Banging on about Bali
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 11 Dec 2010 06:56
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Saturday 11th December 0904 Local Time 0104
UTC
08:38.33S 115:25.17E
Our Bali tour was excellent. By hiring a local guy
known to the marina and with good English we were able to squeeze the most out
of the day.
As usual we headed for the hills and the villages
away from the tourist traps and throngs of people as best as we
could.
Indonesia has 270 million people now, apparently
and 86% are Muslim. However when we visited Timor we noted that it was
Christian. In this case predominantly Protestant (we have never been anywhere
with so many churches being built). This clearly is a legacy from the Dutch
having colonised the island since the 16th century. East Timor on the other hand
is predominantly Catholic, of course as a legacy from their Portugese
colonisers. When we reached Komodo most of the
village there was Muslim as is the densely populated Jawa and
Sumatera.
Bali however is predominantly
Hindu. Early Indian traders apparently brought Hinduism to the island
and it has since developed into its own particular form of the religion. When we
arrived in Bali it was the six monthly Galungan ceremony time. This occurs every
six months in the Balinese Hindu calendar which has twelve months of 35
days! It is a very special time and outside every house - in addition to
the normal family temples, shrines and offerings to the gods there are
"Pinjor". Pinjor are decorated bamboo poles hanging over the road with a woven
"lantern" decoration on the end. They looked spectacular and very natural - but
I bet they all say, when they take them down after 30 days, "doesn't the place
look bare without the Pinjor". Just like we say after taking down Christmas
decorations! Ten days after Galungan is "Kuningan" which is the day they
believe that their ancestors spirits who have visited at Galungan go back to
heaven.
There are three main gods which Balinese Hindus
pray to: Brahman - who creates, Vishnu - who protects, and Siwa who destroys.
They believe Ganesh (the one with the elephant head) is the son of Siwa. I
hope I have all this right and tried my best to have our friend Putu explain it
to me. If anything has been lost in translation I apologise.
In Bali they also still live by a Caste
system. There are the "priest" caste, the "royal" caste, the
"warrior" caste and of course to keep as many people as possible subservient the
"untouchables" as they are known in India but simply referred to by Putu as the
lowest caste. It seems however that the caste system here is not so rigid as I
observed in India, and Putu told us that many of the lowest caste could
break through the shackles of their birth caste and go on to prosper for
example in business. It's a start.... However his very name "Putu" means the
first male born of a lower caste family. Made is the second and so on. He also
described how he would identify what was the caste of the person he was
adressing and adjust his tone and language accordingly. Facinating.
Now you may think all this is competely alien to us
westerners, but it is not really. We behave with some degree of similarity
ourselves in social situations. Also most western countries still have some kind
of "class system" or more commonly now, "classification" of peoples' social
standing.
What has amazed us as we have travelled round the
world is that every body is different but everybody is still basically the same.
We have also noted that cultures, languages, people, architecture, dance, music,
boat building etc etc all flow like the ever changing and evolving shades of the
same colour from place to place, with an odd more defined "lighter" or
"darker" shade here and there. This occurs where people have taken to the sea
and leapfrogged the slow and gradual process of assimilation which happens as
people have migrated over long periods of time overland. I can also say and
hope that I am not speaking too soon, that we have not yet met one single bad
person. Can you believe that? I can. Ninety Nine per cent of people (probably a
lot more than that) in the world have good basic moral standards, are kind and
well meaning and generally have the same basic values.
Another aspect of Bali that really surprised us was
the architecture. Around the island most homes seem to be surrounded by a
beautiful wall and entered by an elaborate arched gateway. Inside the
walled area is the house but also the family temple and three other shrines. The
detailing in the stonework was incredible. Mostly a grey stone set against red
brick. Stone and wood carving skills were apparent
everywhere.
Back to our tour. We visited a traditional Barong
and Kris dance in an ancient temple which told in animated dance of a
mythilogical story. We then had a lunch stop in Ubud for some more regional
Balinese food. Just as we were sitting down Trish noticed at the restaurant next
to us, which only served pork, the latest delivery and I kid you not - a
guy arrived on a motorbike with a whole cooked pig on a tray on his head!
Not a piglet a full blown big! You know there is so much wasted talent in
the world.....
After visiting a beautiful old temple we slowly
trundled on through tiny little back roads barely for for a vehicle (oops! I had
promised Trish there would be no death defying car journeys today
....)
Here however was the real Bali. There were endless
rice paddies, tucked into every available space. People were working away, woven
cone hats on and backs bent to the task of working the whole of the crop
cycle by hand. Planting, harvesting with a sickle, threshing, drying - all by
hand. Three cycles per year - that is hard word and of course is the lot of a
huge part of the worlds population. But then again if you can carry a pig
on your head on a motorbike you probably are overlooking some significant
opportunities.
We also noted significant numbers of people just
living at the edge of the paddie with nothing more than a polythene
sheet over a wooden frame as their home. They were "cheap" migrant labour
from Jawa come to work in the Balinese fields. Raw economic forces
laid bare. The benefits or otherwise could be discussed endlessly I
guess.
Speaking of labour, it seems that a basic manual
labourer on a building site say, gets about
50,000 Rupiah per day. Four GB Pounds. There are many more people getting paid
an awful lot less than this, if they have an income at all - I suspect the
Jawanese field labourers for example. A basic clerical job in an office for
example would earm just over One Million Rupiah per month - about
£75.
So then it dawned on me. Our friend
Aso working on cleaning the boat had asked for and got $25 per day. I
actually gave him 250,000 Rupiah per day which was about 15% more - no wonder he
was thrilled and kept referring to me as "Captain". I really think I am
going soft. Anyway he did a great job - and it's nice to spread a little
happiness ...........
I think Putu was enjoying the day as much as we
were and he spent the evening with us also when we went to see the more
vulgar side of Bali. Down town Kuta. The place was jammed with people- tourists,
mostly Autralian we are told. There were bars and clubs and restuarants
everywhere. The darker, redder side of night was also just beiginning to show it
self. There were lots of bars displaying "open 24 hours" signs. Good
grief it was nearly nine o'clock and I could barely keep my eyes open! There was
a day though ....
We visited the site of the enormous Bali Bomb
of 2002. The perpetrators were eventually caught and executed but not before
they killed 202 people and destroyed the economy of Bali for several years. It
is said the prepetrators were Jawanese Muslim extremists. Indonesia still has
the death penalty for Drug Trafficing and Murder. Good idea.
Speaking of good ideas, there is another Balinese
Hindu "ceremony" day held once every year in March. It is called Nyepi. It
is a day of silence and peace. No travel, no work, no speaking, no television,
just staying at home and carrying out a bit of spiritual self examination I
guess. "Another great idea" I said to Trish. "Yes" she said, "we would all get
peace from you for a day!"
Anyway on that note I better finish up. It's nearly
Christmas and I am sure you have more to do than listen to me banging
on.
..... Speaking about
banging on, we have had torrential rain and no wind for weeks and now
having just taken a grib file (a satellite obtained Grid Referred In Binary (I
think) file of weather data) and it shows upto 25 knots of wind dead on the
nose. In any event the wind is forecast to be blowing straight out of Raffles
Marina in Singapore where we are headed to the North East corner of Bali which
we are just about to round...... Come on Neptune, it's nearly Christmas - give
us a break.
This could be an arduous 1000 miles. Still not sure
if we will go across to Borneo. My gut feeling is to press on for Singapore
........ I will let you
know.
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