A Change of Plans in Bali… Smiling!

“Breathe in, and breathe out…and virabadhrasana two… and SMILING!”

I’m sorry, what did he say? Leslie, my new friend in 7 am yoga and I looked at each other. The small, uber fit, ridiculously happy small Balinese yogi looked at us with eyes squinted shut in a huge smile.

“SMILING! You SMILE!”, he repeated.

Oh. Ok. Yes, smiling. I can do that.

I started committing to 7 am yoga on my second day here…the first day I left early in the morning for a bike tour, my only pre-planned activity that I actually kept.

So… Bali. Much love to Singapore, I’m so glad to have seen it and the food was fabulous and the people there were lovely, but Bali…

Yeah, this…. this is my vibe here. I see why people visit here and just end up staying. Don’t get me wrong, Indonesia is still a third world country and there is stunning poverty among the stunning beauty here, but there is a grace and a positive energy here on this lush island that is hard to articulate. Even for me, your wordy friend.

But Traveling Girl, come on. You’re staying at the Four Seasons.

Yep, and lucky me, but what I’m trying to describe exists everywhere here. Every taxi driver, school kid, gardener, shopkeeper… everyone is happy. It’s not just the yogis. Is it the religion? This is a predominately Hindu island in an otherwise Muslim country, so maybe… but that can’t be the whole story, I don’t think. The closest I can come to putting it into words so far is that there is just an incredibly strong culture here – the people that call this island home know who they are and what they’re about. They prize happiness, community, celebration, family, and faith above everything. They may be economically weak, but they are culturally strong. Which is more important?

Good question.

I arrived here late Monday night, in the rain, and the drive from Denpasar to Ubud in traffic (traffic is terrible everywhere here) took about an hour and a half. My hotel sent a driver, but taxis are plentiful and easy to get – turns out I could have easily just grabbed a taxi, but had arranged the driver knowing I was arriving alone at night and not having a good feel for what my options would be.

The forecast for the entire week was rain, but it was too late to cancel my bike tour, so I gamely showed up at 8 am and was rewarded with only a few sprinkles. The tour was fun – went with a tour company called GreenBike, and I thought they did a great job. We stopped for coffee early in the drive out of town… do you know about cat poo coffee? I’ll spare you the description. Google it (or click here). It’s pretty good. 😉

We started up near Mt Batur and cycled, mainly downhill, through villages and rice paddies, past temples and crowds of kids on motorbikes, people smiling and nodding at us the whole way.

Interesting things I learned: every family has a family temple at their house, and each “house” is really usually two or three small simple buildings around a raised platform that is used for ceremonies. People rarely move, because they believe the spirits of their ancestors are there. It is preferable, when having children, to have boys, but it’s not actually quite the misogynistic sort of scenario that brings to mind – it’s that when the Balinese marry, the girl typically goes to live with the boy’s family, so if you have all girls… then you’ll be lonely when you’re old. Not having children? Unheard of. My tour driver didn’t even try to hide his concern for me. It was actually kind of sweet.

I had dinner that night at Sayan House, right around the corner. If you go, get there for sunset – I missed it and could tell it would have been spectacular from their perch on the hillside.

Balinese cuisine is simple and good – lots of fish and nothing super complicated. Wine isn’t really popular here, so though the Four Seasons has a decent list, your Traveling Girl will not be waxing poetic about any magical glasses of wine. All the better for making it to 7 am yoga.

So I had to make a call immediately on the rest of my planned excursions if I wanted a refund for them – a sunrise trek up Mt Batur and a day of snorkeling in Nusa Penida. Between the forecasted rain (and the rain the last few days that I assumed would render the Mt Batur trail a mess) and the traffic I had already experienced, I bailed on both. My philosophy on things like this when traveling is: just do your best. Take what info you have, make a call, and move on. Second guessing yourself is a waste of energy.

(I did hear someone at the hotel complaining the next day about how muddy and awful the Mt Batur trail was. Validation that you made the right choice is always nice.)

It strikes me that there are two sides, or maybe layers, of Bali to experience – internal (spiritual, cultural) and external (activities, beaches). So I decided that rain = a spiritual and cultural trip. I’ll just have to come back some day and snorkel.

So the next morning, I set out to visit a traditional Balinese healer. There are two main categories in this realm – one does more chakra clearing and healing, the second palm reading and blessing. The one I visited fell in the latter group, and happens to be the son of Ketut Liyer, the healer that Julia Roberts’ character in Eat, Pray, Love visited. Ketut passed away a few years ago at 102, and his son carries on the family lineage. It’s actually not the giant marketing machine that you’d expect (or that it could be)… there was literally almost no one there when I showed up.

He’s a smiling, crinkly, spark plug of a man, a little shorter than me, with huge knobby callouses on his ankles from (I assume, since mine started to hurt after five minutes) sitting cross legged on a hard floor for many years.

After paying (600,000 IRP, the equivalent of about $40), a sarong and a sash were tied around me, I removed my shoes, and I stepped up on the platform to sit cross-legged, facing him. He smiled and immediately started laughing. Which of course made me laugh, so that started us off nicely. 😄

He told me a lot of things that most westerners probably need to hear – I need more balance and that being happy is the most important thing, among others – but he also said that I will live to more than 92 (good to hear), that I will become a leader of some sort (like hearing that, I love leadership), and that I’ll get a PhD (no insight into in what subject). And that I’ll get married again. Hmm. Check back with me in twenty years and I’ll fill you in on what’s come true. It was a cool experience and I always try to do stuff like this when I travel – I mean, why not? You can take a little something from every healer, psychic, and medicine man. Me, I’m taking away from this one a renewed commitment to balance, happiness, and living to be 92.

I spent the afternoon at the spa at the hotel, which I really can’t say enough great things about… it is really just amazing, the whole property is. Even if the weather had been great, I’d have been hard pressed to leave this place to go on a day trip somewhere else. We had a couple hours of sun too, so I was able to enjoy the marvelous pool down by the river. I mean really, how gorgeous is this?

And here’s the main building looking back up from the river:

Massaged, charkras cleared (part of the spa ritual), and a little sunburned, I headed to the chef’s dinner with my new friend, Leslie. Seven small courses of traditional Balinese food, the star of which was a roasted pig. All delicious.

Today after yoga I went into town for a bit, walked around, had a foot massage (ever so slightly more gentle than Singapore, but not by much, loved it), and found a lovely little cafe for a smoothie. If it weren’t crawling with westerners, Ubud would feel really authentic, and I imagine at one time it did. It’s still delightful, don’t get me wrong, but I can imagine what it used to be like before all the, well, people like me showed up. That’s always the quandary, isn’t it. As a tourist you’re both part of the solution and part of the problem. I just try to be more of the former and less of the latter.

Back to yoga that second day. At the end, after savasana, the teacher solemnly looked at us and said:

“Now. We do one minute laughter practice.”

“Breathe in, and… HAHAHAHAHA!!! From the belly! Now from the chest… HEEHEEHEEHEE!! “. He slapped his knees, cracking up and grinning ear to ear.

Everyone collapsed into giggles. How could we not?

Let’s all do that every morning. One minute laughter practice.

SMILING!

Traveling Girl