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Posts
- On Professional Athletes
Professional athletes are people paid to ignore their bodies.
Ignore their bodies when they tell them, “I can’t do this anymore” and keep going.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.
Mahatma Gandhi- The Speaker
My opinions are as useless as anybody else’s. The universe/consciousness flows through us when we speak. We are no more makers of the speech/thoughts than the radio is the maker of the stations it’s able to receive. The rest is just opinion. And opinion is as relevant as static on the radio.
- Human Life
Life, considered as particular to planet Earth in the, as of yet known universe, is indeed extremely rare, thus special.
Humans among all life forms seem to be special, as the sole possessors of an increased ability to drastically alter the initial state of their environment, through the use of an ever increasing set of tools such as fire and articulate language.
Human life however is not special. A human is as much alive as any other living entity; the cells and tissues that make up that life, even if more complex, or more complexly organised than others, are no more alive than those in algae, snails or squirrels. So even though humans might be special, human life isn’t rare, more precious or holier than any other life, for the simple fact that at its essence it’s the same, and the word life by definition describes that essence.
All life is equal in the face of death, be it human, squirrel or moss.
- On Our Relationship to Ideas
Humans need to change their relationship to ideas in the same way most human males need to change their views on the relationships they have with the woman/women that they live with. People don’t own their ideas, in the same way that men don’t own their women. And like women, I believe that no half-decent idea will be caught hanging around somebody that obsessively thinks he owns them. At best humans can be spectators to ideas which they can subsequently take note of, interpret through their personal filters (which for the majority can be more or less equated with social filters) and have a foundation on which to build upon afterwards; what they build, of course, varies immensely, from projects to colonise Mars and new erotic shows in Amsterdam to plans for invading other countries.
Of course there’s a problem with the entire notion of ownership, but I believe that the view of ownership that we impose on our ideas is by far the most damaging, because a lot of ideas we think we own, become over time, because we think we own them, preconceived notions. And preconceived notions wind up owning us, in the sense that they alter us, prevent us from seeing the truth and ultimately prevent us from seeing the ideas that we would otherwise be able to see.
But like I said the whole notion of ownership is fundamentally flawed, it is a paradox. How can that be? you ask. Well the explanation is quite simple. Ownership implies two definite parties, the owned and the owner, between which the relationship of ownership exists. But here the problem lies, because at least one of the parties can’t be defined, it’s actually undefinable. Because, if for property and other things we view ourselves as owners of, we can come up with fairly believable, or at least workable, practical definitions, when it comes to us, human beings, there’s no logical, complete explanation that can be given. We can try to squeeze ourselves into labeled molds, but of course there’s always going to be something left out of that mold, but which is still undeniably part of ourselves. So how can we attach a relationship between an entity that we can’t define and another, shouldn’t we first try to figure out what that entity is and isn’t before relating it to something else? And shouldn’t this be our top priority, considering that the entity in question is us?
We know that we’re alive, but we don’t know what life is or how it originated. We know that we have consciousness, awareness, although we can’t exactly say what that is. We are aware of the fact that seemingly we’re the only life form that can take observed information and abstract it in the form of language and writing, thus enabling us to also exist in a separate world from that of the material, observable universe; but we don’t really know the meaning or underlying function of this ability. We know we exist in a seemingly material place, the universe, but we’re still unaware of its fundamental characteristics. So, if we’re unable to explain the place we exist in, the fundamental character of our being, its abilities and the abilities that make us unique when compared to other living beings, how can we possibly try to define ourselves? And if we can’t define ourselves, how can “we” possibly say we own something? Who exactly is owning, and what?
And this last question, the “what”, further emphasises the paradox of ownership when it comes to ideas, because we won’t be able to give plausible explanation to either the owner nor the owned. What exactly are ideas and where do they come from? Can anybody really answer these questions?
But the thing is we don’t have to, all we have to do is figure out what we are, without letting anything false get in; and all other questions will fade away.
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Posts
Inspired by a photo. Done over the course of three days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
Drawn after a photo of a lizard in 3 days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. You can also see the coloured pencils version.
Drawn after a photo of a lizard in 4 days using coloured pencils. Next time I’ll post the Wacom tablet in Photoshop version.
A self-portrait started on paper, scanned, then coloured in photoshop using a wacom tablet. Done over the course of two days.
Drawn after real cherries. Done over the course of two days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
Drawn after a photo. Done over the course of seven days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
Drawn after a photo of a Kingfisher. Done over the course of five days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
A young mother of three kittens. Drawn after a photo taken in my yard.
Done over the course of four days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
Sketched on paper with colored pencils, then scanned and imported into Photoshop for rendering with a Wacom tablet.
Done over the course of 5 days.
Drawn with a pogo sketch on a first generation iPad using Sketchbook Pro.
The drawing was done over the course of a week and consists of many, many lines.
- A Home for My Drawings
Given that the machine has updated its connection between brain and hand for the purpose of drawing, from now on this website will become a home for my drawings.
- New software is available for your machine!
If you don’t want to install now, choose machine menu > Software Update when you’re ready to install.Install:
- Self Love for Machine OS 20.1 v. 1.2 Size 77MB.
This update will fix issues with user interface software. The issues addressed include:
- Fixes problems with concentration through relaxation.
- Improves self awareness by adding a new feeling to the other basic ones added in the previous version (hunger,sleep,lust).
- Teaches the machine to choose what it really wants to, and not what it THINKS it wants.
Caution:
By installing this update you will have to restart the system.
Note:
Use of this version of software is not subject to the original Software License Agreement. By installing this update you are consciously breaking the official regulations which might cause irreversible side-effects.
The most frequent side-effects:
In the first period of time you will be happy. You will not know what to do with this happiness, so you will stop working and worrying. Instead, you will start contemplating the ceiling or invisible objects in front of you. That will make you dream. And these dreams will make you happy. You will start enjoying all kind of little and useless details without asking yourself any questions: A smile from a stranger whom you smile back (without asking yourself what that stranger wants from you), a piece of good chocolate (without asking yourself how many calories it has), quiet (without asking yourself why no one is calling you), laying in the sun for hours with your eyes closed (without asking yourself why you’re not doing anything).
Money will suddenly mean less and less and the existence of a boss will seem funny and impossible.
- In the Beginning
When I found myself faced with the idea of writing the first post on this blog, I started to be very nervous. So I began to put down all kind of questions like: Why am I writing this? Who am I writing for?
I thought these questions are really mine and that they were the reason why I can’t start writing, that until I don’t find an answer to them I won’t be able to focus on creating.
Bullshit!
The only thing that was in my head was the fear that if I don’t create something cool and smart I would be laughed at. A fear that is constantly there in my head, that keeps me from doing all kind of things that I would like to do.
So when I finally recognized that to myself I thought: “Evrika!. Tomorrow I will post this no matter what!” First, because I have to get over this fear and second, because this was anyway what I had in mind for this blog. On the way to becoming human means on the way to combat all the fears that we have in our minds and that keep us away from ourselves. One fear down, one step closer towards the real us.
Until then, we are all just some machines controlled by our own fears and preconceptions of what we should be.
I am Newmachine 5. And You?
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Posts
It’s been precisely a month since I’ve last sat down to write something new in the travel log (although I’ve got to admit that I’ve finished the last entry on Bali just recently) and last time I said that I’ll get started on Jogja. But that’s the whole point, even though we’re in a foreign culture halfway around the world and we still barely speak the language it feels like we’re home here - well, not entirely, but just enough so that it doesn’t feel like we’re travelers anymore. We’re living here, working here and facing the issues of daily life here. That’s why I’ve decided that most of my experiences in Jogja don’t belong in a travel log, at least not those that happened after the first three weeks when we moved to Apartmen Sejatra for the first time. I’ve committed to writing a series of separate articles about my time in Indonesia, what I’ve observed, what we’ve been through and what it’s all meant. The series will probably include things like Masuk Angin (literary Enter Wind or Trapped Wind as I’ve seen it translated) - The Successfully Marketed Made-up Disease; Whitening Obsessions; Javanese Food with a chapter on Tropical Fruit in Indonesia and many more - but all in due time.
I will of course have to come back to reflect on our experiences as travelers in Jogja and its surroundings in our first three weeks here and write about the Sultan’s Palace, The Water Castle, the Javanese classical dance and music, Malioboro, the Prawirotaman area, Borobudur, Prambanan, Parangtritis and the Kota Gede silver quarter. But as most of these visits took place approximately five months ago, I think I can wait another month or two, and we’re safely back in Romania, till I’ll convey them. In the mean time we’ll try to make the most of our remaining three weeks in Indonesia and hopefully go through new experiences worthy of this travel log.
We’ve been back in Jogja (Yogyakarta, Indonesia also known as Jogjakarta, Yogya or Djogdja) for almost three weeks now (man time flies here). This is where we had left for Bali more than a month ago, and here we had spent three months prior to our departure.
Before I get started on Jogja and on how it’s been here since we came back I just want to add a few more things about Ubud. We spent our remaining four days there quite nicely, taking long walks in the surrounding villages and the adjacent rice fields, further exploring the village center and the Sacred Monkey Forrest Sanctuary, shopping in the central market and enjoying balinese cuisine. Although we haven’t managed to find the postcard perfect terraces on our walks, which I’m sure were just around the corner, we got to see more flatter rice fields filled with loud and cheerful ducks and extremely colorful insects. There were almost no other tourists around there so personally I didn’t mind not having found the terraces that much. The main reason why we couldn’t explore further and why we probably missed the rice terraces, was mostly due to the packs of stray dogs that were all around the streets of the villages and they were visibly bothered by seeing us carrying our tripod and immediately started barking us and coming violently toward us trying to chase us away. Nothing actually happened and we managed to leave Bali without any dog related incidents (although I’ve read in a local newspaper that the rabies levels are up to those from the 1940’s), but we tried to avoid them as much as we could, especially when they were in packs of more than two, and this meant that we couldn’t see all the places we had intended to.
One of the best places for me from our whole trip to Ubud, and Bali in general, was the Monkey Forrest Sanctuary. The little fellows there, Balinese Macaques, were quite fascinating and I could have spend days observing and photographing them. Unfortunately, however, both of the times we visited, we got there a bit late, only an hour or so before sunset and closing time. The place is relatively small, it’s more like a park than a forrest, and considering there’s more than 300 macaques living there it can sometimes get quite crowded, although never uncomfortably so. Before we went everybody warned us that we should be extra careful with our things as they have a tendency to steal everything they see and that they can also get aggressive - we even read dire warnings about the monkeys in our travel guide. While I’m sure it’s not a bad idea to take some level of precaution and be careful around the monkeys I think the warnings and the panic surrounding them is a bit exaggerated. Yes, they can sometimes be unpredictable and yes, they have the tendency to steal stuff, but from what I saw in my couple of hours there, they were only attracted by food stuff, especially fruit. Otherwise they really don’t mind you, so I think that as long as you don’t provoke them and are not carrying any exposed fruit, let’s say for instance passion fruit in a transparent plastic bag like some Japanese tourists were, you and your belongings should be quite safe. We wanted to go back to the monkey forrest on one of the days before we left, for a proper visit and a photo session with the monkeys but unfortunately, as we were planning to make the visit in the afternoon (so as to have just the right light for taking photos - the “golden hour” as it’s called) the rainy weather in the last afternoons of our visit prevented us from doing so. Maybe we’ll go back sometime, or if not maybe we’ll find some other monkeys - I’ve heard there’s lots of them in Kaliurang, a resort on the slopes of mount Merapi about 30 km from Jogja.
The biggest highlight of our visit to Ubud, however, was probably the place where we stayed. After arriving there with a car that we took from Sanur for 100000 IDR (hard bargaining was involved) we first checked out some of the places that our driver recommended, but like it seems to usually happen with the recommendations made by locals they weren’t the best options - the first one was too crowded and noisy while the second one was a bit too expensive, and the price really didn’t match the value, especially in a place with so many really nice and cheap places to stay. So we set out to find a place that matched our needs of cleanliness and basic comfort in a nice, quite setting at a reasonable price. And that’s exactly what we found - we didn’t even have to look too hard, and after having checked out just three places before it, we found Lecuk Inn on Jalan Kajeng (Jalan means street in Bahasa Indonesia - it also has the meaning of to walk). A girl in her twenties greeted us after we passed through the gate of the Inn and showed us to a room in the back of their property. The room was very spacious and it had a bathroom the size of a standard room in a cheaper hotel, but probably the most impressive thing about the place was the enormous porch overlooking the beautiful tropical garden, and past it a patch of jungle surrounding the stream of the river that flowed in the valley below. The place was great and considering the porch had a big table that we could use as a desk it seemed like the ideal place for writing, something that we planned to catch up on while in Ubud. The only problem that made me be a bit hesitant at first was that the room seemed to be quite humid, but after I managed to get the price down to 125000 rupiah per night (about 13 USD), with breakfast for two included, I forgot all about the humidity. The included breakfast was also very nice, which made the whole deal even sweater - it consisted of a big fruit plate, tea and a choice of pancake, omelet or boiled eggs. Staying there was very nice, and I’m sure this was partially one of the reasons why we lost our interest in exploring the rest of Ubud in the first couple of days. The place had a very authentic and raw atmosphere to it, and you could spend hours just observing the wildlife that made its way to our garden from the nearby jungle - a great variety of birds, some of which were coming to feast on the big papaya tree in our garden, squirrels, that woke us up on our first morning there by making some very strange sounds, lots of colorful butterflies, huge wasps that sometimes could get a bit scary, frogs, snails as big as the open palm of an adult man, jumping spiders and other wondrously strange insects. We also got some surprises while staying there, some pleasant, some thrilling and some quite problematic. First of all, we were greeted by cats on our second day there, nice, friendly cats, that initially seemed like they were begging for food as they were very thin, but after several unsuccessful attempts to feed them, which included milk and canned corned beef, we realized that they were more interested in our company. Especially the young male (there was a young, grey, tabby male with white legs and a tricolored female, that seemed to be his mother), who always purred and tried to climb up my lap while I was writing and who waited for us on the bench when we were away. Eventually they drank some of the milk, and even tried some corned beef, but I think the giant red ants got most of it.
The second surprise was waiting for us in the bathroom on our second day there, right after we got back from the dance performance. It was a giant black spider, about 25cm across. We had heard stories from our friends here about these giant house spiders, and especially Ana was hoping that we wouldn’t get to meet one, but when it finally happened both of us were quite calm. I scared it with the tripod, as I didn’t want to kill it, and tried to get it out of the bathroom through the opened space in the sealing. The freakiest part about it was that it could jump pretty well. When I first scared him with the tripod he jumped from the floor about half a meter high and a meter in length, up on the wall. That was pretty impressive, and it kind of gave us goosebumps, so for the next week whenever we went to the bathroom we did it like 007 entering a room, waiting to be ambushed. We later found another spider about the half the size of the first one, but this time it was in our room, on a small flower-table. I tried to catch it and throw it out the window, but it got spooked and hid somewhere, so for the next 3 days we shared our bedroom with him. Then we spotted him again, in the same place, next to the flowers, but this time after multiple attempts I managed to catch him with a jar and set him free in the garden.
The last surprises came right before we left, as we were packing we noticed that our bag and some of our clothes were really moldy. Especially Ana’s backpack was covered with the green stuff that was giving off quite a distinctive smell. So as much as we enjoyed our stay there we left right on time, as if we would have stayed any longer the mold problem would have gotten worse and it could’ve affected our health.
We decided to fly back to Jogja, not that our bus trip to Bali had not been interesting but it was a bit too much to go through again. We had taken the decision to go to Bali kind of in the last moment, and because we didn’t make it to the last Executive Class bus leaving that day (the 7th of May), we decided to take an Economy Class bus leaving at 4pm, despite being warned repeatedly by our Indonesian friends to never take an economy class bus or train, especially on long distances. Well, we didn’t actually decide to take an economy class bus, we just decided to take the next bus leaving to Bali and it turned out to be an economy bus. And besides that, the bus was not going to go all the way to Bali and we had to switch buses in a small town, just after Probolingo. The first bus was an Economy AC, meaning of course that it had air conditioner, but this wasn’t always a good thing, as after a couple of hours it started being a bit chilly; it wasn’t a big problem for me but Ana, being less resistant to cold, was a bit affected as we were only wearing T-shirts - naturally, being in an equatorial country. It was funny though to see how the Indonesians, who are very sensitive to cold (and for them cold is anything under 25ºC), came prepared for the AC with thick clothes - most of them were wearing at least a pullover and some were wearing thick jackets and winter hats. I sometimes wonder how would these people react to really cold temperatures, something like the -25ºC we had to face in December and January in Romania, before coming to Indonesia. I especially ask myself this question when I see the thick winter jackets that some people wear here, and the knitted hats. Most of the clothing shops targeted at young people have these items on display here, and from what I’ve seen it’s sort of a fashion, as some of the girls even wear woolen gloves while ridding their bikes, but man, it’s really a messed up fashion. Getting back to the bus trip, however, I’ve gotta say that otherwise it was quite an experience. The whole thing lasted about 21 hours, about 12 hours in the first bus, crammed in between the very closely packed seats, with very little legroom and about 9 hours in the second one, a very basic bus, probably from the 1960s or ‘70s that was missing all of it’s top windows next to the passenger seats. When I first got on the second bus it felt like we were on a prison bus, transporting convicts to a concentration camp. On both buses, for extended parts of the journey, we had to deal with frequent stops, during which people who tried to get money from you in one way or another would get on the bus. On the first one it was lots and lots of sellers, sometimes comically numerous, especially on the length of road between Jogja and Solo. These guys (and gals - mostly older women) were trying to sell you all manner of stuff, mostly food, from boxes of donuts which they would put in your lap, to warm fried rice with tempe, with which they would touch your arm so that you could see that it was still hot, and everything in between: steamed shelled peanuts (the only thing we actually bought), bottles of soda, fried tofu, key holders, sunflower seeds, sweets, krupuk (shrimp or fish chips) and probably a lot of other stuff which I can’t really remember right now. The worst was in Solo bus station, where without any exaggerating, probably around 50 vendors got on the bus in what seemed to be an unending line, as a lot of them got on the bus through the front door, exited through the rear door and then came back to the front of the bus to get on again. The whole thing lasted between twenty minutes and half an hour and then after some time the whole situation became really amusing. I don’t know if the vendors had to share a part of their profits with the bus drivers as there seemed to be no other reason for the bus to be waiting in the station so long, except so that the vendors could unload some of their products to the passengers. We didn’t buy any food from the vendors, except for the peanuts, because we had bought some supplies from Jogja before leaving and we were hoping for a stop later on at a proper eatery where we could have a decent meal. Besides that, we didn’t know if the quality of the food could be trusted. At around 2 in the morning we got to Probolingo, where we stopped at a restaurant for a quick meal. We were quite happy about this for several reasons - first of all, it was good to be out of the bus seats for a longer while (previously the only other stop had been at a gas station/toilet which had been a huge relief for me as I was forcing my bladder to hold it in for the previous 5 or 6 hours - all that pee leaving my body made me feel like I could faint), secondly we were a bit hungry, but most importantly it was good to be out of the bus and not see the way the driver was driving it. We were seated in the second row, behind the bus driver, and the guy was a complete maniac. He was driving really fast on a very narrow lane, constantly honking his horn so that everything in front of him would get out of the way, through what seemed to be a continuous Javanese city. It was a huge populated area, stretching almost all the way from Jogja to Probolingo, although I strongly suspect that there was only a row of houses next to the road. Due to the way our bus was driven bikers had to get off the road several times so that they wouldn’t be hit. Even though our driver, like I said, seemed to be driving like a maniac, in retrospect this somehow seemed to be the norm for bus drivers in Java, as I remember one time we almost had a collision with another bus which was speeding down our lane after having overtaken two other busses - if it wouldn’t have been for our driver’s quick breaking instinct I’m sure we would have been involved in a crash, and although this was the most thrilling, there were several similar incidents throughout the trip. So like I said, we were happy to be out of the bus, unfortunately however this feeling was lost somewhere between getting our food and getting back on the bus, as the fried rice we got there (which is usually eatable anywhere in Indonesia, although quite predictable in flavor) was uneatable. Not long after our meal we had to change buses, and like I said before, the second bus was quite an interesting sight when we first laid our eyes on it. However, the real interesting part about riding the second bus was still to come. For the next couple of hours we had quite a pleasant ride through a hilly (probably volcanic) jungle landscape and then after dawn we had reached a small town from where I thought there couldn’t be long till the ferry crossing to Bali. But, boy was I wrong! Distance wise it may have been short, but we definitely didn’t get there fast. The main reason for this was that on a distance that I’m sure was under a hundred kilometers the bus made a very large number of stops. Some of the stops were made to pick up passengers as the bus was more than half empty when we departed. There’s a strange way of doing this on the economy class busses in Indonesia - the driver’s assistant hangs on the outside of the bus trough the door, holding on with just one hand and shouts the destination when the bus passes through the streets of a populated area. So this time in our case it went something like: Bali, Bali, Bali, Baliii! And if it just so happened that somebody walking on the side of the street would want to go to Bali, he or she would wave the bus down and it would stop. However though, most of the stops were not made to pick-up passengers, instead they were made, so that pengamen could get on the bus. Pengamen is the indonesian word for street performer or better said, public place performer, as they can be found almost anywhere there’s a chance of a bigger crowd and thus an opportunity for them to make some money. They perform in restaurants, either a whole show in one place or singing a song in one place, collecting the handouts and moving on to the next; in crowded intersections of big streets and in buses. The first time we encountered one was on our trip back to Jogja from Borobudur. It was actually two guys singing an indonesian song on a guitar and an improvised percussion instrument. These guys were relatively good so we didn’t understand at first why all our indonesian friends were complaining about the pengamen, but we were about to find out pretty soon. It’s hard to estimate exactly how many pengamen got on the bus on the last 100 km or so in Java but it must have been at least 30. Out of these about 2 were decent, most of the rest were very bad and at least one was really horrible (he was shouting awful sounds that had nothing to do with music and rattling on an improvised instrument). I had prepared some change from Jogja to give out to the pengamen, but I never would have thought there would be so many, so I was quickly left without. This led me to discover that some of these musical beggars can be quite annoying and even aggressive if you don’t give them anything. I remember one particular incident in which one of these guys started shaking Ana to wake her up so that she could give him money. All this, however, stopped when we finally crossed the Bali Strait and coupled with the really nice view of the crossing and more of the same after we crossed, made us really happy to have finally reached Bali.
Riding the bus between Java and Bali once was an interesting experience but twice would have been too much and because we had a cheap alternative, a bit more expensive then the bus, of course, but still cheap, at 4am in the morning of the 26th of May we took a taxi to the Kuta Airport from where we flew, with Lion Air (for about 40 US dollars each), back to Jogja. The 50 minute flight was quite enjoyable because of the really nice view we had from the window. The sun was just about to rise when we took off and it was a clear day with no clouds in sight so we could admire the spectacular Balinese and Javanese scenery, bathing in a brilliantly orange light, from 10000 meters above ground.
It’s been already three days since we’ve arrived in Ubud, but we still haven’t seen a lot of the place so far, as we had some urgent administrative matters that needed our attention especially now that we have better and relatively cheaper (compared to the 30.000 IDR an hour we were paying on Nusa Lembongan) internet access. That being said, my expectations about the place being a bit too touristy have been confirmed and even topped in some instances. At least when it comes to the more central part of the village-resort; but people come here also for the supposedly unspoiled village life in the surrounding area with countless intensely green rice terraces, which I’m looking forward to exploring more in the following days. The streets of what is known as central Ubud, however, are packed with galleries, souvenir shops, clothing shops - with a lot of international brands present, mini marts, pirated music and dvd shops (of which you can also find a large selection at the mini marts as well), spas and massage places, restaurants, serving a mix of asian and western cuisine, of which some look really interesting both in terms of menu and in terms of location (although the prices tend to be several times higher than what we were used to paying for a decent meal in Jogja). The place looks nothing like a village. This coupled with the ever present taxi drivers that are constantly offering their services - Taxi please…. Maybe tomorrow… I give you cheap price - are big set backs to the authenticity of the place. But so far nowhere was the loss of authenticity more visible than at the performance of classical Balinese dance we attended on Thursday evening at the Ubud palace. We attended the Legong Trance and Paradise Dance, which supposedly should have been some of the best in the Balinese repertoire. But we had a bit of a disappointment, as the whole thing seemed more like a mock-performance for tourists rather than something that had to do with authentic tradition. This impression was primarily generated by the attitude of the performers, with the dancers stopping from their routines to make jokes about the taxi drivers and to shake hands with the audience and the musicians constantly talking to each other and laughing during the show. We got there a bit late - well, not really late in the sense that the show had already begun, but late in the sense that we only got there 15 minutes before the start of the performance and the place was already packed - so we were seated in the front row to the left side of the stage, right behind the left side of the gamelan orchestra, so we closely observed the musicians constantly gossiping and seemingly laughing at the audience and the dancers, and their lack of interest or passion in the performance they were giving. At times it seemed almost as if their hands were moving automatically, after years and years of practice, and that their consciousness wasn’t involved at all. This, coupled with the fact that the performance was made up of shortened versions of the dances that seemed crammed together in an unbalanced manner, made for a rather disappointing experience. The shortening and adaptation of the dances, so that more of them can be fitted in a 2 hour interval, is rather tasteless in my opinion, and if you want to get a better sense of what I mean, just imagine how would you feel if you would go to a performance made up of shortened versions of the most famous western plays crammed together and, short bits of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Becket performed by visibly uninterested actors for audiences composed primarily of Asian tourists. More so, what would you think if this would be advertised as the best of western classical theater?
The javanese classical dance routine, that we saw at the sultan’s palace in Jogjakarta was a lot more impressive, maybe the moves weren’t as complex (or at least that’s what critics say) and it was also made up of shortened versions suitable for tourists, but the intensity of their performance, and the visible passion of all the artists, musicians and dancers created an atmosphere that the performance we attended here in Ubud couldn’t even aspire to. And I think, from what I’ve observed, that this is primarily a consequence of the fact that in Jogja the classical dance, and other arts and crafts such as the wayang puppet making, are being kept alive mostly for the sake of tradition, under the direct patronage of the sultan’s court and they would continue to be kept alive regardless of the number of tourists in the city; where on the other hand here the dance seems to be performed more for the sake of tourists and the income they generate. This was also visible in the admission price, in Jogja the dance performance was given free, on Saturday mornings, as part of the visit to the Sultan’s Palace, which costed 15000 IDR per person, where as here the price of the performance was 80000 IDR per person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that 80000, around 9 US dollars, is an exaggerated price, although it seems a bit too much for Indonesia, what I’m suggesting is that the fact that the price here in Bali is more than five times higher says something.
Having said this, the fact that the central part of Ubud has become a touristic place may not entirely be a bad thing, especially if you consider spending more than a few days here. Because what this means is that you can be relatively close to nature, and the tranquility of a traditional village without giving up too much of the perks of modern life. Besides, even though most of the shops have the same wares consisting of cheap souvenirs and traditional dresses, a lot of them have some interesting and unique items on display, and I’m sure that if you have the time and patience to browse through them thoroughly, great deals on unique items can still be had.
We arrived a couple of hours ago to Ubud, in the southern hills of Bali, which so far seems like a delightfully rustic and natural place at heart even though at present it looks a bit overrun by tourists and all the modern facilities that they tend to desire. We haven’t yet explored the place except for our lunch trip but I’m looking forward to doing so.
We arrived here from Nusa Lembongan which proved to be a charming little island despite the couple of accidents I had - falling from a mountain-bike while coming down a steep slope at high speed, which resulted in a few cuts and bruises under my right knee and falling on the deck of a small boat (which was mainly the “captain’s” fault as he started the engines without saying anything beforehand) and hitting the stairway, which resulted in a couple of big nasty bruises. Besides my accidents Ana had a new eruption on her lower lip which proved again that the insect theory for our skin outbreak problems is at least questionable.
We witnessed a local cock fight and had a delightful snorkeling trip on our second day there - the 10th of May. The snorkeling costed 150.000 IDR - boat trip and snorkeling gear for 2 included, while the cock fight was free to see as long as you weren’t interested in gambling and could put up with all the noise made by the betting locals - which personally I found to be quite entertaining, certainly more entertaining than seeing a rooster die every few minutes. The cock fight wasn’t exactly advertised for tourists and we were among the very few non-locals there, but we went to see it after we found out about it from a local villager. Strangely, Ana wanted to see the cock fight more than I did. The whole thing seemed to revolve a lot more around the gambling and ritual of it all than the actual fight which only lasted a few seconds. The roosters were brought in baskets to the “arena” where they first had a blade tied to their left foot with a piece of red string after which they were put on display for the betting mob. Then they were incited one against the other and set loose. The actual fight that followed had just one round that lasted only 10-20 seconds before the winner was decided and the looser fell quickly to the ground from what seemed to be a sharp cut. However, we later found out that the blades were poisoned and it only took a small scrape for the match to be decided.
Cocks are matched up according to their size and perceived skill.
The fight is made short by the fact that each rooster has a blade tied to its leg, called taji.
The snorkeling trip was also really great, as there were a lot of different, colorful species of fish and other marine life to be seen, and the whole reef seemed to be in a pretty good shape. We went snorkeling to the Mangrove Reef on the north-eastern side of the island, and as it was Ana’s first time snorkeling, her reaction upon diving her head into the water and seeing all the marine life was one of sincere amazement, she even shouted WOA! through her snorkel.
Many of the local villagers have shifted from farming seaweed to tourism related activities, like offering snorkeling tours.
The lack of underwater photography equipment unfortunately meant that we could only take photos at the beginning and end of our snorkelling trip.
The third day was spent on a delightful, albeit exhausting bicycle trip around the island with two bikes we rented for 30000 IDR each from a guy who initially offered us some motor bikes for rent (as a lot of people on the island are doing). At first inspection the bikes seemed to be a bit weathered but in a decent enough condition, the only noticeable problems being a very narrow seat (which caused serious ass pains) and a weaker back break on one of them. We first headed towards the mangrove forest on the NE road and stopped for a morning swim and some photos of Gunung Agung (Bali’s tallest peak, looming at 3142m) and island wildlife on a small isolated beach close to the western edge of the forest. Then we headed out to the mangrove forrest proper which covers a big part of the NE side of the island. We explored for a bit the small local community there, and the edge of the forrest after which, as it was already noon, we took a rest and had a couple of drinks at a local warung with a great view towards the beach and the edge of the forest.
A mangrove seedling.
The fruit of this particular mangrove tree were covered with colorful beetles, probably trying to extract some form of nutrition from them.
Sign pointing the way to the small warung where we had our refreshments.
Then we cycled for another hour and a half or so till we came to the south of the island where we cooled down with a couple of drinks from a small shop. A couple of hundreds of meters down the road we took some photos of some seaweed farmers taking advantage of the low tide. Also taking advantage of the low tide were hundreds of small very colorful little crabs roaming about the dry seabed, probably looking for something to eat. They were approximately 5-10 cm in size, had orange or reddish feet and blue backs with different patterns.
This old man was turning the seaweed to make sure it dries on both sides.
Hundreds of small mud crabs can be seen exiting their burrows on the sea floor in search for food.
Afterwards we continued our trip, but as it was already past lunch time we thought it would be a good idea to stop for a meal at a small little warung on the side of the road, not far from the Lembongan - Ceningan bridge. We were attracted by the advertised grilled fish but we had to negotiate hard with the waiter till we got him to understand what we wanted (even though the sign outside the place was written in English). Despite this and the fact that it took ages for them to barbecue the fish, we had a wonderful lunch consisting of two wonderfully grilled and tasteful fish, a tuna and a jackfish served with delicious onion and chilly balinese sauce and rice.
The view from the eatery, overlooking the Ceningan Strait at low tide.
After lunch the most difficult part of our bike trip began - it was already around four o’clock when we finished lunch and we knew it was going to start getting dark in a couple of hours so we knew we needed to pick up the pace in order to get back to our hotel at Jungutbatu beach. What we didn’t know, however, was that if we wanted to continue following the coastal road back to the northern part of the island we had to climb a couple of steep hills. Due to our lack of training, an error I made while shifting gears (instead of setting my bike in the easiest speed for the climb I had set it in the hardest ) and the fact that after I tried to shift gears again my chain blocked and I couldn’t pedal anymore, we were already tired after the first hill and exhausted by the time we got to the top of the second. We were alternating between pushing our bike and actually riding it and after we got on top of the hill besides being exhausted we came face to face with one of our biggest fears - a pack of about 10 mean looking dogs coming down the street toward us. The stray dogs proved to be one of the biggest problems of our trip to Bali. There weren’t actually a real problem but because we grew up in Romania, where we have a street dog infestation problem and they sometimes get pretty violent, we tend to get more scared of dogs than the average person, especially when they’re coming towards you barking loudly. The dogs in Bali also have a meaner looking face, somewhat resembling that of a pit-bull and they’re pretty big (maybe a sign of the fact that people in this part of Indonesia don’t eat dog meat). So we stopped about 150 meters away from them for a couple of minutes to decide how to approach the dog problem, as we knew from back home that dogs really don’t like cyclers and have a tendency to chase them, but we couldn’t linger too much as the sun had already started to set and soon it would start getting dark. To our luck, the dogs on the top of the hill, like most on Nusa Lembongan didn’t seem to care too much about people and were pretty calm even when in a pack. So after seeing a couple of motorbikes pass by them, without generating any reaction from the dogs, we decided we have to take our chances and cycle through the pack. Fortunately nothing happened, they didn’t even seem to take notice of us, but I’m not sure. I avoided making eye to eye contact with them, as that can complicate things. After we got safely away from the dogs and we speeded down the hill, something happened that proved to be a real problem. I suspect we made the mistake that lead to the problem while we were descending the steep hill - Ana was descending in front of me and she had a bit of a problem managing a rough turn and had a small accident in which she scratched her arm while falling on a bush. Right after the turn there was a crossroad, with the road to the left continuing to go down sharply while the road on the right headed up the hill again. Without thinking to much about it, and given that there was nobody around to ask we took the road on the right as the one on the left seemed to be leading to a dead end somewhere on the coast - and this I think was the mistake that made us take a much longer route that almost got us stuck in the forrest at night. About halfway down we came to a cross road again and again we weren’t sure which way we needed to take, but this time there were some houses around and we asked one of the women there which was the way to Jungutbatu village. She pointed to the right so we went that way, but after a couple hundred meters Ana pointed out that she recognized the places from earlier; I wasn’t really sure so we kept on going but then we passed the place in the south where we had the drinks that noon. There wasn’t any doubt anymore, we had taken the wrong road and were now going in the opposite direction. At this point we got a bit uncomfortable, as it was about to get dark. I asked Ana what time it was and she told me it’s 5:30. I replied a bit angrily that it can’t be 5:30 as that would mean it’s actually 6:30, because we hadn’t adjusted the time on our mobiles after leaving Java, and it would already be dark. I checked and the time on the phone was indeed 5:30 - to this day I don’t know what happened, either the phone automatically set itself to Bali time and then back to Java time, because the next morning it was on Java time again, or the sun set later that evening. Still not being too sure what time it was, but being positive that it was about to get dark soon, we rushed back up the hill to the crossroad and we asked again, this time a couple of older men, if they knew which was the way to Jungutbatu, and if they could localize us on the map we had. We had a photocopied map which we got from our hotel, but unfortunately the map wasn’t very detailed and it only showed the coastal road, going around the island. The men assured us, after starring in confusion at the map, that both ways led to Jungutbatu. Because we knew the road on the right was the road we had come on that morning and because we were sure there must be a shorter alternative we took the road that lead left this time. But to our surprise, which we couldn’t manifest at that time, after only a couple of hundred meters the road intersected with the same road we had come on that morning, so by process of elimination, the shorter rout, that followed the coast must have been on the road leading left at the very first intersection. But because going back would have meant a steep climb and more uncertainty we decided to take the road we had come on that morning and try to get to our hotel before it got completely dark. And when I say completely dark, I mean it, there’s no street lamps on the island - except for a few on the main road of the village - it get’s pitch dark, so much so that you can barely see to half a meter in front of you. So you can understand why the “getting dark thing” bothered us so much. The cross-road was also the scene of an event that further complicated our situation. Right before the intersection there was a steep descent and being in a hurry as we were I decided to accelerate on the descent to gain speed and momentum. When we got to the intersection however, a motor bike came from the left, and Ana who was already going slower then me slowed down even more so I had to break suddenly to avoid crashing into her, because I couldn’t go around as the road was narrow and the motorbike was taking up the whole left side. The road was covered with sand and gravel, so breaking suddenly at high speed wasn’t the smartest thing - my bike destabilized and I was thrown into the air, landing face forward on my right side. About half of my lower right leg was scratched and bruised and I had three deeper wounds around my knee, made up of multiple cuts. I also had some deep wounds in my right palm, from putting my arm forward in order to break the impact, and a cut on my right elbow. The pain from my wounds was pretty bad but I had to pick myself up pretty fast so that we could continue and get back to our hotel before nightfall. The guy on the motorbike, coming from the left, had seen me fall and he turned around and stopped to see if I was ok and if we needed assistance. We found out from him that we still had about 3 km to go, so we had no time to waste. We were past exhaustion at this point but had to carry on as we were far from any inhabited zone and the road passed through wetlands and the mangrove forest and there wasn’t any kind of street lighting and we didn’t have lights on the bikes either. It was already almost dark and on top of that after the crash the back wheel of my bike was rubbing against the frame, so that pedaling was noticeably harder than before. This, coupled with the extreme exhaustion and the pain from my injuries slowed me down quite a bit, but we had to push on as hard as we could as visibility was already pretty low, and darkness had almost fell. It was pretty agonizing and I can’t really estimate how long it lasted ‘till we found the first paved road that led left, which was a different one from the one we had come on that morning, but we knew it was in the direction of the village, so we took it nonetheless. After taking it we hit a patch of sand and I couldn’t pedal anymore; I almost fell twice trying to move the bike, I was that exhausted. And after I finally managed to get going again I passed through a forested region, I took a turn right and came to a house, but when I looked back I couldn’t see Ana anymore. I called out for her, shouting as hard as I could several times, but I didn’t get any answer - these were the worst moments of the day for me. I couldn’t pedal anymore, so I turned my bike around and started pushing it, i called out for her a couple of more times and there was still no answer. I knew she couldn’t be far behind as I hadn’t gone too far from where we had stopped previously, so I started fearing for the worst. Being in a patch of forest didn’t help in that moment either, as it was darker and I could barely see; I thought that if she wouldn’t reply soon and I wouldn’t find her, I could go to the house and ask for help, because I saw some people sitting in the yard when I passed it, I even think one of them came out of the yard to see what was going on after he had heard me shouting. Luckily I didn’t have to ask for anybody’s help as she showed up pedaling slowly right as I was taking the turn back. She told me she had a horrible cramp in her toes and that’s why she couldn’t pedal or walk anymore or hear me shout for that matter. We somehow managed to get back on the bikes and carry on as we knew we still had some distance to go before we reached the village proper, but we didn’t know exactly how much. After about ten more minutes we finally came to the village, but because we had taken the first paved road to the left we were at the western end of the village and we still had some way to go to the hotel, where we had agreed to meet the guy who rented us the bikes. But, as if the long day and the events of the last part of it wouldn’t have been enough we took the wrong path towards the beach, as they kind of all looked the same, and wound up about a kilometer away from our hotel on the beach. After we had a little argument, as our moods were pretty affected by our situation, we decided not to go back on the path, but rather push our bikes through the wet sand on the beach - a pretty tiresome endeavor even for a well rested person in a good state of mind. But, anyway, we somehow managed to get there right as the last traces of sunlight were fading away, as the sun was setting into the ocean. It certainly was a day to remember and if it wouldn’t have been for the wrong turn and the accident it would have been a totally pleasant one. I treated my wound with some Betadine, which I got from one of the owners of the hotel (a nice, elderly Australian couple), as I feared an infection. We went to bed pretty early that evening (not hard to imagine why), after having a really nice meal consisting of a large chicken salad for Ana and a Chicken in Pineapple for me, literally bits of chicken breast in a whole pineapple.
The low tide reveals a rocky seabed, with little to no sand, in the strait between Lembongan and Ceningan. A shot which we took a couple of hundred meters after we had had our lunch.
A little girl who kindly invited us to see her house after she had seen us taking photos not far from it.
Due to the injury to my knee which seemed to get infected I had to avoid getting into the water (a hard task when you’re on a tropical island paradise ideal for snorkeling, diving and surfing - if you’re into that) and we had to cancel our diving plans. So we spent most of our remaining time on the island writing and shooting photos and videos of the wonderful landscape and the seaweed farmers. We are contemplating doing a documentary on the current division in the jobs of the island’s inhabitants and how that’s going to change over the next few years. At present 50% of its inhabitants are working in the tourism industry and 50% are still doing the semi-traditional seaweed farming. But, probably in the next few years, all the seaweed farmers are going to convert to working in the tourism industry as more and more developments are built. Seaweed farming is semi-traditional as, from what we found out from the locals, it was introduced to the island about 23 years ago by French cosmetics companies for use in their products. The algae the farmers grow is not native to their region, but it seems to grow pretty well there, or at least it did until a few years ago. In recent years, some of the farmers that we’ve spoken to, said that their yields have gone down by almost four times, as the seaweed previously matured, and was ready for harvest in 12 days, but then the development cycle increased to 26 and now, in the last few years to 45 days, probably mostly due to the pollution caused by all the boats now present in the shallower waters surrounding the island. This means that seaweed farming is not as profitable to farmers as it once was, as the selling price of the seaweed remained constant at around 6000 IDR per kilo (approximately 60 US cents), even though the yield per family dropped from around 1 ton per month to around 300 kilos per month (and this is not taking into account the investment the farmers have to make in the wooden spikes and the strings for growing the seaweed plus the boats and baskets for the harvesting and the plastic sacks for the drying process and the transport). This is the main reason why more and more people on the island are giving up growing seaweed and are thinking of finding new jobs in the tourism industry. What will this all mean to the small island and its inhabitants in the following years remains to be seen, and it could prove an interesting subject to follow in a feature length documentary. A curious fact about the seaweed farming was that even though the French cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies brought the algae to the island 23 years ago, the farmers still haven’t found a way to sell their harvests directly to these companies and have to go through a Chinese middle man in Bali in order to do so, which further reduces their profits. Before farming seaweed the islanders were working as sea salt extractors, a job that they say was a lot harder to do and which paid a lot less, so when the French companies came with the proposal of growing seaweed everybody on the island switched to this activity, at least ‘till the tourism boom started about ten years ago. Tourists were coming to the island even before the seaweed farming started, but back in those days there were no facilities and they had to camp (they were “living in plastic houses” as one of the locals said) and bring their own food. Also the journey from Bali lasted a whole day by rowboat, unlike the half an hour by speed boat or an hour and a half by public boat that are available now. However, now there are a lot of bungalows, hotels, restaurants and a host of other facilities meant to cater to the needs of the tourists. The sharp rise in the number of tourists in the last 15 years also meant that what was once an island with almost no traffic is today home to hundreds of motorcycles, out of which probably a large percentage are brought on the island to be rented out to tourists. Another concern is the volume of trash generated by the tourists, much greater than what the locals would have produced for their own needs, which is not shipped away from the island, but rather deposited in a landfill in the mangrove forrest. Although the arrival of the tourists might have also influenced the garbage disposal practices of the locals in a positive way, as before they came, we were told that most of the people just threw their garbage into the sea. A lot of the locals that don’t have anything to gain directly from the tourism industry still do this, a fact which is most evident in front of the seaweed farming huts, a part of the beach where few tourists go to. However, given Nusa Lembongan’s proximity to one of the world’s most popular tourist destination, Bali, which stands less than 15 km away, it’s a wonder that tourists started arriving on the island in larger numbers only about 10 years ago. A wonder that probably can be attributed to ignorance, laziness and the fact that the stimulus to come got higher as Kuta and other popular destinations on Bali got more and more crowded.
Seaweed is cultivated in three varieties; the reddish-brown one being the most expensive.
Farmers’ Beach
Tourists’ Beach
Farmers’ Huts
Tourists’ Huts
Farmers’ Water Activities
Tourists’ Water Activities
Some other highlights of our ten day stay on Nusa Lembongan were a boat tour around the island (when I fell and got the bruises) and the discovery of a delightful little family run warung, Ketut’s Warung, which serves great thai food in very large portions at a great price for Nusa Lebongan. At this place we also discovered a fun game called jenga which we played while waiting for our food and after finishing our meals and which involves stacking wooden blocks onto an increasingly unstable tower, till it collapses and the person who collapsed the tower declared the loser of that round. Other highlights were a time-lapse that we did of the low tide coming in, while standing in turns with an umbrella over the camera for six hours to prevent it from over heating; waking up at 5:30 in the morning and climbing the hill to the south of Jungutbatu, from where we took morning photos of the island with a stunning backdrop of Gunung Agung in Bali, while huge red ants were climbing all over us and last but not least an invitation to dinner we got from the guy who helped us find an accommodation right after we arrived on the island.
The dinner was great and it consisted of a big grilled tuna fish, rice and spicy cap cay vegetables with chicken - it was a huge meal and the tuna fish was particularly good as you could feel it was really fresh. The guy, who first introduced himself as Ketut (which seems to be a very common name here in Bali, later told us a different name which I’m having problems remembering) was quite an interesting character - he told us he has been working as a seaweed farmer since he was 9, helping out his parents, but now he seemed to cater more to the needs of the tourists and was planning to open a small warung on his beachfront family property. After we first met him and he helped us find accommodation, we met him the next day when he arranged us a pretty good deal for a snorkeling trip and a few more times while we were shooting photos and videos on the beach. We started talking and shared stories, he told us of his family’s situation and the situation of the island in general and we told him stories about Romania which were quite impressive to him as he realized that not all European white people are living easy, worry-free lives; and that’s when he decided to invite us to dinner. Ketut, or whatever his real name is, would make for a great subject for our documentary on the island’s situation, as he has been working as a seaweed farmer since he was 9 years old, right after the islanders first started growing the seaweed, but is currently making the transition to the tourism industry by opening his own warung (a warung is an Indonesian style small restaurant where prices are cheaper and the food is usually quite good).
I’m looking forward to returning to the island, either for shooting the documentary, or just for enjoyment as the accommodations were nice, clean and cheap and the food was very good, even though, as all goods, it was bit more expensive as everything needs to be brought to the island from Bali. For the first 8 nights we stayed at Linda’s Bungalows for 100.000 IDR per night (breakfast not included), a nice place run by an elderly Australian couple who make sure everything runs properly (well, everything except cleaning the rooms on time which the staff seem to forget and need to be reminded of). The place also has an attached restaurant with great food which they advertise as being the best on the beach, and somehow I tend to believe them. The last two nights we really enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere of Secret Garden Bungalows (125.000 IDR per night, breakfast not included), a remote and very quiet place with lots of greenery, a semi-outdoor bathroom and great hammocks for relaxing. The room was maybe not as nice as the one at Linda’s but we didn’t mind as we had a big terrace, and a lot more space in the garden in front of the bungalows.
Update:
We haven’t, as of yet, made the feature film documentary about Nusa Lembongan we were considering, however we made an iPad app based on the photos we took and the short documentary we edited from the footage we shot while there.
The documentary is also viewable on our website and on Vimeo.
Also we uploaded a photo set with some of our best photos from the island, it’s viewable on flickr and 500px.
We are now on Nusa Lembongan where we arrived four days ago, on the 9th, departing from Sanur on the south eastern coast of the island of Bali. We spent the previous night in Sanur, as the cost of coming here with a charter speed boat would have been twice as high as a night of accommodation in a cheap homestay in Sanur plus the fare for the public ferry boat. Sanur wasn’t that interesting, as it seems to cater mostly to elderly expats and “fancy” tourists. And because the action that day seemed to be very slow, the massage ladies and the other beach activity vendors were quite annoying.
We spent the night of 8th /9th of May in a cheap not so clean place, but which was only 80.000 IDR and was very close to the beach and the place from where the boats departed to Nusa Lembongan, which we took the following morning.
A panoramic shot of the island of Lembongan from atop the hill next to Jungutbatu. View of the island’s northwestern coastline, Jungutbatu village and the island of Bali in the distance. Seaweed lots are visible as dark rectangles in the water.
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- Drawn after a photo in a couple of hours in photoshop using a Wacom tablet http://t.co/6Lb06QU56iMar 09, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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- Drawn after a photo of a lizard in 3 days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. http://t.co/rMZu1EZF
- Drawn after a photo of a lizard in 4 days using coloured pencils. Next time I'll post the CG version. http://t.co/Um1U0F0w
- Drawn after a photo in a couple of hours in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. http://t.co/qAOLDKIr
- Drawn after a photo. Done over the course of two days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. http://t.co/lbHiJ2Ek
- Drawn after a photo. Done over the course of seven days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. http://t.co/nuF5Ekmr
- Drawn after a photo. Done over the course of two days in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. http://t.co/ms12GroB
