Stories: Trip Reports, Tall Tales and Other Such Malarkey
july 16, 2010 07:33pm
Weirdly Awesome
As I drive through the villages completely relaxed or we see our friends at launch I allow myself, momentarily, to feel like a natural part of this place. But every single day, the moments that remind me that we are not in Kansas anymore are hilariously charming. "Did you just see that?!" I ask Sati delightfully so many times each day. Huge yellow dump trucks piled high with massive limestone boulders say "I love you full" in two foot high block letters across their windshields. Other similar trucks come barreling down a steep, narrow road at us with "Risky" emblazoned on their windshields. Indonesians have adopted toilet paper for many other uses and most warungs (little restaurants) have plastic dispensers specifically for toilet paper to use as napkins. Some people here row out in boats just to fly kites. Other people make kites that create a weird, we're-being-invaded-by-aliens sound and then tie their kites off to fly on their own all night. Teeny kids hide behind fences and pop out long enough to say, "I love you!" and then duck and hide, giggling insatiably. Mothers take all four uniformed kids to school on a motorbike at once. In some villages, when all the kids are in uniform and walking to school, girls carry stick rakes and boys carry machetes. Pringles come in softshell crab, shrimp and seaweed flavors. There is a brand of snacks called Pura Agung that has no indication on the packaging what the snack is made of; some are shrimp crisps, others are fried sweets, others are shredded coconut cakes - you just take your chances until you can recognize those you like. Fifty motorbikes might decided to drive at you in your lane in the wrong direction to get past a bit of traffic on their side of the narrow median. People have fake police lights on their cars. It's all just weirdly awesome.
Yesterday, we were at a cremation ceremony. As we watched the procession, a couple guys with video cameras asked to interview me. I did the interview and didn't think anything of it. I just got home from a day at launch when the little kids where we live where shrieking with delight when they saw me and speaking very quickly in Indonesian. I couldn't understand a word, but their parents just told me that they all saw me on TV last night. Hee hee. Komang, their shy four-year old, saw me on TV and went in to get everyone else and they all saw my interview. I guess we're just as weird as anything else around us!
Tonight, we are on the hunt for Babi ... pork! Wish us luck.
Posted By: Melody
july 16, 2010 07:30pm
Up to the Mountains
We took a trip north to Bedugul to check out some hot springs and temples. We decided to go straight to the hot springs because we have been so stressed out (heh heh). Our directions seemed clear and we were following along smoothly when they just sort of ended with, "the destination village is Desa Angseri, but people will know the area as "patung jagung", ask locals for directions from here." So we asked a few people and they kept pointing back the way we had come. In my limited, but improving Bahasa Indonesia, I asked how far it was back. We kept asking people and they kept saying back, back. We were nearly back to the original turn in the directions, when we looked up what "patung jagung" meant in our dictionary. We had been asking people where the corn statue is. Not the hot springs. Not the area where the village is located. The corn statue. Thanks, directions. After this, it was very easy to ask directions to the actual hot springs and we drove through some very remote villages, in which everyone stared at us as we bumped along, and finally reached the springs.
Opened in 2007, the springs were funneled into six stone pools which were each enclosed by a bamboo hut with hooks to hang clothes. The springs are nestled within misty, jungle-strewn mountains. Lovely! When we arrived only one other spring pool was occupied and we were showed into our spot. As we soaked and relaxed, more and more Indonesian voices filled the valley. Tiny kids ran everywhere through the springs and one even popped his smiling head into our hut long enough to giggle at his accomplishment. We took a dip in the pool under a waterfall nearby to cool off and soaked for a while longer before heading back up through the bamboo forest to the car. Orchids and other air plants clung to trees and gorgeous flowers hung off of the steep canyon walls.
In this area, the strangeness of Indonesia continued, of course. Along the roadside from which all sorts of terraced agricultural fields could be seen people were selling bunnies! Just teeny bunnies, sold in pairs by many, many people. Why? Who knows!
Posted By: Melody
july 13, 2010 09:36pm
End of a Drought
The pilots have been antsy on launch....
Paraglider Pilots tend to get antsy when they don't get to fly. The last 3 days Timbis, Bali's "ultra consistant" on-everyday paragliding site, has not been on. Light winds have been torturing us. All the pilots sit on launch trying to put on a good face. Ah, it will be good tomorrow, at least this place is beautiful, blah, blah, blah. And the place IS beautiful. 300ft coral limestone cliffs give way to the blue green Indian Ocean. Reef streaks out to the breaking waves for two hundred yards. Temples dot the ridge line. Dugongs troll the shallows behind the reef. Seaweed farmers toil at low tide.
But without the wind you cannot fly. Made, one of the Balinese that helps out on launch spreading and folding winds, running retrieves and launching the unprepared, approaches us. His English is as limited as our Bahasa Indonesia but "para-waiting" is a part of his vocabulary and he uses the term without any hesitation. He knows what it means.
We have been para-waitng for three days. Every paraglider is quite good at it. If you paraglide you also para-wait. It's just how it goes. The theory goes, you have to be there to fly. So when the conditions aren't right, you don't just go do something else, you wait. If you do leave you will surely be tormented with the stories of how good it was after you left. So, we have been para-waiting....For three days....That's extreme by any measure.
Today seemed like more of the same. Light winds on launch. This has been killing us. There are a couple of day trips on our list. But, we're in this pattern. You have to be there to fly. If we leave now it's gonna be good when we leave. It's a head trip. Every pilot knows it. So we wait all day. Will it really be FOUR days. It's almost unbearable. but then it happens. A puff. The wind is picking up. Give it some time. Let it firm up. It could just die again. No, it's really coming up. Grab the gear, pre-flight. yeah, it's good.
We soared on day four. The loveliest evening flight. All that beauty sparkled in the golden hour light. The lift was light but enough. The sky was painted with gliders. Every pilot giddy to fly. A rainbow formed in the east. Children splashed in the ocean and we soared. I was determined to consume every minute of it making long passes on a mile of ridge. Smooth and wonderful. I had to have every moment of lift and ride it until there is no more landing on the beach at twilight.
The seaweed farmers finished their day's work and the pilots have had their day.
Posted By: Sati
july 07, 2010 02:26am
Endless Saturday
Our endless Saturday is flowing smoothly along. We wake up to the sounds of roosters, wooden cow bells, cows mooing a distinctive Balinese moo, little kids running around laughing. We can hear the wind in the trees in the garden and motorbikes in the village. In the mornings, we have time to explore beaches or temples or markets before heading to Timbis to fly. We fly the afternoons away with local and traveling pilots and hang out on launch between flights with everyone who makes up the flying community here.
The last few days, we took our first trip off Bali to an island called Nusa Lembongan. It's a small island with a lively seaweed farming community, many beaches, a few dive shops and a disproportionate number of roosters. We had heard that accommodations can fill up there, so we made a reservation at Linda's Bungalows, a place recommended in our guidebook (The Rough Guide). It turned out to be a charmless, boxy place with a tasty restaurant, unfriendly Aussie owners and it is surrounded on two sides by to the island's rooster coops. Thankfully, the first morning, we were getting up early to catch a dive boat!
I hadn't been diving since 1998, the last time I was in Indonesia, so we went over to World Diving the day that we arrived on the island. They gave me a refresher course in the pool right on the spot and Sati swam in the pool and relaxed. It was great to go over the basic gear setup and skills before diving the next day.
We jumped on the boat the next morning and headed out to Manta Point. Sati came on the trip to snorkel and we had six divers, two dive masters, a driver and a guy to help out. There's always one guy to help out on boats, buses, trucks, etc in Indonesia. The trip along Nusa Penida was spectacular with 300 foot limestone cliff faces and arches.
At first, I was intimidated to go without a buddy, but it turned out that no one had a buddy on our boat. They paired us up and we backrolled into the water. We saw two manta rays within the first 15 minutes of the dive. They come to this cove to get cleaned by other fish. The visibility was not great, only about 15 meters, but we saw a lot of cool corals, many fluorescent nudibranchs and a couple lionfish. Between dives, we rested for a while and motored over to Crystal Bay. We had nasi bungkus, a banana leaf filled with rice, vegetables and fried shrimp, for lunch. Crystal Bay was a gorgeous dive and snorkel spot just teeming with life everywhere you look. My most vivid memory of it was just hanging, suspended in the water absolutely surrounded by angel fish. I've never seen so many! Sati and I snorkeled after the dive and it reminded me of how lucky I feel to get a chance to see such abundance.
On two days, we rented a motorbike and puttered around the island. It's a pretty chill place with the more beautiful beaches away from the main drag. There are just tiny little paved paths around the island and no cars. About three or four trucks help the locals shuttle building supplies and water around, but other than that, it's just motorbikes, pedal bikes, and foot traffic. We bumped into two of my previous Expression College students and their crew of seven friends and got to share stories of travels. I'd go back to Nusa Lembongan and stay on another beach.
We got back to Bingin yesterday afternoon to welcomes and stories of what had gone on while we were away. Our family here is so great - they definitely make it feel like home.
The endless Saturday continues.
Posted By: Melody
june 30, 2010 09:32pm
Paragliding is the Same Everywhere
Wherever I have been in the world to fly my largest of kites, so much is the same. Pilots help each other, laugh with each other, analyze conditions together. Small crowds gather to take in the spectacle of humans hurling themselves into the void. Children shriek and dance with excitement with the wave of a passing pilot or perhaps a steeply carved turn directly over head.
Paragliding is also so often intimately tied to agriculture. To paraglide is also to explore the farm land and farm communities of a place. The sounds of cow bells ringing on grazing cow necks (in Bali they are made of bamboo and sound especially sublime). Roosters cry out in the morning. Fence lines divide properties and are criss-crossed by back roads, some of which are the little secrets that lead to launch or an LZ that pilots so treasure and others ignore. Farmers work their land, reap their harvest, lend a watchful eye to the strange people in the sky.
To drive the back roads, walk through the fields, pass through the gates is as much paragliding as is riding the lift into the sky. Greeting the farmers, the cows, the chickens is a sort of homecoming.
Paragliding is the same everywhere yet we travel the world to fly. Perhaps it is simply for the confirmation and to see another farm from the air.
Posted By: Sati
