A forest of meru

Much of the rest of the next week was spent waiting for work that in the end for the most part never came. On Monday evening we went to our first Balinese dance, the Legong. Balinese dance is a very stylised form, with jerky sudden but precise movements in contrast to the rather smoother western tradition. Every motion of every finger is significant, and although we didn't know nearly enough to be able to tell whether the dance troupe were any good or not, we were suitably impressed, both by the skill of the dancers and by the magnificence of the costumes. The performance was accompanied by a gamelan orchestra, traditional percussion instruments found all over Bali (and indeed Indonesia as a whole).

Our second dance show came on Wednesday evening, and was simply spectacular. This time there were no musical instruments, simply the hypnotic chanting of around a hundred men, who sat in concentric circles around a fire stand, which formed the centrepiece of the stage, where a variety of dancers, never more than three at a time, performed the story of the Ramayana, the story of the rescue by Prince Rama of his wife Sita, who has been abducted by Rawana, the King of Lanka. Sugriwa, king of the monkeys, goes with Rama to help him, bringing along his monkey army (represented by the circle of chanting men). Again the costumes were superb, the dancing millimetre perfect, and the chanting entrancing. This type of chanting was originally part of the Sanghyang trance dance, and after experiencing it is easy to understand why - the whole event was hypnotising, and even the extreme discomfort of the hard bamboo chairs could not distract us for the duration of the show. As a bonus, at the end we were treated to the fire dance, in which a young boy carrying a wooden horse is put in a trance and dances barefoot around (and eventually through) a fire of coconut husks. This was a spectacular end to the evening.

The next day we went on another of our day trips, this time to Besakih. Our first stop was at Gianyar, where we visited a textile mill. The amazing thing here was that the workers knew exactly how to build the pattern by selectively dyeing small sections of a continuous thread and then weaving it together on a wooden mill. Veronika helped out briefly (just long enough to get her photo taken) before we moved on.

Next stop was Pura Goa Lawah, or Bat Cave Temple. The temple itself is nothing special, but it was interesting to see thousands of bats hanging upside down for a rest while the locals wandered around making offerings. The temple is held in great reverence by the Balinese, and the bats are supposed to provide food for Naga Basuki, the legendary giant snake, which explains why none of the locals has ever been willing to test the claim that the cave extends all the way to Besakih.

The temple is in the cliff-face, and while we were there there was a small ceremony being held on the beach to make offerings to the gods of the sea - a small group of devotees gathered behind a priest on a raised dais who was chanting, burning incense, throwing flower petals and holy water and generally bestowing goodwill all around.

Our next stop has to be one of the strangest beach resorts in the world, Candidasa. Why? Because it's a beach resort with no beach. There used to be one, but after the tourist boom hit like a bomb, some rather short-sighted locals mined the coral reef which lay just offshore to use for lime to make concrete for their hotels. The reef had ensured that the waters lapping onto the shore were relatively gentle, and with that protection gone, the beaches (which were apparently beautiful) simply got washed away. There is a pleasant view of a couple of small islands offshore, but if I had booked a holiday at Candidasa as a beach resort (which it still claims to be, defying all logic and probably violating truth-in-advertising laws of several countries), I'd be looking for a refund when I got home.

A couple of kilometres inland from Candidasa is the village of Tenganan, occupied by Bali Aga, or aboriginal Balinese. There are two main villages of Bali Aga left on the island. We had to pay simply to enter the village (the only other time I've come across this concept was in Copacabana in Bolivia), for which we were given a "guide" who was friendly enough and told us a little about his home. As usual on Bali, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and the guide steered us towards his house, from where he sold "traditional" Balinese calendars (traditional Balinese having used the English names for the months, apparently) beautifully etched onto palm barks. They were very nice it must be admitted, but we didn't want to buy yet more souvenirs, so we headed off.

Veronika at Besakih

After a couple of stops to take pictures of beautiful views of rice terraces, we finally made it to Besakih, the mother temple. The temple is perched over 1000 metres up the volcano Gunung Agung, but was miraculously spared when Agung blew its top to devastating effect in 1963, causing locals to thank their gods for divine intervention (they may have been pre-hatching chicken-counting, as the temple was subsequently seriously damaged by an earthquake shortly afterwards.) However, given the devotion of the Balinese, unsurprisingly it was soon rebuilt and is now back to its impressive best. The temple is actually a complex of some 23 temples, one for each of the castes (unlike in India, the caste system is only relevant in religious life - in secular life each caste is free to do what they like, and there are no untouchables), one for the smiths (lower case, although I did have my photo taken at the entrance) and other temples for assorted groups. Lonely Planet didn't much rate Besakih, but both Veronika and I were enchanted by the place, particularly the veritable forest of meru (multi-storey thatched pagodas) with the backdrop of the countryside dropping off towards the sea.

Our final stop on Wednesday was the town of Klungkung (Semarapura), ancient capital of the kingdom of Klungkung, to visit the old royal halls of justice. It was an interesting little place, with an open-sided pagoda surrounded by a lotus pond. The ceiling of the pagoda was decorated with a series of colourful paintings telling the story of the kingdom. Overlooking the court is the absurdly phallic monument to the puputan of Klungkung. When the Dutch conquered Bali in 1906, the Balinese leaders of the various kingdoms chose honourable death over surrender and exile, and despite Dutch pleading to surrender, they refused and marched into the hail of bullets and certain death.

Back in Ubud, I did a small piece of work and Veronika read up about our planned trips to Malaysia and Thailand, and I got into the habit of going for a swim at least once a day in the beautiful (if small) swimming pool in our hotel. We continued to eat well, for the second week at Arie's brother's place Dian, and generally lounged about. I kept hoping that some more work would turn up, but it was not to be. On Saturday we arranged for our purchases to be shipped to Italy, and on Sunday, the first anniversary of our arrival in New York, basically at the start of our trip, we caught the bus to Bedugul.

Pura Ulun Danu Bratan

Bedugul sits on the shores of a volcanic lake (Danau Bratan), and we decided to come here having seen a photo of the place on one of the computers in an Internet cafe in Kuta. It was definitely worthwhile, as the temple, not spectacular in itself, has a magnificent setting on the lakeshore (and parts of it actually in the lake) with the misty moody Gunung Catur volcano in the background. As we were at the temple, the fog was rolling across the lake in a fashion reminiscent of the John Carpenter film "The Fog", adding to the special atmospheric beauty of the place. Again, Lonely Planet doesn't give the place much of a write-up, but we both thought it was stunning. Our accommodation in Bedugul is considerably more spartan (but not with matching lower prices, alas), but the compensation is that we're right on the shore with excellent views, fog permitting. Tomorrow we go to visit the botanical gardens before going on to the beach at Lovina on Tuesday.

The botanical gardens were beautiful, and we spent three very pleasant hours wandering around. On the way back, we stopped off at the market to try some new (to us at any rate) tropical fruits - passion fruit, which I had eaten before, and mangosteen. Apparently Queen Victoria once offered a substantial reward to anyone who could bring a mangosteen back to Britain in edible condition. I enjoyed the passion fruits and the mangosteen (although the latter wasn't as utterly fabulous as suggested by Lonely Planet), but alas we also made the mistake of buying some macadamia nuts. These had the effect of making us very ill, and we both suffered that night from terrible diarrhoea. The next day we had planned to catch a shuttle bus to Lovina, but instead, feeling terrible, we opted to take up an offer made by the waiter in the restaurant where we had been eating to drive us there (for a price, of course). On the way, we stopped off at a doctor to get some medication - antibiotics - which helped us feel better within 24 hours. En route to Lovina, we stopped off to check out the views of the twin lakes, and to see the amazing macaque monkeys eat the bananas conveniently sold by an old lady with a roadside stand.

Passion fruit and mangosteens

We arrived at Lovina and found ourselves a pleasant, friendly little hotel right on the beach, which unlike the beaches in south Bali consisted of black volcanic sand. The temperature difference between Lovina and Bedugul (which is about 1500 metres above sea level) was considerable, and both Veronika and I took the opportunity to catch some rays and some colour. We decided to stay for a week before heading on to Java.

The first day was spent simply resting and having a bit of a swim to cool down. On Thursday, we got up very early (I couldn't sleep, so I was up at 3:30 in the morning) to get a boat out to go dolphin watching. It was a bit touristy, with around 15 boats chasing the dolphins around, but we enjoyed it - Veronika even managed to see a dolphin jump out of the water and playfully spin around in mid-air. The next day we decided to go snorkelling on the reef which lies just offshore and which provides some shelter for the beach, so that the waves at Lovina are considerably gentler than those for example in Kuta. The reef itself was not particularly spectacular, but the variety of wildly coloured fish was remarkable, and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My only complaint was that my mask didn't fit very well, and I spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to drain the saltwater from my nose. We even managed to use the underwater camera we had bought in Darwin to take pictures of some of the fish.

Other than that, our time in Lovina was spent relaxing, avoiding the mid-day sun (I'm neither a mad dog nor an Englishman, but I did come close one day to burning, and was very careful thereafter. Saturday night we went to a bar to have a couple of beers while watching a pretty trashy Keanu Reeves video, and Sunday night we went for a Balinese dance buffet, which was pretty good. We bought our tickets to Yogyakarta, and lazed about by the beach for a while. In fact, we took to lazing around on our veranda, as anyone on the beach is fair game for the hordes of hawkers trying to deal with the lack of tourists (a combination of low-season and lower numbers of visitors because of the situation elsewhere in Indonesia meant that there were considerably fewer tourists than usual at this time of year.

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