Bali: Batik-making, with some jewelery-making as adornment

Isn't Ubud remarkable, having earned its moniker as the cultural capital of Bali? In addition to the kite and woodcarving, they have jewelery-making and batik-ing. We didn't even get to see the stone carving and more...

Above, you can see the hot wax the women used to create the batik prints. There was also hand-weaving of textiles there. Then, Alice and I shopped til we dropped for batik clothes.

Alice reaped the benefits, adorned in her first fancy earrings and batik dress.

Bali: Kite-making

e



Agung, our wizard of a guide, next took us to a kite-maker outside of Ubud. I walked in with the mindset of a capitalist -- expecting a businessman plying his wares. But, this was no ordinary kite-making business. This businessman said that once he embraced a Hindu ethic in his work, he wove environmentalism, kindness to others, and sharing joy of creation and kite-flying.

Environmentalism came from his styrofoam used for the kite animal heads he carved. See the picture above for Ken holding up the styrofoam the kite-maker collected from discarded mattresses after a big hotel fire. You can see that the kite-maker showed Griffin how he carved out an owl face for his owl kite.

Kindness to others came from when he started training new kite-makers from villages all around Bali who then sold their kites via the kite-maker, in a sort of kite-making cooperative. He's trained and helped develop 200 kite-makers that way. Everyone at his worksite seemed so happy. There was a very disabled man working there who seemed to have found his place in life.

All the kite-making at his studio happens right next to his Hindu shrine where his guru's photo is placed prominently, even among the kites for sale in his front showroom.

After listening to the kite-maker's story, Ken, the cynic, told me he may become the first Hindu Jew.

Bali: Woodcarving around Ubud

Agung, our tour guide extraordinaire, took us to a little town outside of Ubud, the arts and crafts capital of Bali. In this woodcarving town, he found a hidden courtyard with woodcarvers wielding animal carvings. Agung took us to this place since he knew the woodcarvers would be willing to teach the kids how to carve.

Griffin made his first woodcarving, with a mallet and chisel, producing a Buddha...with a little help from the carver. Grif now meditates with his Buddha in front of him. Boom and Alice were relegated to the lower status sanding duties, but seemed to relish sanding their ducks anyway.

How could we not buy something after they gave all that attention to our kids?

Bali: How to Handle the Heat

Bali: Cremation

On our first day in Bali, we were leery about attending a Hindu cremation. It wasn't just the morbid reality, but it was this sense of our crashing someone's intimate family funeral. A time for personal grieving.

Intimate it was not. And no one cried. It was so un-intimate that the moment we stepped out of the car, women swarmed around us, aggressively wrapping sarongs around us, insisting that they were necessary to attend a cremation. It would be sacrilegious without them, they argued, trying to make us buy $3 sarongs for $20 each. We righteously refused being taken advantage of, then had second thoughts as the throngs heading towards the ceremony were covered in sarongs, even foreigners like us wearing freshly-bought $20 sarongs.

We were soon lost in the crowd, invisible foreigners, lining the crowded ceremonial procession route. No one was thinking of sarongs, we soon realized, they were just focused on standing in the shade and surviving the blistering heat. And, standing, and standing, for what felt like hours. At one point, I felt dizzy and just sat on the ground. We didn't have any food other than nuts, which we devoured having had no lunch, as we watched woman after woman carrying delicious food covered in flowers. We then ran out of water.

All the while, we watched as they scrambled to coordinate hundreds of people to make the cremation procession happen. Why was the cremation so huge? It was for the "queen," we were told by all the locals. The queen was a ceremonial leader of the local region, having been a real ruler before Indonesia nationalized all its 17,000 islands, combining them into one territory. She was Brahmin so everything was in white. Lower caste cremations are in red or black.

After the long wait, the gamelan players got in place and started playing. It was transporting, focusing music. Everyone seemed to know the tune. Then the procession finally started moving. Everything was carried by hundreds of men using strong bamboo poles to carry everything -- gamelan instruments, drums, beautiful young ladies holding up flowers and food, Hindu god statues to ward off evil spirits, and, at last, the coffin, walked up many white steps to the top of a decorated tower with a priest and coffin pallbearers, at least of them carrying a complicated set of bamboo poles to somehow, impossibly move the huge tower and coffin along the long procession.

We were enthralled. And thirsty. And hungry. Once the procession passed, continuing onto the cemetary for the burning of the tower and coffin, they planned to set the burning coffin on a float and push it out to sea. All a lyrical, spiritual burning to watch, filled with meaning.

But, we passed on it. Moving on to fill our bellies. Back to town for freshly squeezed juices. Feeling very much alive.

Amazing Bali!! Bali market in Ubud

We're in Bali!

Batu Caves Hindu Temple in Kuala Lumpur

Before going to the Batu Caves, just north of Kuala Lumpur, we heard a lot about the 272 steps and not to touch the monkeys. The caves are a sacred place for Hindus, and Hindus see monkeys as sacred so let them run wild and free on the steps up. What we didn't hear about was how there are temples for Hindus at the bottom and in numerous spots in the top. In these temples, the Hindu priests were topless, with white paint on, performing rituals with much incense, singing, and playing instruments.

The monkeys were bored by us on the way up. The kids made it up the steep steps to the top where they were rewarded by beautiful, wet, dripping caves filled with incense, natural skylights, and the main temple.

On the way down, Ken asked me to help one of our kids down the steep steps. My kids ended up helping me down, since I was barely keeping a panic attack at bay over how steep and long the drop down seemed to me.

Elephant Sanctuary

At first, Boom was completely scared of the incredibly tame orphaned elephants at this Conservation Center outside of Kuala Lumpur. Even before we left the hotel, he dropped to the floor and threw a tantrum, "I don't like Elephants!" You can see his pulling away from the elephants above. But, after numerous attempts by me to get him accustomed to my feeding the elephants, with no success, Ken did his magic and somehow coaxed Boom to ride an elephant with him.

The Center is funded by money from visitors and private donations; elephants are driven out of their Malaysian jungles by overdevelopment, especially of palm and rubber plantations. After the farmers or poachers attack the Elephant families, they are often brought here. One elephant's foot was amputated by a poacher trap and he limped around until a donor got him a proscetic limb, which was so touching.

A handful of the elephants have to pay the price of our riding and bathing them daily. And, feeding them cucumbers, watermelon, grass, and peanuts, as you can see from the video of Griffin feeding them. I put the cucumbers directly onto their tongues and, let me tell you, their tongues feel as soft as wet silk.

While us Americans, Australians, and Middle Easterns watch the elephants, the local kids living in the jungle, above, watch us.

Expat School Interview

We visited a possible school for the kids -- The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL). Boom went for his "interview" consisting of them asking his colors, etc. It's a real bus ride for the kids -- probably 45 minutes each way. It's hard for us to consider such a long bus ride, especially at Boom's age, but there's a reason why it's such a long shlep outside the city center. It's nestled at the base of jungle-filled hills with a huge soccer field, racing pool, and a smaller soccer field and great playground for Boom's age group.

The kids hit the soccer field as if they'd been chained up for weeks. They begged me to play a game with them. It made us realize how much they'll need an active outlet with friends, at a school like this, when they'll be living in a glass and marble high rise in the city center with no soccer fields nearby.

As far as we could tell, the curriculum seemed solid. What diversity, though! Kids from all over the world. More competitive than the kids' old school -- They have swimming and track races for kids from 2nd grade and up, with photos and winning racing times posted. A Hungarian 3rd grader dominated each swim stroke back in the late 90's. And, an African ringer in 2nd grade ruled the 100m dash among other track races, looking suspiciously like she'd been held back a year or two, in order to set some records.

The kids' reaction -- Griffin was nervous saying "There's so much more pressure in 3rd grade. I'm not going to try to beat the school record in swimming." Alice said, "I love it."

We should hear whether or not they all get accepted in a week or so. They take their time here. Cross your fingers for us!