When Erin and I came to Bali in 1999, we were in the midst of what could be described as history's most sedate trip around the world. Part of the explanation lies in our own abiding laziness. When we travel, we are generally happy sitting on a pleasant porch reading, while many of our fellow travelers peddle bikes up hills to memorable views, or group up on boats to visit blue holes carved by nature in coral reefs. Part of our sedation, however, was born of experience. From time to time during our trip, we would rouse ourselves from the proverbial hammock, drawn by the alluring tales of fellow travelers or the luscious photos in a guide book, and gamely sign up for some "must do" tourist activity. There were trips to waterfalls and visits to historical sites, and so forth; yet, time and again, we found these "must do" activities to be complete let downs. There were always crowds, inevitably followed by alternately plaintive and aggressive touts, selling junk that no one really wants to buy.
Our favorite of the whole trip was an excursion we signed up for in Thailand. We were staying on a small island called Koh Lanta, where there really was little to do. We were happy, strolling on the beach, eating loads of green curry chicken, and powering through our pile of trip books (I was probably in my Gabriel Garcia Marquez phase at about that time). But we just couldn't leave well enough alone. We had to take a break from our zone of calm and buy into the one activity that seemed to be advertised on every palm tree on the island: the snorkeling trip to Koh Rok. How could we go all the way to Koh Lanta and miss the snorkel trip? We were in.
I have to say, the boat ride to Koh Rok was fun, a short sprint through the Indian Ocean/Andaman Sea, which is a cool thing, even now, to say I've done. But that boat trip, much of it not even in sight of Koh Rok, would prove the highlight of the day. Soon enough, the islands rose in view, the boat blasted a big turn into a spectacular, azure channel between two bright green islands (Koh Rok is actually two Koh Roks), and what do we see?: a fairly sizable boat that seems to be sinking, at least we assumed it was sinking because the water all around it was full of people wearing life jackets. That was a shocking thing to see. Turns out, though, the boat was fine. It was just a much larger tourist boat that had come to this unmissable spot with a load of people who could not swim. They were wearing life jackets as they snorkeled for safety. By the time our two hours of snorkeling and lunch (I won't get into the fact that the island with the beach we used for our picnic lunch was populated by particularly ferocious biting ants), at least a dozen other boats, some carrying more than a hundred snorkelers, had rolled into paradise, along with their diesel fuel and plastic garbage. Too many people had decided Koh Rok was not to be missed.
We came up with a theory about "must-dos" that focused on passing them by.
But it is not just the two of us this time. We have Otis and Lilah with us, and they do not think sitting on a deck all day reading seems like a good idea. Kids love to do "must-do" things, though I have found that they have limits of their own.
Our challenge has been to find compromises. Erin and I were not prepared to hit the top five tourists destinations in Bali, regardless of how many buses and touts are in the parking lot. I have a hard time going to the most sacred temple on the island only to be pounced upon by a guy selling bottle openers with wooden handles carved to form a... well, let's just say, something that was not appropriate for children. I still have my tourist pride, and there are must-dos I simply won't do. So what activities can we find that will suit our family? Luckily, when we were in Bali we found plenty. There were classes on offerings, on kite making, on stone carving, that the kids loved. There was the dance performance at the Ubud Temple, that was amazing in all our eyes. My favorite activities so far, though, have been the walks.
Our first guided walk was in East Bali. That part of the island is very green and relatively underdeveloped, in terms of tourism. The landscape there is dominated by the massive volcanic peak of Gunung Agung. Everywhere there are rivers full of water from the mountain. There are rice terraces and thick jungles, pushing all the way down to the sea. It is beautiful and quiet, and many of the small villages in the region are reasonably conservative, holding onto much of their traditional cultural practices, to a degree that is less apparent in tourist centers in the south. For our walk, we were lucky enough to have a guide named Nyoman Puri, who worked at the resort where we were staying. He had organized a hiking route that traveled through rice terraces and into jungle, all as a way to offer an unusual entry into a well-known Bali Aga village called Tenganan, which happens to be the village where Nyoman lives. The Bali Aga, who live only in a small section of Eastern Bali, are considered the descendants of the original inhabitants of the island. The few remaining Bali Aga villages are unique and have become, in the last few decades, very popular tourist destinations.
"Ah, ha!," you say, "a must-do." Sure enough, a visit to Tenganan is touted as a must-do for all travelers in East Bali, just check out the Lonely Planet Guide. But, we were going to go to Tenganan via a path that was rarely seen by travelers. We were not just going to drive up to the village gates and take a stroll in to see the remarkable double ikat weaving that the women of the village are justly famous for. We had a better plan, a compromise.
Our three-hour trek into the village was spectacular. Nyoman took us on a drive from the resort that ended on a seemingly random road in the middle of an array of rice paddies, which themselves seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. "This is where we start?" I asked, without a ton of confidence in my voice. "What will happen to the car?" which was sitting in the middle of this dirt road. "My cousin will pick it up and drive it to Tenganan." Nyoman answered, and we started our walk. Right away, it was clear we were in for a special treat. As we walked along this small dirt road, we passed happy cows in their excellent purpose built sheds. We saw groups of Balinese harvesting rice, and walked under the shade of such trees as Durian, Mangosteen, and Clove. Nyoman waved to friends and described the trees, bushes, and vines that we were seeing. We saw one car and one motor scooter in twenty minutes on the road, unheard of even in small towns in Bali. We were off the beaten path.
Eventually, we came to a river, and it was there that the fun really began. To cross the river, we all walked single file over a bridge built almost entirely of bamboo and a random assortment of logs. It seemed plenty strong, just not very easy to navigate. Obviously, we all felt a bit silly after we'd congratulated ourselves on crossing only to see a slight woman walking across the other way with a massive load of wood on her head.
After the bridge, we got a chance to walk for over an hour along the edge of a serpentine irrigation canal which acted as a border between the jungle and the rice fields. As we walked, we could see the terraces of rice cascading off to our left, reaching all the way to the sea. To our right, the jungle was thick and green and full of excellent sounds. Behind us rose the mighty peak of Agung, and we were lucky enough to catch it on a clear day.
This stretch of the hike was the most beautiful. We saw butterflies of every size and color. Over the water, dragonflies danced with one another. We heard birds singing new songs filled with secrets about new places. We even saw a black snake slip from the path into the water and race away to a dark hiding place in the trees. Poor Lilah did lose her balance and fall into the water, which wounded her pride more than her body. Lilah is the toughest of the four of us on this trip, handling scrapes and cuts and mosquito bites in the hundreds with barely a complaint, but she just thought it was completely unfair that she was the only one to fall in the water. It took the wind out of her sails for about thirty minutes, until the next stretch of our adventure pulled the injustice from her mind.
After walking for about an hour and a half along the jungle edge, it was time to plunge in. Nyoman helped us all across a single bamboo pool spanning the canal, and we took a narrow foot path into the trees. All about the path we walked were palms, ferns, cacao, mangosteen, clove, macadamia, and sixty-foot stands of bamboo. The trunks of some of the towering bamboo were the diameter of my thighs. The trail quickly turned into a sort of steeply tilted creek bed, and we scrambled down rocks and muddy clefts. It was very exciting, and Erin and I could not help telling Lilah that her feet were the perfect size for the descent. Our giant clompers were way too big. We did not tell Otis anything because he kept getting far ahead of us as he followed right behind Nyoman, soaking up his local knowledge.
The first sign of Tenganan village was a small homestead we came upon quite suddenly in the middle of the forest. In the house were three little kids and a full menagerie of farm animals. They had three cows, three pigs, a bevy of chickens, and the ubiquitous Bali dog. The cows started the chorus, followed by the roosters, the pigs, and then the big dog topped it off. The kids waved and smiled as we passed, and we walked on, leaving the jungle ringing with sound of their small farm.
Soon, signs of the village were everywhere. Pigs were hemmed in by snake fruit fencing, the dirt path widened and picked up some occasional stone path work. After walking along what increasingly looked like a rural lane, we passed through a fence and found ourselves on an open, grassy field, next to the town school and temple. Nyoman told us that was the school he had gone to as a boy, smiled proudly as he mentioned that his oldest son was now a student there, and then turned our attention to one of the most amazing trees I have ever seen. In Bali, there are lots of ancient ficus benjaminas, also known as weeping figs. The more expressive name comes from the ficus' incredible growth pattern. As the trees age, they begin sending down root tendrils from their branches. These tendrils can reach down fifty and sixty feet, all the way to the ground. When they hit the ground they burrow in to become proper roots. They harden and eventually grow in diameter and begin to function as support arms for the spreading canopy above. The picture here is actually of a different ficus, this one growing in the Monkey Forest near Ubud, but all of those thick tendrils on either side of the kids are reaching down from the tree and driving themselves into the earth below.
The tree in Tenganan seemed to be vast and ageless. When we held onto some of the smaller tendrils that reached down to earth, we could actually feel the energy of the tree drawn into us; it was really magical. Otis was sure that James Cameron must have seen this tree when he was dreaming up Avatar; this was the tree, Otis was sure, that had acted as inspiration for the Tree of Souls in the movie. Since I know James Cameron has visited Bali a few times, I think Otis may be right.
The village was beautiful. We felt so lucky to stroll through the streets with Nyoman, who could tell us great stories about his own childhood or pass along details of what we were seeing. He took us to his mother-in-law's home to show us her incredible weaving. Tenganan is one of only two places on earth where women practice a form of weaving called double ikat. In weaving, there are essentially two threads at work. The warp is the long, vertical thread that run the full length of the fabric. The many pieces of warp are attached at first to the loom to begin. The weft is the thread attached to the shuttle, which passes back and forth through the warp to produce the finished weaving. In double ikat, the weaver PRE-DIES THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE WEFT PRIOR TO BEGINNING HER WEAVING. That's right, in double ikat, the weavers must somehow know how to die an entire length of thread (my guess is that the weft thread for a typical piece of doubt ikat weaving is over a hundred feet long), with the final pattern in mind, prior to beginning her project. We saw a pre-died length of weft on a loom at Nyoman's mother-in-law's home, and all we could see were tiny dashes of red, black, and white, running at seemingly random intervals for the ENTIRE LENGTH of the thread. It was totally mind-blowing. Nyoman told us that all the homes in Tenganan had small shires dedicated to the goddess of artistic inspiration. I have to believe this was a key part of the double ikat process. Only divine inspiration can explain how anyone could produce such a result. Naturally, we had to buy a small example before we left.
It was a hot and humid day, and the walk was difficult, but it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was so proud of Lilah for hanging in there and of Otis for us indefatigable enthusiasm. I had always wanted to get out into the rice fields of Bali for a walk, but this day was so much more.
Our other great Bali walk took place up on the slopes of the volcanic mountain Batukaru. The walk was much shorter and less eventful than our trek to Tengenan, but it did produce some amazing photos. I think the highlight was the stroll through a coffee orchard in which all the plants were in brilliant bloom. Coffee flowers smell nothing like the delicious brew, but more like frangipani. The whole hillside was awash in the floral beauty. It was amazing. The low point of the walk was certainly the attack on Lilah's toe by a nasty little leach. The critter really freaked her out. It also produced a lot of blood (which is their particular genetic specialty after all).
Here are the shots to prove the glories of the walk (and of our kids).
