Our plan during our visit (in contrast to much of our travels so far)
is to remain relatively stationary, camped out in a comfortable,
affordable two-story hut opposite the main beach in Padangbai, on
Bali's southeastern coast.
It's been a different kind of exhilaration to adjust to the temps
consistently in the upper 90s Fahrenheit, perpetually blue skies, the
equatorial humidity, the consistent tropical equinoxes. Balinese
culture -- literally, an island of Hindus in an Islamic archipelago of
17,000 islands -- is intriguing, complex, and incredibly, incredibly
friendly.
As Elizabeth Gilbert describes in Eat, Pray, Love, there are a
bewildering array of stunningly beautiful ceremonies that take place
seemingly every day among the countless temples. Little Padangbai,
alone, has three temples (for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), and transit
on every road way takes you past so many others it is difficult to
keep count. Every day, our hut is adorned with beautiful offerings,
typically in a tiny woven basket containing flowers, rice or fruit and
a burning stick of incense. The sidewalk is... (to say littered would
be unjust) decorated with these offering boxes, and during various
times of the day, the air throughout town is perfumed with incense. We
arrived on the day of the full moon, and many of the nearby temples
are celebrating this fact (the full moon's, not our, arrival) every
night for this whole week.
For a westerner like me, these rituals seem mysterious, intoxicating
and somehow impenetrable. I have repeatedly found myself imagining
what I would experience if I arrived from Mars and stumbled into a
Christian Christmas service. Surely, I would be no less bewildered.
The striking difference here, I suppose, is that these rituals of
faith are so much more pervasive, so much more frequent, such a felt
part of life in these communities.
We spent our day yesterday visiting a number of major temples on the
eastern part of the island (the Mother Temple and Holy Spring Temple
stand out as perhaps our most meaningful glimpses into Balinese
faith), which attests to the depth and breadth of the spirituality (or
spiritualities) practiced here. It's a gentle and joyful -- if
nevertheless unsettled -- experience, drifting in a sea of belief that
I don't really understand. The journey is the thing, right?
We have planted ourselves in a somewhat out-of-the-way port town,
visited mainly for its ferry connections to other islands, and
secondarily for its diving and snorkeling. Despite our explicit intend
to get away from the tourist towns, it is clear that tourism is a
major driver of the economy here.
And the economic imperatives of tourism put to shame our modest
attempts to learn a few critical phrases of Bahasa Indonesia (thanks
to the Learn Indonesian podcast) before arriving. Most of the Balinese
people we interact with can be heard in the space of a few minutes
switching between passable English, to French, to German and then back
to Indonesian as the language of their interlocutor suggests.
Bali also marks our first real encounter with the social economic
disparities that will accompany us on many of our travels. From our
few conversations with locals about it so far, it seems that most of
the gracious Balinese who are making our stay so gentle here can
scarcely afford to leave the island, much less contemplate a round-the-
world trek. I sense that many people are content in this place, but it
does not change the irresolvable tension from the inequities of
personal wealth between the typical Balinese and the typical tourist
or traveler, here on holiday.
While I want to be conscious of this aspect of our travels -- the
contrast between sometimes unfathomable luxury of so many months of
travel and the daily needs of many of the people we meet -- the
solution is surely not to disengage from the world, or to opt not to
experience this gulf (a gulf which will widen substantially along our
itinerary). It, too, remains unsettled and unsettling.
I'll be (begging your forgiveness) diving into this fray in a
different way today, as I begin my PADI open water SCUBA certification
courses. (No pressure, Riley!) Even when swimming in fresh water, I
can all-too-easily conjure that iconic image from Jaws, two bare legs
dangling appetizingly from the surface of the water, as the shark's
mouth opens... So wish me luck, 'kay?
More to come!
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