One of the things that facinates me here is the driving. The roads are narrow and crowded with cars, motorscooters, bikes, kids, old folks, dogs, people pushing carts. There are very few traffic lights. It seems that each light has a little hut to go with it, on the side of the road, with police there. Our driver explained that the police are needed because the lights cause confusion.
I think that the Oriental mind, in general, is less focused on individuality. There's more of a collective consciouness here, and in Thailand, and this enables drivers to negotiate traffic situations that would leave most Westerners cringing or diving for cover. Just turning right across oncoming traffic--our driver will just start to go and the people oncoming have to slow or even stop. There's a hierarchy of some kind, I'm guessing, that allows the judgement of when to go or wait. Unfathomable to me.
I think it would be hilarious to organize a tour for retired California Highway Patrol Officers. They'd just have a fit.
The downside is that I haven't had the guts, or lapse of reason, to rent a scooter here. This means relying on drivers, which means we aren't as able to explore the countryside.
Yesterday our driver took us for a long ride out of Ubud up to a village Telang Legong. It's about 10 miles or so and 80% of it was packed with little or big shops fronting 'factories' making mostly woodcarvings. Out of soft wood. The damned cats, etc. . But also everything else in the world. Therer was furniture, and bamboo stuff, and some ceramic, musical instruments, glittery mosaic mirrors, huge gold painted buddhas, handcarved picture frames. It was truly astounding.
We were on a mission of sorts. There is a style of carving, essentially bas relief, often to a depth of 3 or 4 inches. I'm talking flat panels anywhere from 8 x 10 inches to 2 by 3 feet, or even whole split doors. The carvings are highly skilled and beautiful. I had the idea of getting one of Krista's paintings carved into a panel--Mother Tree (see www.devaluna.com). We passed by alot of cats and other 3-d statuary. Finally we saw some of this style and stopped. There were some truly phenomenal works out front. Extremely elaborate, with every leaf, bat, elephant or mountain peak in stunning detail. We explained to the young carver what we were after. We ended up ordering 5, and rather smaller than we wanted. He's supposed to bring a sample by in 4 days. 100,000rp each. It was inspiring and frustrating at the same time. We are confident in his abilities, but we aren't sure how clear the translation was. We're not sure what we'll end up with.
Today we met with a second Batik factory owner. She and her husband picked us up at the Tutmak, our favorite breakfast place, and wisked us off to their place. Our friend Bryon had reccomended her and we decided to have several samples made. We had already orderd 6 samples from another guy in town.
Krista really loves the silk. They are able to do subtle shadings and really fine lines. Neither of us really wanted to just have the old images done up, but that's pretty much what we did for the samples. She did crank out one new design, based on our old sticker Fairy Queen.
We're still gathering information. I'm hoping we can come up with a new product to jump start our poor tired old business.
Otherwise we have been really lazy. Or really resting. I can't remember if I've written much about our home away from home. It's very very nice. We have a big wide porch and got a lovely hammock hung up to swing in. The pool, with it's lovely statuary and plantings is right there in our front yard, with rice paddies along side and beyond. The bathroom is well above average for Bali--it has a big tub so the floor stays pretty dry. The walls and high ceiling are woven bamboo. We've got big beds and pretty furniture. It's awesome. We're spending about $18 a night, laying about reading or swimming or short jaunts about town. This has been our beautiful nest whilst recovering from Bali Belly and sinking into the pace here.
We've learned how to bargain, how to get a ride and good places to eat, fancy and funky alike. We've sat out on the alley way (to our guesthouse) talking and playing guitar with some local guys who work in this funky art studio. They make huge ugly abstract paintings that must get sold somewhere. They seem to be dirt poor and all have big friendly smiles. They got me to sing Hotel California while one played it on the guitar, using a cut off piece of plastic for a pick.
One of the guys climbed a little tree across the alley, picked some green nuts and came back to rub them on his feet. They seemed to have some sort of sap or juice. trippy.
The evil goat frogs are around, but far enough away that they don't keep me up. Unlike the damned Finns. One reason we moved was to get away from them--they were right next door and like to stay up very late chainsmoking and talking. They drink a lot of beer. Last night they were up all hours and it kept waking us up. Oh well. They seem like nice folks otherwise, but I tend to wake up about 7am no matter how little sleep I get. I've been restraining this urge to go over and sing Waltzing Matilda very loud outside their windows. Wake Up!
Tonight we are going to a tourist's temple dance and gamelon--an all women gamelon! And a lot of the dancers are kids (as young as 7). I'm hoping Eden will love it. We're bringing earplugs! Gamelon is LOUD.
anyhow,
love and hugs
rob
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