big advantages for us, in addition to the peaceful setting, are the presence of a single half-decent hotel and a ferry terminal. There are boats every 40 minutes that takes half an hour to cross Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Central: costing us all of £2 each way.

We spent the best of a day walking around the Mui Wo area. The town is strung out around the Silvermine Bay and the Silver River as it makes it's short journey from the hills above the town into the sea. As these names suggest, silver was found in these hills and the town's growth was based on this. We followed the river out of the town towards the hills: past a couple of old temples decorated with ornate traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy; some stone watchtowers that used to guard against pirates who operated in the area and onto a waterfall and some caves where silver used to be mined.

We got chatting with an elderly Chinese couple who were following the same route. The pattern developed that we would overtake them, then they would wave frantically at us to warn us that we had gone in the wrong direction. Later an Aussie guy from Melbourne passed, on a decrepit bike with a 6 pack of Tsing Tao beer in the basket. We weren't sure if he was wobbling because of the bumpy road, the effort of cycling whilst trying not to spill the can that he was holding, or indeed whether this wasn't his first six pack of the day! He stopped for a chat with us for a while and it turned out that he had been living here for over a year and was taking a break from his business, which he was leaving in the hands of his sons back home.

Interestingly, there is quite a strong ex-pat community in Mui Wo, made up largely of Aussies and Brits. On our first evening, we stumbled onto the China Bear bar and restaurant, which turned out to be the spiritual home of the Mui Wo ex-pat with a Happy Hour selling draft European beer and live English Premier League football on the television. The staff wore ironic t-shirts of their own design, emblazoned with 'Micky Mao' - a subversive hybrid of the Disney character and the revolutionary leader.

Back at our hotel, we briefly contemplated a swim from the beach, but decided that the water looked too murky. This proved a good call, as we subsequently found there was a ban on swimming for much of our time here, due to a 'red tide'. This is basically where brown algae spreads uncontrollably fed by a combination of warming seas and pollution in the water (particularly sewage and phosphates).

Mui Wo - a view across Silvermine Bay to our hotel

An old watchtower on the edge if Mui Wo

The entrance to the 400 year old, Ming Dynasty, Mar Mo Buddhist temple in Mui Wo

There were a number of other worthwhile sights on Lantau and we took a series of bus rides across the island to the small fishing village of Tai O and on to the Po Lin Monastery. Here in 1993, the monks unveiled the 'largest seated, outdoor, bronze statue of Buddha'. Having already seen the 'largest standing, outdoor Buddha' earlier on our journey, this felt like a must. We made a mental note to check whether the Guinness Book of Records has a specialist sub-section on Buddhas and, if so, how many sub-categories it contains. This Buddha, was though quite spectacular, proudly sitting 35 metres tall at the top of 268 steps in an area of wooded hills.

It was opened in the run up to Hong Kong re-joining China and a plaque recorded the statement of a senior Chinese government official. He made much of the symbolism of the Buddha facing north towards the mainland and of the importance that the Chinese government places on freedom of religious expression. It would seem from what we have seen in Hong Kong that, 17 years on from re-unification, people in Hong Kong continue to be allowed reasonably unrestricted freedom of expression - and long may this continue.

The Lantau Giant Buddha

Most of our time here, however, has been spent toing and froing from Lantau to Hong Kong and Kowloon. The ferry has been a great form of transport, allowing us to see the city from the harbour at all times of day and night. We also took the funicular railway up to the Peak; the tram all along the north shore; a bus right through the middle of Hong Island to Stanley and the famous Star Ferry, which chugs back and forth across Victoria Harbour between Hong Kong and Kowloon.

The views of the urban skyline from the ferry, from the Peak and from the waterfront were all dramatic, though often marred by the smog which limited visibility for most of our time here. This is probably inevitable, given the 8 million people now living in Hong Kong, plus the large cities and industrial zones of Guangzhou just north in China.

The views are best at night, when the hundreds of skyscrapers on either side of the bay all lit up are the equal of any skyline anywhere in the world. At 8.00 each evening, crowds gather for a sound and light show, and some of the buildings light up or beam lasers skywards in synchronisation with the music. It sounded amazing, but in reality the scene didn't really need any further embellishment.

A view from the Peak, over Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour and on to Kowloon

The funicular railway, which has been carrying passengers up to the Peak since 1888

The Hong Kong skyline at night, viewed from Kowloon

3 Star ferries appearing to race each other across Victoria Harbour

Possibly the last of the old junks, sails along the Harbour shoreline

Hong Kong though is about much more than just the famous urban coastal strip that it is renowned for. The centre of the island is dominated by jagged peaks and forested valleys and the southern coast still has many small settlements and unspoilt sandy beaches. We took a couple of days out to explore some of these areas.

On one day we took a bus out of Central and followed the 'Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail'. This follows a ridge that looks out over a valley that separates the city from the east coast and tells the story of Hong Kong's experience of WWII. Today it is serenely peaceful on top of the ridge, but on 18th and 19th December 1941, one of the most ferocious battles of WWII was fought here, as the full force of one of Japan's most battle hardened infantry troops forced their way through the narrow valley that we looked down upon. The British had not given sufficient military resource to the island and the brunt of the defence fell on the men of the Hong Kong Kong Voluntary Defence Corp and a newly arrived battalion from Canada. They held out for a long 24 hours under intense bombardment and when they were inevitably overrun, the fall of the rest of Hong Kong also became inevitable.

The view from the Wong Nai Chung Gap, back to Happy Valley and the city beyond

The next day we went on to Stanley, the southernmost point of Hong Kong Island. It is a pleasant spot, with a sheltered bay, sandy beaches and traditional markets sitting next door to a modern shopping plaza. In 1941 though, this was the last hold-out for British forces and more heavy fighting took place before the final surrender on Christmas Day. The area to the south of the town was also used by the Japanese as an internment camp, where non-Chinese civilians (mostly being women and children) were imprisoned for more than 4 years in the most inhumane conditions.

A view of the old pier and the bay at Stanley

So, we have spent an interesting 10 days in Hong Kong, getting into the rhythm of the city. It is a dynamic, bustling, sometimes claustrophobic city with some of the most densely populated districts in the world, sitting close to areas of natural beauty. Even with re-unification with China, it has continued its way unperturbed: as it's own brochures describe it 'Asia's World City'.

Our thoughts though have to a large extent been on our imminent return to the UK. Thank you to everyone for reading this blog over the last 8 months. We have thoroughly enjoyed researching and writing it, even with some ups and downs along the way. We do think though that we have at least one more post in us, so next time out, we will try and put some thoughts together on our overall experience and where we might be going next.

And finally...watch out, the Tamworth Two are returning soon!

Travels across Bali

I will start this post with the news that, after 8 months on the road, we will soon be on the way back to the UK! We are today heading on from Bali to Hong Kong and have decided to make that our last port of call on this trip, before flying back to London on May 3rd. We haven't finalised our longer term plans yet: we are likely to be in England at least for the summer months, but we may spend the winter in warmer climbs, pending taking our house back at the end of February 2015.

This may all sound a little sudden, but we have been gradually finding ourselves getting jaded by life on the road. Travelling is always more tiring then one expects, with the constant logistical challenges of researching and planning routes, transport, accommodations etc and keeping up to date with managing personal affairs back home (often from super-slow or non-existent internet connections) not to mention the physical challenges of living out of a rucksack for a long period. Oh yes - and then remembering to actually make some time to enjoy exploring the countries that we are travelling in and to record these experiences for posterity!

So, last week, as we were turning our thoughts to moving on from Hong Kong to South Korea and Japan before heading on to the west coast of Canada, we suddenly realised that this was becoming a chore and that we needed a time-out.

Having learned the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia, Sue realises that it might take several more coffees, before she is ready to take on Korea's Hangul Alphabet

So after that news, let me tell you about the rest of our travels in Bali, since we left Ubud on 7th April. I hope you enjoyed Sue's debut post on the Black Beaches of Bali which started to paint some of our impressions of the island. It's fair to say that our 26 days here have been mixed. The popular impression of Bali, is probably of a tropical holiday paradise, but this is only partially true. As Sue said in our last post, there are very few nice beaches in Bali (and certainly nothing on the wonderful pristine sands that we saw in Australia and New Zealand). This is a densely populated working island and the tourists are generally bundled into luxurious resort enclaves with sculpted pools and manicured tropical gardens. We, of course, hadn't come here to just sit by a pool in a remote resort, which has sometimes made things difficult for us.

One good thing about the tourist infrastructure and the relatively small size of the island, is that it is easy and cost effective to hire a driver. For about £25, one can hire a driver for a full day and they will take you pretty much anywhere on the island. We met a young chap by the name of Made who we hired for 2 days: the first for a tour of the areas around Ubud (including a stop at the dramatic Mount Batur that Sue mentioned in the last post) and the second to take us away from the rice fields of Ubud and onto our second stop in the northern mountains.

We learned a lot from Made. Interestingly, he didn't tell us that his name means literally 'second born son'. We only sussed this out later when we asked someone why we were meeting so many Mades and Wayans - Wayan meaning 'first born son'!

Made did tell us that he had been married for 5 years, that he and his wife were still living with his family (as they saved for their own home) and that he was anxiously awaiting for news that his own Wayan might be on his way! He also told us that he had been very keen not to have to work in the fields and that many people saw jobs in the tourist industry as a way out of this hard life. Interestingly, he told us that ownership of the rice fields was split between small holdings and larger landowners. Larger landowners tended to hire peasants to harvest their rice crop, with the peasants taking 50% of the rice crop in return, in lieu of wages. This sounded remarkably like the system that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia that we had heard about earlier on our travels.

The rice paddies that we drove past with Made were undeniably beautiful: brilliant yellow green fields stepping down from hillside to valley floor, contrasting with the occasional splash of alternate colours from frangipani trees, marigolds and other flowers, the whole scene dotted with little Hindu shrines. The only irritant was that each time we passed a sight that might be of interest to a tourist (even down to a scenic view of a paddy field), we found a road block, with somebody official looking collecting money in return for a crudely printed ticket. We found ourselves constantly doling out rolls of low denomination notes as we travelled!

In the rest of our travels with Made, we got to see numerous interesting and beautiful sights, including old temples, hot springs, mountains and picturesque villages. One village we passed through was readying iself for a religious festival. The festival was unique to this village and only occurs once every 50 to 100 years at a time called by the village elders. Made wasn't quite able to tell us how the date is decided, but seems to be a combination of factors, such as events that have happened and the prosperity of the village. He recalled that his own village had had such a festival when he was a young boy and that this was the only such event that his father could remember. The road in and out of the village was lined with garlanded bamboo poles that curled over at the tops, forming a golden archway as we drove through and villagers dressed in starched white robes were scurrying around making final preparations for the religious ceremonies to come.

A garlanded bamboo archway into a village announces an impending once-in-a-lifetime religious festival

Pilgrims in procession and bathing in the spiritually cleansing waters of the Puranas Tirtha Hindu Temple

The Ulun Danu Hindhu Temple, jutting out into Lake Bratan (one of Bali's largest)

We left Made behind at our hotel, high in the hills at the village of Munduk. Our intention was to stay here for 4 nights and enjoy the cool mountain air and vistas and to do some mountain walking. The views from our hotel, were indeed magnificent, with views across to Gunung Agung (the highest mountain in Bali at 3,142 metres) and a number of other 2,000 metre + peaks. What we hadn't factored in though was the noise. We had expected peace, but instead we had a steady stream of motor bikes roaring up the hill passing within a few feet of our room. It is hard to describe the noise some of these bikes, with their 2-stroke engines and no mufflers, make. The closest I can compare them to is pneumatic drills on wheels! The noise was relentless, but around 2 am, the noise of the engines was replaced by barking dogs.

Room with a view at Munduk, but spoilt by the ear-splitting sound of motorbike engines

A waterfall high up in the mountains at Munduk

We braved it out for 2 nights here, taking a pleasant walk up in the hills to a waterfall that crashed out of a rock face to a plunge pool, but Sue was in a bad way after that, so we baled out and headed on up to the north west coast and the small resort town of Pemuteran.

Pemuteran is famous for its coral reef restoration project which is the largest of its type in the world. The reef in the area had been badly damaged by destructive fishing practices and sea-warming. The project has 're-seeded' the area with 'bio-rock' that acts as a scaffold around which new coral will grow. These bio-rocks are then charged with a low electrical current that encourages more rapid coral growth.

I hired a mask and snorkel and spent a couple of hours swimming over the new and old reef. The earliest bio-rocks are only a little more than 10 years old, but I could already see good new coral thriving and this had brought a great variety of different fish to the area. We have seen a lot of environmental destruction on this trip, so it was encouraging to see a good news story here and a win-win situation: environmental regeneration, enjoyment for tourists, local businesses thriving as a result.

We stayed in Pemuteran at a very nice home-stay. Home stay, simply means that the hotel is locally owned and managed: in this case by Tajuna and his wife, who also employ their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces in the business. We had a good chat with Tajuna and he told us that each year as the business had grown, he had re-invested the profits to build one more room. This year, he was building a new restaurant and spa treatment room away from the noise of the road.

What will always remain in my memory, though, was how nice they were to Sue. They immediately saw that she wasn't feeling well when we arrived and was struggling with the noise from the motorbikes. So they upgraded us at the first chance to a nice room at the furthest point from the road. Each evening for dinner, and in the morning for breakfast, they set us up our own table under a gazebo looking out over the swimming pool and to the mountains in the background. We felt very spoiled and hope that their business continues to thrive!

There was a limited amount to do in Permuteran though, so we continued eastwards along the north cost to another small resort town by the name of Amed. We had thought of staying a week here, but though we had a beautiful room over-looking the sea, we found that they were doing building work, which went on from the crack of dawn to sunset, with only small interludes of peace from the banging and drilling.

The view from our hotel in the low-key east coast resort of Amed

We had one more throw of the dice on Bali and decided to head for 4 nights to the small island of Nusa Lembongan. Here, we struck lucky, though first we had to endure a traumatic journey to get there. We got to the island OK, albeit a pretty rough ride, but once there we found that we weren't yet at our final destination and had 3 options to get to our village on the other side of the island: a 3 mile hike with our packs, on rough paths over the island's highest peak and in 30 degree C heat with high humidity; the same journey on the same paths clinging to the back of a small scooter or a transfer in a much smaller boat. We chose the latter and clung on for dear life as the boat was tossed by the waves that crashed on to the reef and our packs threatened to slide into the sea.

But the worst was to come as we got to our village beach. Our boatman had trouble stopping the boat on the beach and he lurched all over the place in the swell. I managed to get out with the main packs and told Sue to wait while I got them to dry land. As I came back, the boatman was forcing Sue out of the boat, with our day packs (filled with all of our electronics etc) one strapped to her front, one to her back. As she did this, the boat lurched again and Sue went head first into the surf. Fortunately I was almost there and was able to grab her and pull her out of the surf.

Sue emerged from this unscathed, though very distressed, and amazingly all of our electronics were also undamaged. My first instinct was to come to Sue's aid, my second was to threaten our boatman with all forms of physical abuse. His English had been very poor up to that point, but he now understood me perfectly and he fled the scene without collecting his payment! They say 'don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side' - we have now seen this working in practice!

Traumatic as this was, we now found ourselves in a peaceful haven, right off the beaten track and as we had expected to find Bali. We had a large bungalow to ourselves on a cliff-top looking out over a white sand beach with a salt-water infinity pool. The complex had been built quite recently, obviously with the expectation of more tourists coming, but for the moment it was quiet and relaxed and the staff couldn't be nicer to us.

One of the things that we liked most about Nusa Lembongan, was that tourism and local life seemed to mingle easily. There were a couple of upmarket resorts, a cluster of home stays and warungs aimed at backpackers, but around them locals worked in the fields as they always have.

We didn't do too much here, but on one day we hired a scooter and roamed around the island. Sue was terrified initially, but when she saw what mastery I had of the bike (OK she had her eyes tight shut!), she soon relaxed and we had one of the best days of our entire trip. The island was lush green, dotted with tiny villages, protected on one side by mangrove swamp and coral reef and on the other with white sand beaches, swept by surf.

View back towards our initial landing point on the island

Catching a wave on Nusa - there were lots of surfies here who were in their element

The view from our favourite restaurant

Life goes on as usual on the main road across Nusa

The view from our bungalow back across the bay

Biking around Nusa

We also ate as well here as we have anywhere in the world: with fresh fish pulled straight from the sea and onto our plates; fruit and vegetables mostly grown on the island and the chefs in the little warungs had perfected the use of all of the local spices.

A simple, but delicious, fish curry...

...washed down with fresh water-melon juice

So, we are now back safely on Bali's mainland (the way back from Nusa was less traumatic second time around) and will shortly heading to the airport, for our flight back into the northern hemisphere and onto Hong Kong. We will tell you more about this, our final stop, on the next post.

And finally...our boatman - asleep on the job?!

 

Black Beaches of Bali

Andy is taking a well-earned blog break and has temporarily handed over his writer's quill to me. So, here goes ...

Every non-EU country that we have visited has required proof of exit at immigration; understandable maybe for Australia or New Zealand; less so perhaps for say Laos or Cambodia! Anyway, this is how we find ourselves in Bali - Australia's number one holiday-party destination.

Andy remembers having a great time here all those years' ago with Darran and was keen to revisit old haunts, explore previously unvisited ones, and generally see how the island and it's society had changed in all that time. It is a little disconcerting to think that, since 'the boys' were here last, a whole generation has been born, raised, married and is now bearing their own children.

I had visions of us strolling upon soft, white, sandy beaches, fringed with drooping coconut palms and lapped by sparkling, azure sea. Just like those evocative photos in holiday brochures. Right? Wrong!

This is where reading The Lonely Planet guide beforehand, beyond the usual practicalities of accommodation and transport, would have been useful.

Bali is a volcanic island. I knew that! And volcanic islands have black sand, black beaches and murky seas. Of course they do!

New Zealand is volcanic too. But unlike NZ's vast, glistening, coal-black beaches, great swathes of Bali's beaches seem to be more of a narrow strip of ugly, charcoal-grey sand, pebbles and rocks, liberally strewn with litter and dotted with fishing boats. In essence, they're places of work, albeit cleaned up here and there for the exclusive use of luxury hotels' guests.

 



White sand beaches do exist in areas of the island further away from the volcanoes, but being more heavily 'developed ' - or perhaps that should be 'spoiled' - for tourism, we have so far steered a wide berth. However, after two weeks here, we are running out of coastline (the island is small!); therefore, tomorrow, we catch a boat to one of Bali's own, tiny islands (you can walk around it in a day) - with picture-postcard, white sand beaches and blue sea. Yippee!

Snorkelling, diving and surfing are popular tourists' activities here. (It's far too hot and humid to do much beyond wallowing in water, lying under a tree, or remaining motionless in a fan-cooled room.) Andy was brave enough to hire goggles and fins and venture into the murky grey depths to spot tropical fish and coral. I was fortunate at the time to have a cold-cum-Delhi-belly combo, so was able to wriggle out of it. Instead, I watched from the comfort of a tree-shaded sun-lounger and supped on freshly-made watermelon-ice, hoping the un-lifeguarded sea didn't harbour anything of the Jaws variety.

Balinese people appear to use the beach and sea for fishing, ceremonies and rubbish disposal, rather than for recreation, although this is starting to change. It was amusing to watch a small group of boys from a traditional fishing village, frolicking in the sea with their surf boards - a possession of utmost luxury, no doubt.

Now a short bit about volcanoes. Bali has lots of them!

Soaring at 3142 m above sea level stands the great, often cloud-shrouded, Gunung Agung (Mother Mountain).


Close by, at just 1717 m lies the lively Gunung Batur, which is situated in the middle of two concentric calderas, with a large lake on one side. Batur has 3 vents, one of which, if you look closely, is steaming away nicely! She last erupted in 2000 and black, solidified lava is still clearly visible today. Villages hug her sides; the inhabitants maybe being optimistic, ignorant, or just desperate, as Bali's fertile land rapidly disappears under building and road development and the population grows.

Mount Batur, we were warned, is a tourist hot-spot and money-mint, and the vendors are fierce; visit if you must! There's not a great deal to do away from the coastline, so visit we did.

Firstly, we learned that to get close enough to view and photo, costs money. That's fine. Then came the market sellers, who worked us en masse, using a carefully devised strategy of 'divide and conquer'.

Balinese people can be quite small; I'm taller than a good number of the men! However, they can also be very strong - the women, anyway. One group lunged at me with their wares, tying sarongs and scarves around my body, forcing fruit and other items into my hands, whilst pulling my arms and torso in all directions is their desperate attempt to drag me to their stalls, all the while screeching demands for payment.

I looked around in panic for Andy, only to see him a little distance away, being equally mobbed, by what looked like munchkins. He (somehow also wearing a sarong!) was stooping down towards the women and smiling genially. Some hard haggling was going on. He had made the ultimate error of surreptitiously glancing at a T shirt and was now obliged to purchase it. The sizing was XL; fine for a Balinese man; not so for Andy. I now have a new T shirt with BALI emblazoned across the front - just what I've always wanted!

And finally ...

Nothing to do with beaches. Just a decorated statue made from local rock - seen everywhere.

 

 

 

Days of Silence

When surrounded by a constant barrage of noise, moments of silence are to be cherished. Arriving into the hubbub of the Indonesian Island of Bali, we found that not just 'moments' but 'days of silence' awaited us.

But before expanding on that statement, I should set the scene a little. On 28th March, we left Australia without incident and arrived in the early evening in Den Pasar. Anticipating that we might find arriving back into Asia a culture shock, we had booked a week's accommodation in Ubud and a car from the hotel to pick us up.

As we came out of the baggage hall, we looked eagerly for our name amongst the throng of name-boards surrounding the exit. Annoyingly, our name wasn't there and we had to do just what we hadn't wanted - throw ourselves into the scrum of men who tugged and pulled at us, all wanting to take us somewhere to suit their agenda. At least we knew where we were going and how much it would cost, so ignoring all the unwanted attention, we headed first of all for an information centre (who kindly phoned the hotel for us to confirm that they had forgotten to book a taxi) and then to a taxi bureau for some hard haggling on the fare.

It was a Friday night and it took us over 2 hours to make the 25 mile journey from the airport. The population of Bali has exploded in recent years (with nearly 5 million people crammed into less than 6,000 square kilometres, well over double the density of the UK) and it feels like the southern half of the island is now a single conurbation.

I have been to Ubud once before, way back in 1990 and remembered its beautiful setting amongst rice paddies, with a thriving, but low-key arts and crafts community. Much has changed since then, of course. The city centre is now completely engulfed by hotels, shops and restaurants for tourists and this development has now spread out along all of the roads heading in and out and even along the alley-ways that used to lead from the road into the fields.

Out hotel was a good example of the development, which treads a fine-line between sensitive and over-intensive. It has a fairly small frontage onto the evocatively named Monkey Forest Road, but walking through a narrow alley, the complex opened up and ran on for a couple of hundred yards and they had built a few dozen rooms in small 2-storey units around courtyards formed by a swimming pool at one end and rice fields at the other.

The view from our verandah in Ubud, looking over a pool and to rice fields beyond

In spite of all of this over-development and the traffic that clogs it's streets, Ubud retains a certain charm with many old buildings, picturesque scenery and bountiful choices of places to eat and drink.

But where does silence fit into all of this? On our second day, we discovered that we were on the eve of Nyepi, the holiest time in the Balinese Calendar, also known as the Day of Silence, or the Balinese New Year (we are now in the year 1936, in case you hadn't realised!) In the lead up to Nyepi, Balinese Hindus go through a process of spiritual cleansing to clear the decks for the year ahead. For weeks, each of the local villages (Ubud is actually considered to be 13 villages that have grown together) had been quietly building huge puppet-models, called Ogoh-Ogoh: depicting fearsome creatures, crafted in intricate detail and painted in the most garish colours.

On the eve of Nyepi, the Ogoh-Ogoh's moment arrives. They had been mounted onto bamboo poles and were now carried by the villagers in procession to the cross-roads in the centre of Ubud, which is considered to be the most spiritually charged point of the city. It felt like a gathering medieval army: the arrival of each village procession greeted with cheers, as the numbers swelled.

From the crossroads, the full procession set off down Monkey Forest Road, to a communal field where they all collected. The procession was wonderfully vibrant: the paraders, men, women and children of all ages, all dressed in matching shirts and sarongs, laughed and shouted and beat on drums, cymbals or anything else that could make a noise loud enough to frighten off any lurking spirits. Locals not taking part in the parade walked around their homes and gardens bashing pots and pans and waving incense sticks and fire crackers were set off liberally - again all designed to chase out evil spirits. Some of the puppets were so big, that they couldn't pass under the electricity wires and at these points the whole parade came to a comical, sudden halt, whilst a man with a long stick lifted the wires and the puppet was lowered as close to the ground as possible.

Tourists lined the route at some points, but it really felt as though the locals were doing this for their own reasons first and foremost and we were just welcome participants in their party.

After the storm, though, comes the calm. The literal translation of Nyepi, is 'to observe silence' and the following 24 hours is designed to provide a period of calm, quiet spiritual introspection. In practice, this means that for 24 hours, nobody is allowed to leave their homes and visitors are expected to observe this also. An official leaflet we were given said 'this means that you must stay inside, shine no lights, light no fires and no noise or music is to be heard from midnight 30th March until sunrise on 01st April. No motors or vehicles may be used except in dire emergencies'. The leaflet finished with the suggestion that we 'enjoy the rare experience of complete peace and quiet'. We intended to do just that - probably the only time in the year where this can be experienced in Bali.

The day went off pretty much as suggested. Our hotel staff were allowed to prepare food and drink and bring it to our rooms, but other than that we weren't able to leave the hotel grounds. I poked my head out and looked down the street and saw the kind of stillness that one would expect to find in a city post-apocalypse. Even with a head poke though, I was quickly ushered back inside!

The combination of the parades and the subsequent period of silence was a wonderful thing to experience and we felt very privileged to have been here to witness it, as well as pleased that such a religious and cultural rite is still practiced and observed so conscientiously.

Here are some pictures below of the Ogoh-Ogoh puppets on parade. Make up your own mind which might have done the best job of frightening off evil spirits, though the children's was our favourite!

The best (and worst) of the Ogoh-Ogoh at the Ubud Nyepi parade

Monkey Forest Road, Ubud - normally a cacophony of traffic and vendors

Aside from Nyepi, Ubud does have a strong atmosphere of spirituality about it. Everywhere one goes, there are small shrines and, particularly first thing in the morning, it is common to see people laying out small offerings on the pavement: typically a few grains of rice, or some flower blossom wrapped in a banana leaf, usually with a smoking incense stick

Shrines and offerings everywhere in Ubud

These offerings are one of a number of things one has to look out for / avoid treading on whilst walking down the streets of Ubud, the others being: cracked paving slabs that look like they will fall into the sewer below at the next persons tread; motorbikes, particularly when stepping off such broken paving slabs; dogs and their excrement; men trying to sell taxi rides and women trying to sell massages.

Our time here slipped by very quickly though, despite it being hot and dirty and noisy at times. We were certainly helped by having picked a nice place to stay and the staff were so nice, that we forgave them for forgetting to pick us up at the airport. It was also an oasis amongst the hubbub of the Ubud streets, allowing us to dip in and out in easy slices, and had free, unlimited wireless internet, which felt hugely liberating after the frustrations of Australia and New Zealand.

We went out for 2 long walks into the countryside around the city (setting off at first light before the heat of the day); hired a driver to take us on a day tour of the eastern side of the island; had a massage at one of the ubiquitous local spas; walked down to the Monkey Temple at the far end of our road and some of the other temples at the other end of the city and otherwise spent time swimming, relaxing around our pool and trying out the wonderful local food, which is cheap and tasty. Oh yes - and 5 to 7 pm each evening was happy hour for mojitos - how can one turn down 2 for 1 when they weren't expensive to start with?!

The view from our favourite restaurant on the edge of Ubud (the ducks are used to clear out the last rice husks after harvest - in Indonesia, even the ducks love rice!)

I will just elaborate a little on one of these activities. The macaque monkeys at the Monkey Temple were amongst the most aggressive we have come across. Annoyingly they have probably been encouraged in this by the inappropriate behaviour of some locals who want to make money from them (such as selling bananas to feed to them) and some tourists who think they are cute and forget that they are wild animals! The monkeys congregate around a rustic temple complex that runs through a forested river valley. We kept a good distance from them, but were attacked by one who tried to pull Sue's bag out of her hand - even though it contained no food. Fortunately we saw it coming and I was able to ward him off without it getting too nasty, but we got talking to a Canadian guy who was bitten several times by a group of monkeys that tried to steal his water bottle. Fortunately there is no rabies in this troop, but we quickly decided to give them a very wide berth!

Wonder what's on her mind..?

The entrance to the Monkey Temple

Before closing this post, I should just elaborate on why the title of this blog is 'Days of Silence' in the plural. Wednesday 9th April is another important day in Indonesia, being the General Election when they elect their parliament and the precursor to the Presidential Election in the autumn. But, whilst one might expect things to heat up, the last 3 days before polling are designated 'days of silence': no campaigning is allowed and all posters and political banners must be taken down. Hmm - maybe we could learn something from that!

In the next post, I will give you our impressions of the rest of Bali.

And finally...pigs might not be able to fly, but it looks like they CAN do yoga!