Great Escape

After three days in a convention center in Nusa Dua, Bali, I was ready for a break. The conference--the 2008 Asia Pacific Microcredit Summit--was great, as these things go, and I mentally praised the organizers at the end of each day for having the foresight to transfer the conference location from Pakistan to Indonesia. Not that I got to see much of Bali during the conference. But on the third day I made the sage decision to extend my stay for one day to allow myself a chance to escape the conference complex and see the country.

I went north to Ubud, a little cultural mecca, home to artists and writers and honeymooners and trekkers, and Aussies--they're quite close to Indonesia.
I felt like I was living a New York Times Travel article: "24 Hours in Ubud." I packed in two field visits (for work), a Kecak dance performance, a 3-hour trek, a visit to a monkey forest, a bit of shopping, a motorcycle ride through town, and some sampling of the local organic cuisine.

My only morning in Ubud, I woke up at 6 and went on a walk with a local guide through rice paddies, past streams and clucking chickens. I haven't experienced nature like that in a long time. I felt like I had been beamed down into one of those spa CDs, with the birds chirping, the brook babbling, the breeze blowing, the cock crowing (admittedly, the rooster was a bit incongruous, but otherwise it was an accurate representation of "Solitudes: Track 3, Quiet Contemplation").

My guide, Alec, told me that my name sounds Chinese: Lin-Xie. I had a nice chuckle as the sun rose over the line of coconut palms, a blue-pink sky reflecting in the standing water of the rice paddies.

We walked past little houses and bigger ones, almost all of which had a temple within its compound. The majority of Balinese are Hindu, but I've found it to be an even more fantastical variety of the faith, with deities sometimes represented with bared teeth, bulging eyes, and claws. There are dragons with long, undulating tongues, ogres, Shrek-like, with bulbous noses, old women with low-hung breasts, like deflated papayas--altogether different from India's brand of Hinduism.

Speaking of low-hanging fruit, on the walk we passed an older woman sitting by the road in the little stream that fed into the paddy fields. She was unclothed and doing her morning ablutions. I was shocked and embarrassed, and craned my neck in the other direction, suddenly absorbed in looking at the forest on the opposite side of the road. I haven't seen a naked woman in I'm-not-sure-how-long, but Indian women are not one to disrobe in public. Ever. When they bathe in rivers and streams they artfully manage to remain draped in one end of their sari the entire time, preserving their modesty. Alec conveyed that nudity is not such an issue here, particularly if you're "of a certain age."

We stopped in Alec's village on the way back to town and he invited me to enter his family's compound. I met his wife, Megie, his shrunken mother, his elder brother, sister-in-law, nephew and dog. The entire bunch live together in the same compound in three different houses. Each family cooks and eats separately, but they all live withing a 15-foot radius. Down the street is their temple which is one of many in their one lane village. Megie served me sweet black coffee and sticky rice wrapped in a green, ribbed banana leaf. The rice had been pounded with green pandan leaf for flavor and in the middle of the rice was a delectable mix of dessicated coconut and brown sugar--conceptually, like a Twinkie, but not. It stuck to my front teeth, and the coffee helped cleanse it away.

Chickens ran around at our feet pecking. His nephew giggled and said Slamat Pagi--Good Morning.

Later we found ourselves in the Ubud morning market, passing huge baskets of brown and blue eggs, steroidal papayas, brown salak, mangosteen, spiky durien--all sorts of wholesome foods you can't find at Whole Foods. Baskets of fish, rolls of banana leaves, spices on my left, steamed rice on my right. It all reminded me of my hunger--which was soon satisfied by sliced avocado on toasted brown bread with fresh coconut juice on the side. Miraculous way to start the day.