Bali by Val

January 4, 2007.

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

A woman walks down the street dressed in a beautiful coloured lace top and an intricately printed sarong. She carries on her head a remarkable offering of balanced apples, oranges, bananas, woven bamboo flowers with hibiscus and fangiopani petals peeking through. You barely glance at her because you are distracted on the street by the colourful paintings, delicate wood carvings, and the driver who intones"taxi - you need transport". You know there will be many more women walking by with high offerings on their heads and their hair shiny and laced with petals.

Beauty is everywhere here in Bali. Our hotel is littered with offerings to the gods on banana leaves. Our small pool is protected by huge stone carvings of characters from the Ramayana each with a hibiscus flower in his ear. There is a temple at the bottom of the property which twice a day has someone put rice on banana leaves, or a banana leafbasket filled with flowers and incense. Another temple at the top of the property has more offerings in its three room temple.

Tonight when I left the losmen (hotel) there was gamelan music coming from across the street and many scooters parked outside our inn. "Come join us please for the exhibition" our Balinese neighbour encouraged. This was in honour of the opening at the exhibion of a gallery trying to encourage the preservation and sale of village weavings by women - the gallery was selling gorgeous and intricate pieces of woven fabric. We saw three young girls dance to live gamelan music - beautiful Balinese dance. Then the grandmothers who weave - 7 older ladies - sang a couple of songs.
The mixed tourist and Balinese crowd cheered and gave an encore to the grandmothers. We then went upstairs to see a demonstration of traditional weaving. What a time consuming and labour intensive process!

Today we went on a car/bicycle trip through the side roads of Baliy. Every little village is swept clean. Each village is known for some type of art work: painters, wood carvers, mask carvers, stone carvers, sivesmiths, and on... Some of the villages are even named to describe the type of art they do. Each village has at least one temple and each compound (family home) has a temple. Celebrations are frequent, gracious, and stunning. The women dress up, the men dress up - to enter the temple one must wear a sash and sarong and the men a headress. Even the tourists looked washed and polished if just a little out of place.

Last night we went to the Kecak (Monkey) dance. The choral sound of 48 men from the local area creating the Kecak sound (ke -chak, chak chak) is a wonder of the world. There is nothing as unusual and compelling except maybe the opera Aida at the Skydome.


As you must be able to tell, Bali, for me, is magic. Eitan and Avidan have come to join us and we are about to take a silversmith course and a cooking class. This past week Arieh and I stayed among the beautiful plants and temples of our losmen and I took a couple of days creating batik and Arieh went to the town of Mas and worked with a wood carver to create a mask.

It is a place of friendliness and smiles, and hawkers. The Balinese have a great sense of humour and a sense of fun. And it feels like a giant "One of a Kind" Craft Fair in Toronto.

You must come here!! And don't forget the Bali Bird Park.

Bali, Indonesia

Dec 23, 2006

Arieh here. We landed in Bali on Dec. 18th and went straight to Ubud, the arts and cultural centre of this island. We landed at Noon and did not have a place to stay in Ubud. We decided that we had plenty of time so we arrived, ate lunch and then went strolling up the street we stayed on 7 years ago. We actually found the homestay we stayed in then but did not go in to check it out; there was an issue with water last time--not so hot and sometimes not at all!

One of my goals before the kids arrive tomorrow was to take a wood carving course (or whatever). Well, I found a woodcarver to teach me for the last 3 days and have now completed my own mask. Well, I probably did 50% of it. The "course" was in the small "woodcarving" village of Mas, just outside of Ubud. The differences in techniques between Canada and Bali are phenomenal. In Canada one would use machinery to shape a block of wood, then more machinery toperhaps rounds some parts, a vise would be used to hold the piece when using chisels (extra pair of hands for ease and safety), and then more machinery for some sanding. In Bali, no machinery; pure brains and brute muscle.

The block of wood is split with a mallet and awls (wedges). The rough parts are taken away with a small hatchet (axe). Use the wrist only; not the arm! Tough on one's primary hand when one is not used to weilding an axe. More hatchet strokes to skin the bark, roughly shape the face, and round some rough edges. Chisels now. Not round handles for easy gripping--no, no--flat and rectangular and harder on the hand muscles. The chisels are used for the medium level work and are about 2-3 cm. wide--some straight, some curved. Used for rounding edges. When chisels are used the device used to hold the wood is quite unique. In Canada, it would likely be some sort of vise. Here in Bali it is.....your feet!!. So, against ALL I have been taught about safety and woodworking, here I am using a very sharp chisel working at this piece of wood and the chisel is inches from my bare feet. Needless to say, I work very slowly--not to ruin the wood nor to gash my feet (or later on my fingers).

Val joined me for "lunch" the second day of my course. Mas doesn't have a lot of eating places within walking distance, so we hopped inot an inter-city taxi. We disembarked where I thought there would be something to chose from and there wasn't. We had one choice and it broke all the rules of eating while travelling. Almost on the street, flies buzzing all around, fruit out of the refrigerator (which we could not even see), cutlery/silverware in a basket for the flies to alight on, etc., etc. Nonetheless, we ordered. After all, we are in Bali, home of two bombings and no one comes here because of that--why should a potential little food problem make me go hungry?? What we ordered broke MORE rules--chicken, although it was barbequed. It's not Avian Flu that is a problem; it is the fact that the chicken was sitting out. It had been pre-cooked and was re-barbequed for us. I also ordered Nasi Goreng, which is a friend vegetable/rice dish done in a pan with who knows how old the oil was. While we were waiting, I asked Val how many and which of our friends would eat at this place. I am proud to say we could only come up with 2, maybe 3 names (and I am not entirely convinced they would eat where we did). Barb G. (she would have ordered vegetarian), Ernie G. and maybe Brian Y. I was, in fact, incredulous that Val nominated Barb first. Am I wrong about all our other friends (and relatives)? In any case, I am writing this more than 24 hours after that lunch and neither of us had a problem.

Let me describe the location of my course. I found Molog my asking around in the village. Met him on a Wednesday and, after negotiating, we agreed on a start of Thursday for 3 days. He used to do statues and now does only face masks. Apparently (acccoring to pictures) he has taught others before. He's a small operator, working out of his family compound right on the cement floor (and that where I sit too). Everything is there--wood, tools and shade. As well there are loud chickens and little chicks (some in cages, some not), ducks, and a dog or two all running around. Don't forget the little kids running around and the grandmother drying rice in the sun. BTW, these compounds are usually made up of multiple families (either related or not) and ALL of them have some sort of temple area for the compounds own worshipping needs. In fact, when I asked my wood carving teacher why each compound has a temple, he described the temples as the head, the compound as the torso, and the village as the rest of the body. In other words: No temple, no head and hence, no life.

Melbourne and area

December 12, 2006

Arieh here. Melbourne was fun. We spent 5 days there and managed to get our fill of the city AND the Great Ocean Road. Melbournians consider their city as the "cultural capital" compared to Sydney (or any other Australian city). Partly true and partly because it is no longer the financial capital.

Melbourne does have many museums and art galleries and we checked out a few of them. Federation Square (built and named in honour of 100 years of federation from 1901?) has a major national art gallery with a whole floor of Aboriginal art and 2 or 3 levels of Australian artists dating from the "First Fleet period (1788) on through the ages. Jonathan Amir would really enjoy this art gallery. There was one piece of Aboriginal art that the fish looked like they were jumping off the canvas. The botanical garden was huge and made very interesting by a tour with only the guide and 4 guests. The tram system is extensive and somewhat easy to navigate (the maps are a different story). We went to shul in St. Kilda, which is also an up and coming trendy area and beach. We went back to walk around the beach the next day when it was in the high 30s, although not humid.


The Great Ocean Road is about 250 KM one-way outside of Melbourne and features stunning views of beaches and coastline (obscured by smoke from the forest fires in the north of the state), interesting rock formations (12 Apostles; see picture)
and a "above the forest" walk. When looking at these rock formations I have always pondered when and how a big piece collapses and, for example, a hole is formed or a big break occurs. It would be cool to be there, but most of these events happened millions of years ago. Well, not in this picure. This break (called "London Bridge") collapsed in 199? near the end of the day with people walking around on the piece that was left DISCONECTED from the shore. A few minutes earlier or a few feet in the wrong direction and the couple would have been buried by a huge slab of rock crumbling around them. Rescued by helicoper a few hours later. We also had a lot of fun with the tour guides, Brian and Grace, from "A Tour With A Difference" (www.atwad.com.au ). If you ever get to Melbourne contact them at: tours@atwad.com.au . They are a lot of fun. The picture below shows the first and last time I ate or will eat Marmite!

Sydney, Australia

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Arieh here. Here we are on the train from Sydney to Melbourne (12 hours) and we have just finished 7 loverly in Sydney hosted by Val's cousin Jim and parnter, Robyn. Jim, without consulting us, is travelling around the world in the opposite direction as we are. So, unfortunately, we only saw him in Vancouver in September. However, it meant we had Robyn all to ourselves and that was indeed fortunate for us. Robyn is a true bird lover--she feeds them real food, not just bird seed. Hence they come right up to her balcony and eat out of her hand.




We did NOT go sailing or to an ashram as Val did 30 years ago. On the other hand, we did sail the harbour many times on the ferry transport system (an example of one of the ferries is in the picture of the Sydney Opera house).


Before the Sydney bridge was completed in 1932, the ferries were the main means of getting from the downtown city of the North shore. Now the bridge, plus a tunnel completed in 1992, are the primary means (although the ferries and still very active, plentiful and punctual). We used them to get to Torango Zoo (which has a great view of Sydney) and Darling harbour (which is an alternative harbour to the original central one opened up in the last 20 or 30 years).

Sydney is quite the city. A beautiful defining bridge from 1932, the world-famous Opera house (picture) that cost 14 times the orignal cost estimate (and now they have budgeted $700 million for repairs and upgrades), an extensive ferry, rail, monorail and light rail transportation system, loads of museums (the Australian--with a lot on Aborigines; (the picture of the umbrella stand is what you do on a real RAINY day--wrap it in plastic)
the Powerhouse--with a pretty good design section; the National Maritime--with a de-commissioned diesel-powered Australian submarine and 2 replicas of ocean-sailing ships), beautiful beaches (which we did not get to) and nice walks in the city core and outside. Of course we ate well (both home-cooked by Robyn and out) and drank lots of lattes. Robyn joined us for a day bus trip to the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney) to see gads and gads of Eucalyptus (or Gum) trees--apparently there are over 750 different varieties. And I thought they were only used to dry up the swamps in Israel and sing songs about.

Australia has been suffering from a draught for the last 2 or 3 years and it has affected a lot of people. Farms closing, livestock being sold off, water restrictions in the city, etc. The weather in Sydney was weird (wait until you read about Melbourne's weather)--hot and humid the 1st day, cooling off at night and then quite cool the next two days. Then it repeated (or close to it), ending off with a beautiful day on Monday--a nice 22 degrees ABOVE zero. (As the train is travelling West and South of Sydney, it is hard to tell if what we are seeing is normal for early summer or because of the draught--dry earth, brown grasses and brownish trees, although not dead by any means.)

One noteworthy event was meeting up with someone I knew 27 years ago in Israel. A young lass (a very good friend of our Boston friend, Amy Willinsky) born is Israel who moved to Australia at age 12. Wouldn't really know she wasn't born in OZ. Lizi invited us for Shabbat dinner, where we met husband Gary and daughters Clare and Laura. Lots of action in the house. Shabbat tunes similar but not exact (they belong to one of the Progressive shuls in Sydney) and Lizi brought out a photo album (can't do THAT with digital) from 1979. I sure had a lot of hair back then. Also, one of the pictures was of David "Lawyer". It turns out he was the son of Judge Wapner (one of the orignal TV judge shows from the late 70s and early 80s. The next day we joined Lizi and Gary at shul (and after for lunch). Good service at shul--lots of singing and davening. They have a Cantorial Soloist. However, the Rabbi has a nice voice and did most of the vocals. The Cantor has a cushy job.

Finally, while we DID NOT spend $145 AUST. each to climb on top of the Harbour bridge

(turn your head for this picture), we did both of us climb the 200 steps tothe top of one of the 4 concrete/brick pylons that are located on each side of the harbour, allowing me to take the picture of the people who did pay the $145. Nice views and good exhibits of the building of the bridge over an 8-year period.

This next picture is one of the sights of Sydney. Couldn't resist the advertisement in the Dr. Scholls store--anything to make one's body parts feel better.



Finally, we stopped on our way down to Melbourne in a small city called Wagga Wagga (and pronounced Wogga). They had a beautiful city garden in the middle of town and in this garden, in addition to a memorial to all the soldiers who fought in all the wars from the Boer war onward, there was this sculpture honouring "Waltzing Matilda". This is the "swagman sitting by his billabong".

Last bit of New Zealand

Tuesday, November 28, 2006.

Arieh here. We left Auckland today at 05:45 AM which meant we were up pretty early. Our last 10 days in N.Z wer spent, as "planned", entirely on the North Island. Travelling from Wellington to Masterton to Taipu to Rotorua to Waitomo to Auckland. On the way we looked at more dumb birds in a drizzling rain (Mt. Hood), met two more nice people from Masterton (one of whom studied at the Geography building at Givat Ram in Jerusalem in 1972-73), saw the largest clock collection in the Southern Hemisphere, drove over the "Desert Road" of N.Z., luxuriated in thermal hot tubs in Rotorua, walked beside boiling mud, lakes and streams in the Craters of the Moon, Waimanu and Waiotapu, at sultana scones and clotted cream everywhere, took a river tour of the Waitomo caves and saw thousands of glowworms, returned to Auckland and spent 3 wonderful days there with our friends, the Listers, and attended shul again at the Progressive congregation in Auckland. Whew, I am tired from reading this paragraph.

I mentioned in a previous posting about hospitable Kiwis. Well, in Masterton they struck again! We left Wellington on Saturday after services and our goal was Masterton (about 100 KM away). All of you know how "laid back" I am and how anal Val is. This day we decided to do it "my" way--just go to Masterton and "find" a place to stay--no calling ahead. So, off we drove and we got there around 5PM. For the next hour we drove back and forth going from one full place to another. Finally, we got lucky and were directed to a motel off the main street with very nice and reasonably priced accomodation. By then, Val had to have a nap, I fiddled around and around 8PM we went to the only decent place open to "grab a bite". We sat down at a table for 2, ordered, ate and then the guy next me says "where are you from?". We start talking and it turns out Ian had spent a year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1972-73 studying in the Geology dep't at a post-doc level. (I got there in April, 1973). In the meantime, Val and Jean are chatting away. We are then invited over to their house for coffee and off we go. We spent a wonderful two hours sharing stories, learning about water issues in NZ (Ian's line of work), talking early childhood education in NZ (Jean's line of work), learning about Maori culture (both Ian and Jean had studied the language and culture) and getting tips on places to visit and how to get there. The next day, after trudging around in the drizzling rain at Mt. Hood for two hours, we were ..... eating (what else?) in the coffee shop and in walked Ian and Jean. We chatted for another full hour before we went our separate ways.

And because of them we came across the largest collection of working clocks in the Southern Hemisphere--2,342 working clocks. BTW, the owner bought an old church and had it transported to his farm (about 30 miles) to house his collection. Only in NZ.