Gunung Kawa non-tourist

Wayan showed me this area up the same river valley from the more well-known Gunung Kawa.

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Gunung Kawa

Ancient temples carved out of the rock wall of the river valley.  Popular tourist spot.

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Cremation

A major priest died in Ubud and they held a procession and ceremony for his cremation. Several hundred people walked about a mile following the parade to the temple grounds where the cremation took place. This clip opens as men have carried the priest's casket up a stair to place it on a portable tower, one of four "parade floats": a white bull, a black bull, and two towers. When we got to the temple grounds, they moved the body of the deceased out of his casket and into the white bull. The priests ministered to the body for a long while and then they closed up the bull statue and lit it on fire. They also burned the black bull and I don't know what was inside there.

I let the camera roll for long periods to capture the music. There are four orchestras participating, each from a different temple. They play drums, cymbals, and gongs. They are rigged to walk in the parade, and indeed they sound like a marching band to me.  They continued playing in the temple grounds, taking turns. There is a shot of a marching band at 2:37 minutes in, and a different orchestra, seated in the temple grounds, at 5:07.

to improve humanhood

The advancing student will gradually relinquish his attempts to improve humanhood or to improve beliefs in order that the truth of spiritual existence may unfold in his consciousness.

- Joel S. Goldsmith. The Infinite Way (pp. 66-67). Kindle Edition.

Navigational statues

When I'm on my motorbike I never know where the hell I am. There are only two street signs for every street, one at each end. So I'm learning that these statues are built as navigational aides on the major intersections.
navigational statues

The Pirate Bay press release on SOPA

The Pirate Bay press release on SOPA:

...our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

...The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA... Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.

...The reason they are always complaining about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did... We've proven that their existence in their current form is no longer needed.

http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/sopa.txt

Kopi Luwak

Kopi Luwak.  In Indonesian, kopi means "coffee", and luwak means "gullible tourist".  I went to this coffee farm yesterday.  I followed a winding gravel path through the jungle, though looking closely, most of the jungle plants were planted in rows, and along the path were labels like in a solarium.  They grow coffee beans, vanilla beans, and cacao beans.  They also grow lemons, lemon grass, ginger, and ginseng, and they use all these to make coffees and teas for export, all organic.

The piece de resistance is the kopi luwak.  A special expert picks the best of the Bali coffee beans.  This expert is a mongoose.  The mongoose is a coffee connoisseur.  Give him a bowl of Bali coffee beans and he will eat only the best ones.  These chosen beans travel through the mongoose, the digestive tract removes the fruit of the bean and the seed portion comes out the other end where it is reharvested, cleaned and roasted, and sold for an obscenely premium price.  Here at the the farm it was $5 a cup and it was delicious.

By the way, did you know, there are 6000 species of coffee.  Some coffee beans are male and some are female.  The males have a stronger flavor.

Balinese coffee is ground fine and made like hot chocolate.  No filter or press or perk.  Just pour hot water into a cup with a spoonful of ground coffee and stir.  Umm.

the ways of truth and love have always won

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always."
Mahatma Gandhi

Buzz cut

After six weeks in Bali I needed a haircut.  So I selected the cheapest beauty salon I could find, also with the cutest proprietor, and asked can you cut my hair, I get a buzz cut with a number 3 foot.  She says yes, and proudly pulls the electric clipper out of the drawer to show it to me.  It's from Thailand.  She says the person who is expert on the clipper will be here later on.  Come back at 2.

So I come back at 2 and she's in the other room giving a massage.  I was met instead by a twelve-year-old boy and his younger sister.  They invited me in, offered me a place to sit, put the apron around my neck.  I thought oh this is nice they are prepping me and the barber will be here soon.  But nope, the twelve-year-old is the barber.  I had to help him get the foot on the clipper.  Had he ever done this before?  Good lord.  I held my breath and let him do it.  Actually I think it looks pretty good.  And for a dollar fifty, it fits my budget.  I'll probably go back.  We're all good friends now.

gecko

I've never seen this guy.  I hear him at night.  He's up above my ceiling somewhere.  He does this about every 40 minutes through the night.  He starts with an introductory tapping, and then he says gecko eight or nine times.  At least some people think it sounds like he's saying "gek koooo".  One night it sounded to me like he was sneezing, "a chooo".  Mostly though it sounds to me like a Donald Duck version of "fuk youuu".

Street festival dance performance

On New Years Eve I was wandering around and found a street festival.  A man explained to me, as near as I can understand, it was to commemorate the new pavement of the street, and also to celebrate the New Year.

There was an orchestra of 14 men, seated on the ground, playing drums, gamelans and flutes.  Three females danced, one at a time.  This was traditional Balinese dancing, which is derived from Hindu forms, with the fascinating body postures, hand positions, eye and head movements, and facial expressions.  It was a fun, neighborhood event.  Each woman danced for awhile and then went into the audience to pick a male partner to dance with, to the uproarious laughter of the crowd.  One dancer picked a westerner to join her, yes, yours truly.

It appeared to be a potluck.  Women kept showing up with additional plates of food which were laid out on two tables.  I was invited multiple times to dig in.

Fireworks were going off all over town all night and they reached a crescendo at midnight, which I viewed from the three-story rooftop restaurant, Black Beach.