Monthly Archives: June 2011

Jun11

The Good, the Bad, the Bali: Part 4

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After spending the first half of the week in Ubud, we decided to spend our remaining days in Bali’s other tourist hotspot, Kuta. At first glance, I thought Kuta was great. Like Ubud, it was full of adorable little tourist boutiques and spas, this time, with a beautiful long, sandy beach. Ah, paradise, right?

Wrong.

Kuta is completely OBNOXIOUS. Yes, I said it, Kuta is OBNOXIOUS! I really didn’t think tourism could get more annoying than Ubud, until I found the taxi drivers and masseuses even more prevalent and aggressive in Kuta. You can’t walk more than a few feet without people harassing you, and even some of the stuff in the shops was just plain rude. Like this bumper sticker stall:

Charming bumper stickers at a shop in Kuta, Bali

In addition to its over-commercialization, I just think the whole Kuta scene wasn’t my vibe. Kuta is party central, like the Spring Break destination of Southeast Asia. I did enjoy going to the beach, but the waves and current were so strong, even just playing in the water was stressful. At the end of the day, it’s just wasn’t my cup of tea.

I will say, despite all my disappointments and stresses throughout the week, I finally got the Bali I was looking for on my last day of the trip. One of my goals in going to Bali was to take a yoga class at an “authentic” yoga place. Unfortunately, I missed my opportunity to do it in Ubud (where the main yoga spots are) and I sadly discovered there were practically no places to do yoga in Kuta (at least not well-publicized). After giving up hope on the tourist booths, I went to an Internet café and tried to find something online. Again, to my dismay, there were virtually no yoga classes to be found in Kuta online either! The only lead I found was a small resort located outside of Kuta that offered daily yoga classes starting at 8:30 a.m. The only problem was that the website was dated from 2003…

Since I already established I didn’t like Kuta, I figured I had nothing to lose, so the next morning I got up early, packed my bags, put on my yoga gear and set out to find this obscure little resort. To my not-so-surprise, the resort no longer offered Saturday yoga classes, so I was out of luck. But the setting was so charming that I actually didn’t care. Situated behind a small-town road, covered in lush greenery, bright flowers, Balinese statues and rustic chalets, it was exactly the beautiful, serene Bali I had pictured in my head before my arrival. Despite missing out on my class, I felt instantly at peace and decided to just enjoy my last day by wandering around this delightfully tourist-free area.

The Bali resort where I took my yoga class

My first stop was this charming Eastern and Western restaurant across the street for breakfast, offering high-class service and organic food for really cheap prices. As I was enjoying a delicious plate of Eggs Benedict and a cappuccino (complete with latte art!) I noticed a rack of brochures near the entrance. As I went to inspect I realized THIS is where they had been hiding all the yoga information, geez! Ideally, I had been looking for a place to try both yoga and meditation and to my luck, I found another resort nearby that was offering a three-hour brain-mind-body workshop that afternoon. Though I really had no idea what this workshop entailed, I headed out once again and delightfully found yet another, lush, serene truly “Balinese” setting. In addition to features similar to the previous resort, this place had an open-air yoga studio, situated in the back of the property, surrounded by flowers and greenery, unbothered by the rest of the world. It was perfect.

The open air yoga studio where I took class

The class itself was also amazing. The first hour our instructor talked to us about the relationship among the mind, brain and body, giving a scientific explanation on what parts of the brain reacted and why when one was meditating. The second hour was spent doing this really simple, yet fascinating breathing technique that put us all into this crazy, zoned-out mindset. Basically, you take two inhalations, first from the stomach, then from the lungs, and then exhale and repeat this over and over and over again.  As the whole group lied on the ground, doing these crazy breaths together, it eventually got trippy. I have never experienced anything like this. In what I can only describe as a sort of hyperventilation, your whole body just starts buzzing and your mind goes blank. I really don’t know how else to describe it, except that my arms, legs and head were just “buzzing.” From here, we went directly into an hour-long yoga session, which was absolutely incredible. Having just come from the mind-clearing breathing session, we were all completely calm and “aware” as we did our poses, and I found myself for the first time starting to make the mind-body connection. I also found I could hold some poses longer and further, because I was no longer fighting with my mind about the pain or tedium. It was truly an incredible experience and the perfect way to end my trip to Bali.

Jun10

The Good, the Bad, the Bali: Part 3

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The rest of our time in Ubud was really nice. As Bali’s culture “capital,” Ubud is the place people go to learn about Balinese art, dance, traditions, yoga etc. (as opposed to surfing and partying). As Bali’s other tourist hotspot, it is also full of really cute boutiques and restaurants, and it seems everyone is willing to drive you somewhere or give you a massage.

Though we definitely indulged a bit in the shopping and spa treatments, we also made sure to try to explore the local culture. One of the things on my must-see list was to watch a traditional Balinese dance. The bright side of staying in a tourist area is there were plenty of options. The down side is that it’s hard to differentiate between the more authentic Balinese culture and the pre-packaged tourist garbage (we learned on day one that our hired driver had his own agenda in mind to take us to places where he’d get a commission. We had to give him very clear directions after that…). When it came to dancing, my guidebook had warned that there were a number of “B”-list dance troupes around and that authentic Balinese dance should not look like you could do it yourself…

We ended up selecting a dance hall near our homestay, and honestly, I cannot tell you which “level” of dance troupe we saw. To their credit, the setting was amazing. Located behind a lily-pad covered moat with a gold, regal-like backdrop, the open-air stage had a magical, enchanting feel to it. The dancers themselves were absolutely beautiful as well with exotic, colorful costumes and make-up.  The performance also had on-stage musicians who play these unique gong and xylophone-like instruments, which is pretty cool to see.

The dance itself, however, was, in a word, unique…  It is made up with a series of precise hand, arm, head and hip movements with a lot of bent-angle aesthetics that are often used to tell a story. What I found particularly interesting is that they actually use their eyes to dance by opening them wide and looking right to left to the music. It’s quite fun to watch, though slightly creepy…After watching the same few movements over and over and over again, however, it gets a bit redundant and I wouldn’t exactly describe much of the activity as anything that would require you to break into a sweat…Still an interesting experience though.

In addition to Balinese dancing, we also had the chance to explore some more local culture in Ubud with a half-day bike tour through the outside villages. What was great about the tour was that you get outside the tourist zones and get to cruise down the hillside (yes, all downhill!), past the rice paddies, past the women carrying baskets on their heads, and past all the local communities. We made several stops along the way to explore on foot, and I must admit, it was really cool to see what rice paddy looked like. Turns out, it looks kind of like wheat or any other grain, who knew?

Me and the Paddy Fields

One of the coolest parts of the trip, however, was our visit to the coffee plantation at the beginning. We got to check out where they grow coffee, vanilla, cinnamon and cocoa before sitting down to sample a few brews :). What was especially interesting, however, is that we got to try civet coffee, or what I prefer to call, “luwak-poo” coffee. For this delicacy, a weasel-like animal called a luwak first eats the berry surrounding the coffee bean, then poos it out. These beans are then roasted and made into a very expensive coffee. There seem to be several theories on why this coffee is so special. Some say enzymes in the luwak’s stomach changes the flavor of the coffee, while others say luwaks naturally choose the best berries, and therefore, the best beans in the wild and make the coffee roaster’s job easier. Either way, the coffee was good, strong, though I’m not enough of a coffee connoisseur to appreciate all its unique flavor :).