June 1, 2001 - Friday - Lost & Found - Ubud, Indonesia
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| Guys stroking their ummm... roster - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
This morning, after eating breakfast, I headed toward the opposite direction as yesterday and tried to find some more rice paddies to explore. I came upon an intersection where a group of men were gathered under an open aired structure and seemingly just sitting around, smoking and not doing much.
They each had a rooster in their hands and was stroking in anticipation of a cockfight later on. I continued on and found a side street that lead into a forested area and followed it. The dirt path dipped toward a small stream where an old naked woman was bathing and I continued uphill onto a rice paddy area. A small stream framed by concrete flowed through here rapidly and I turned right and followed it.
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| Countryside - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
The stream was framed by bamboo trees and other tropical flora on the left bank and a large field of rice paddies on the right. As I walked by a small structure, I heard music coming from it. A guy was hitting a small roll of half-bamboo trunks, making a melodic sound with each strike. A woman sat next to him and was making some flower pennants of some sort in her hands with a basket of already made ones next to her.
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| Farm folks - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
I walked up to them and they greeted me with grinning faces and the guy played some music for me before I took some pictures of them and bid farewell and continued on my way. I came to a very large field of rice paddies. The harvest here was recently completed so there were many fields with yellow straw stumps of the harvested rice plants still in the ground. The water hasn't tried up yet and the burning was the next process after the field dried up.
There were a few farmers at work on some of the fields where the rice hasn't matured yet and I continued on the rice paddies, crisscrossing the irregularly framed paddies for a few hours. During the walk, it felt like I was walking back in time. Sights and sounds of my childhood flooded my mind as I walked.
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| Farm folks - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
Walking through the rice paddies was something I did almost on a daily basis when I was young in Taiwan. In the morning on the way to school, in the afternoon during our 2 hour long lunch break, and in the evening on the way home, we would always cut through the rice paddies.
The scent in the air also reminded me of my childhood in Taiwan. The air smelt clean over the rice field for the most part. Occasionally, you would smell the odor of diesel exhaust from the motorbikes and the scent and smoke of burning rubbish and debris.
I remember one time on the way to school, a friend of mine and I were up to our normal mischief and started pulling some of the plants out of the muddy water. The farmer saw us and started yelling at us and running after us. We were laughing in glee and started fleeing from the farmer and unfortunately, one of my feet fell off the edge and got stuck in a foot of mud.
I ended up limping to school to wash off my muddy foot as the farmer cackling after us. I also spent a lot of time on the rice paddy outside of school. I used to catch all sorts of aquatic critters and after the harvest when the field was dried; we would make our own kites out of newspaper and fly over the field.
The rice fields were all gone the last time I visited Taiwan. They were covered up by a concrete jungle of stores and residents. It's pretty sad, and I have a feeling that Bali is headed toward that direction too. Already, the rivers and streams are covered in plastic bottles and other rubbish. Construction sites could be seen all over the island, razing rice fields and jungles. I walked back to the main town of Ubud and stopped by a café to have some Nasi Goreng - Indonesian Friend Rice with some fresh pineapple juice, all for just under US$1
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