Bali signs
We didn’t try “taking and joking” with Baba, but we followed the sign and found the Good Karma Bungalows and Restaurant. They are thatched bamboo bungalows right on the beach at Amed. You can hop out your front door and into the water (having run the gauntlet of fishing boats that are parked on the beach itself). The bungalows are two stories high with glassed-in windows on the upper floors, so they may have air con up there, although the lower floors look more traditional. Big seaside verandas with couches in the front. There’s a good cafe in another thatched building, where an elderly lady with betel-stained tooth nubs will try to sell you a sarong, and some cats and dogs running around with the local kids. It’s very nice – and they offer yoga sessions every evening at 5 p.m.
You may notice a certain Hindu flavor to these signs……
This sign was in a library/used book store in Ubud. It’s a great place next to the soccer field, a combination of cafe, language classes, library, and a big recreation hall with a stage where the local kids were practicing their dance moves. Not western dance but traditional Balinese dancing that’s peformed in temples to the sound o fa gamelan orchestra (I’ll post pictures from a performance eventually). The kids we saw practicing were boys; there was a big difference between the skills of the six-year-olds and the one eight-year-old, who had an amazing control over his body – he could already stop on command motions that had already begun, arresting steps 3/4 of the way to completion. I bet in a few years he’ll make a great Marichi or Hanoman.
More Hinduism in Ubud – an ashoka wheel made of forks. We didn’t eat there, but I like the sign.
And finally, the infiltration of American corporate presence into Ubud, adjacent to the temple grounds that host daily dance and gamelan performances:
