The Island of Gods and Fire

Arriving at night in a new land is magical. Stroboscopic images flit in and out of darkness, print themselves on the retina. The moon hides in and out of clouds, reveals a flash of landscape, the ghost of a palm tree. Scooters zoom in and out of lanes. Cars slalom lazily. In the humid lushness outside my window, nature whistles and croaks and screeches and rasps in a whispered concerto.
There is the faintest waft of incense.





















In the grey light of dawn, all the pieces come together from the shadows of the night. I step out of my room onto wilted offerings left on the doorstep of a wide open porch that lets in a soft breeze. A grey stone statue grins at me under a bougainvillea heavy with grapes of pink flowers. A welcoming Ganesha sits in a niche by the gate. I walk under a spell, barely daring to breathe, barely aware of the rushing sounds of water at the bottom of the gorge, beyond the hazy confines of the garden.
I go back to bed. Maybe I never stopped dreaming.






After breakfast, I wander past paddy fields, where white cranes eat the frogs, past sleepy dogs on the warm tarmac, past chickens scratching the dirt. People with bright smiles greet me 'Selamat Pagi!' Shrines are wrapped in black and white checkered cloth. Water gurgles in irrigation channels. Fierce looking deities crouch behind the temple walls.
There is the smell of incense.



Taman Petanu, the garden of the river Petanu, is an ecological neighbourhood, far enough from Ubud, a touristy town, to be at peace. All owners follow similar ecological guidelines and their houses are dotted on the rim of the gorge, around a beautiful infinity bio pool, where I swim in the company of goldfish.


I rent a room at Casa Coolio that belongs to Petra and her grown children, Santi, Dewi and Rama. I am welcome like family, without fuss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X-0Dfpwum0

The name of the island, Bali, comes from the sanskrit Bebali that means offering. It is a blessed people indeed that remembers to honour its Gods. Mornings and evenings, at Casa Coolio, Kotut, the tiny cook with a huge smile, wraps a sarong around her waist, visits the many shrines in all the corners of the property to leave incense sticks and trays of woven leaves, food and flowers.









I always find one by the stove, in the morning, when I cook my porridge and prepare fresh fruit, local pineapples and pawpaws with seeds like ball bearings, small green-skinned bananas, salah, with the taste of a perfumed crunchy apple, sawo, with the flavour of sweet honey, red dragon fruit, the texture of kiwi with thousands of tiny seeds, an ode to the quirky imagination of nature with its sculptured skin and surreal pinkness.
There is the memory of incense.

Most Balinese are Hindu and it colours them with tolerance and kindness. If you collect good karma, you will be reborn in a better life. That's what Apel, Taman Petanu's driver, explains to me. He is also a self-taught, talented sculptor. He and his wife, Wiwi, become friends. They have an organic garden, run a market stall and every day, I walk down the road to buy fresh products from them. Everything I eat comes from the village, from coconut oil to red ginger, from thin purple eggplants to zucchini, from garlic to sweet little shallots, from lemon grass to turmeric.

Apel lends me his bicycle and I explore nearby villages, Sumampan, Kemenuh. He lends me his brother-in-law's guitar and I can strum a few songs, entertain the local children that come on a Friday to study with Dewi. They want to count in French, sing an English song. I happily comply, touched with their keen enthusiasm for learning.

The next day, as I cycle past the temple, I hear the plinking sounds of gamelan practised by the same children. They invite me in, 'Ibu Lucy! Ibu Lucy!, play with us!' They teach me.
I am invited to the most colourful end of term celebration at the temple, where little boys fidget on their chairs and little girls giggle quietly.
There is the very essence of incense.

On my 62nd birthday, two days after I land, Apel takes me to see his beautiful island. I huff and puff up the steps of Pura (temple) Gunung Kawhi and learn to say 'Suksma!' thank you in Balinese, to discourage peddlers from selling me sarongs and coconuts. I am cleansed in the clear, pure waters of Pura Mengening and my dress will take all day to dry. I taste a wide array of teas and coffees organically produced in a plantation, included Luwak coffee, where the bean is 'processed' by the digestive system of a mongoose, before being roasted, the coffee not the mongoose. A very peculiar taste. We have lunch by the lake at the foot of Mount Batur and I walk among the incredible trees of Ubud monkey temple and a collection of rather naughty 'macaques'.

Mount Agung, that towers over the island at over 3000 metres, explodes regularly. The earth shakes, people flee, villages disappear from the surface of the earth. It is said that the island's ruling deity was born out of its caldera. The ubiquitous proof of that legend is in Bali's grey stone and beaches of black sands glinting with mica. On my birthday, Mount Agung was still erupting and dark clouds were gathering in the sky, followed the next day by driving rain, thunder and lightning. I happily spent my time writing, soothed by the cool chanting of heavy drops.
Just as well I didn't visit Besakhi temple on Mount Agung's slope, the most significant of all Bali's temples. It would have been a lively experience... It is worth noting that, over the 1000 years of its life, it only had a few hits and bumps and that, in the 1963 eruption, the lava flow spared the temple from complete destruction. Just.
No doubt a lot of incense needs to be burnt there...


It takes a little while to understand basic customs in a new land. People get up very early in Bali and evening parties are over by 9h30. If that. I am invited at such a gathering in Taman Petanu but, wishing to listen to live music at a small warung (restaurant) that was opening that evening near Sumampan temple, I arrive at the party by 9pm to find that only a few hard core revellers are left. Still, the abysmal but good-humoured Indonesian reggae band had been worth it.
On my last day at Casa Coolio, Dewi, Kotut and I cook a midday meal for 1h30. This is when I discover our guests were very hungry by 12. Oops... But gracious with it.


Keen to find out how to use mysterious ingredients/vegetables/fruit/spices/herbs, I spend a gastronomic afternoon in a handsome Ubud property, with long tables, gas rings and chopping boards set up on a shaded terrace overlooking a lush valley. There I cut, chop and mix, pound yellow curry paste with a big pestle, stew fish in banana leaves, deep fry tempeh and prepare a sweet chili sauce. We sit around the table to savour our dishes, the best food I have ever had in Indonesia, so far, to this date, as I write. Paon cookery class. Ubud. Top of the pops.
And still the lingering fragrance of incense.

One can't be in Bali or Indonesia at large, as I would find out later, without a scooter/motor bike. They are everywhere and the most incredible quantity of people or indeed of hay/branches/baskets/parcels/chickens, can pile on one. The last time I rode a scooter, well, a moped, I was 19, had borrowed it from a friend, collided with a 2CV, had to pay for repairs and decided that never again. Still, maybe it is more honest to say that in this instance, I just chickened out.

So, in Bali, I ride pillion. The first time is with Wiwi who takes me to Denpasar. Night has come and while she weaves cautiously and nimbly around potholes and between the many other vehicles that throng the road, I fervently pray to all the Gods and all their saints that we may arrive safely and that she may get back home in one piece.  A few days before, I had been a witness to an accident. One of the many dogs that hang around villages, had found itself on the path of a scooter. Rice from a plastic bag was spilled in the middle of the road. A group of people were taking care of a shocked and bleeding lady. The dog was agonising alone, an unbearable sight.

On one of my final days in Taman Petanu, I have the opportunity to understand what it means to be 'very Ubud'. Rama gives me a contact to volunteer at the New Earth festival. It looks very promising and very spiritual and very lofty. A different "healing paradigm". I have my doubts but am very keen to check it out. So, better to make up my mind without having to pay the rather expensive - for me and even more for Indonesians -  entrance fees. I discover a fantastic venue and a lot of self-important western healers sitting behind a table on a stage. I listen to a presentation. I really like the mongol sound healer but I get an overall 'hippy chic' feeling and not very harmonious vibes. I want to believe there are interesting ideas and worthy people in that lot but I now have a pretty good idea of what it means to be 'very Ubud' and don't fancy volunteering for a another day.
Maybe they use fake incense.

I am on an island, right? But after a couple of weeks, I realise I have only spent two afternoons on the beach and haven't even swum in the sea. I do not trust the high crashing waves and look longingly at the blue beyond from the boring safety of some hotel pool. I listen to local advice and decide to leave the rice paddies and misty valleys of central Bali and cross the island in its middle to the small village of Pemuteran, on the north west coast.

Roads turn and bend, past rice paddies, sleepy villages with shops selling sculpture, rattan, batik, or improbable food piled up on groaning dusty shelves in dingy corners. Roads wind up and up, a temple is mirrored in a tranquil pond, Mount Agung and Mount Batur rise out of the clouds. In their hilly setting, lakes Buyan and Tamblingan evoke Switzerland, were it not for monkeys and rickety warungs. Roads are lined with clove trees and Munduk village is steeped in that smell like a rich apple pie. Roads bend down and down, my ears unblock, and the sea glitters in the distance.

Tiara homestead. A bungalow lost in a garden and an outdoor shower. In the morning, the dawn chorus is a racket of cockledoodledos from nearby farms. The beach is at the end of the dirt track. In the morning, I am welcome with banana pancakes, fruit and Bali coffee, with its finely ground beans sitting at the bottom of the cup. This north coast is drier so there are no mosquitos. My countless itchy bites will fade away into oblivion. Paradise.
It all smells of holidays.

In Ubud, I had seen turquoise and gold butterflies and the biggest moth in the world. But here, in the north, I discover more wonders.

Menjangan island lies close to North west Bali National Park, Its name means deer island, because they are known to swim across during the dry season to find mangrove-filtered water. It is known for its beautiful reef, for its turtles and the odd dolphin, if you are lucky, and for its baby white sharks. Luck is debatable there. I am not so keen to meet the parents.
I spend two hours of fascinated reverence, snorkelling with a mask that doesn't leak among the most colourful abundance of fish I have ever seen. Some hide among anemones. Some pursue others single-mindedly with a wide open mouth and I am happy not to be a shrimp. A calamar fleets backwards in an iridescent flash. A small barracuda prowls among the shoals. Corals release clouds of spores. They are of an incredible variety with little bleaching. I swim in a warm silky jade turquoise water garden, hovering at the edge of the shelf where the sea plunges into cobalt depths.

Pemuteran has a turtle hatchery. I have the great privilege to watch the release of a baby into the quiet waves at the shore. It is tumbled, pulled by the undertow, tumbled again and with determination makes its way into an uncertain future. The brave single-mindedness of life. I am close to tears.

My guide takes me at dawn into the National park. We leave the beach on a traditional boat with the sun rising over the sea and wander quietly up and down small tracks that he knows, away from the main ranger paths. Within the first 30 minutes, we see two monitor lizards legging it swiftly into their caves. Now, the next size up is the Komodo dragon but these here are the most impressive I have ever seen. Deer with their little ones hide, frozen into stillness, in the dappled shade. Groups of black monkeys swing in the branches. Putu, the guide, hasn't seen so many animals for a long time, he says, as excited as I am by this wildlife bounty.

At the homestay, I have made an animal friend. Indie, a small ginger cat with a piglet tail, purrs on my bed at night and sinks its sharp little teeth into my legs through the sheet. He dozes away on warm afternoons by the computer in my company.
It all has the taste of bliss.




Like everywhere in Bali, Pemuteran is peppered with temples. Kadek, Tiara homestay's friendly landlady takes it upon herself to show me most of them. A little note about Balinese given names. Very often, but not always, the name indicates the number. Gede or Putu is the eldest, Kadek the second, Nyoman, the third child, Kotut, the fourth. So, my lovely host is number 2.





We zoom together on her scooter to Pura (temple) Bukit Batu Kursi, up a long flight of steps through dry scrubland terrain. A peaceful place at prayer time, with a stunning view of the village embraced by the hills. The amber and gold sunset slides into an apricot evening sky and disappears into night at tropical speed.
In the distance, across the straight that separates Bali from Java, Mount Ijen looms in the heat haze. It is an impressively steep volcano and I can't believe I will be climbing it in a few days.

We go to Pura Pabean, by the sea, where monkeys play in the waves and to Pura Melanting, the grandest and most elegant of them all. But what I prefer is the small, modest, family temple not far from the homestay, where Kadek used to go as a child, where I am introduced to her relatives, where, the only westerner, I am made welcome, given food from big bubbling vats of stew, offered satay sticks and black sausage cooked in banana leaves, where I eat with my fingers, sitting on a platform, where I make conversation in Bahasa Indonesian, a language I don't speak. During the celebration, children run, blow soap bubbles and show me how well they count up to 10 in English, women chat, men smoke, gamelans and pipes romp on in a fast-paced cacophony.

This is the prelude to a special occasion, the prelude to a Kris dance. A kris is a knife, quite a long knife, actually.

I am told a story: The King of Karang Asem, at the foot of Mount Agung, created the Kris Dance after winning a war against Lombok, the next island to the east. In 1963, when Mount Agung erupted, people feld from Karang Asem and got settled in Pemuteran, where they make up 80% of the population.

Suddenly, there is a commotion, shouts pierce the night, I am pushed over to the side, 'hati hati!' (careful!) A woman starts dancing, moving frenetically, eyes closed and holds both knives pointed towards her chest. She is showing all the signs of being possessed by the spirits. The music intensifies. People hover around her to protect her, to make sure she will not fall down the steps, trip on the altar. I am stupefied. This is very ancient. The spirit world feels very close and the western world wonderfully far.
This is all so rich.



Yes, Bebali, Bali, means offering. And, unfortunately, there are quite a few offerings of plastic, at the high water mark on a beautiful black sand beach, along the mangroves, on the side of the road, the tip of the plastic iceberg. Not everywhere. though. There is increasing awareness and people start fighting against it, being actually distraught by it.  This is a matter of education, of organisation for garbage collection. Yet garbage is collected but often thrown in a river where it will go to the sea...
There is the matter of drinking water. Where there is none, plastic bottles have to do the job. What are people to do?

Eira, an event organiser and big-hearted free-spirited lady from Jogjakarta  tells me about ecobricks. I have the privilege to meet Russel, one of the founders, and Ani, who happen to live down the road from Taman Petanu and are at home when I drop by out of the blue. This is now a widespread movement that requires no infrastructure and no financial investment. Awareness, dedication, resolve, practicality.

www.ecobricks.org

In Bali the beautiful, an alchemy process is happening, of people meeting, creating, changing.
Only 6% of Indonesia's corals are in a good state... The 17500 islands that make up the Indonesian archipelago comprise 14% of the coral reefs in the world. In Pemuteran, a relatively new initiative, biorock is a process that enables a fast regeneration of corals.

http://www.biorock-indonesia.com

I meet Taryn, who lives some of the year in Taman Petanu. She is from Daylesford, a town north west of Melbourne and leads an energy cooperative there. Daylesford is the home of permaculture and, by the way,  the first 100% renewable energy town in Australia. David Holmgren is one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept. After 40 years of existence, permaculture 'may rank as one of Australia's most significant intellectual exports.'  and exists worldwide. I have come across it in many places in Indonesia.

https://www.milkwood.net/course/introduction-to-permaculture-180324/

Yes, offerings... the practice of giving, of honouring, every day.
On my birthday, after a day of discovery, a delightful surprise was waiting for me at casa Coolio, where I had only just arrived 2 days before. Dewi had gone for a walk with a little girl and gathered tropical plants and flowers. This is what they left for me, with a card.
'Happy birthday, Lucille! may your days in Bali fill you up with happiness and blessings as you continue to discover the beauty of Balinese offerings.'

There is such lightness of being...