Ubud is a really interesting town with a good vibe about it. It feels as if although it clearly makes its money on tourism, tourists themselves have become just as much of a part of this community as the locals themselves. It feels as though locals, for the most part, are living their lives just as they would if there were not tourists.
Yesterday, we finally got out and about to explore the town. We went up towards the Ubud Palace, but decided it didn’t look interesting enough to go in. We then steered towards the market, where we happened upon the sound of chimes and saw a bunch of Indonesians in traditional dress with woven baskets on their heads outside of a Hindu temple. Captivated, we went closer. In the ‘bell tower’ of the temple, there was a man hitting two bamboo chimes as if to call people to prayer. Outside the temple, sat 4-5 rows of men, each with different sorts of instruments from finger cymbals, to a gong, to marimbas (sans the pedals), to hand drums playing some sort of chant music (which now I recognize in its different forms everywhere). We sat there for some time – apparently this is Hinduism unlike any Pallavi has ever seen. Pallavi is an Indian Hindu, but this Hinduism feels as if it is an ancient Hinduism that blended with native Indonesian tribal culture.
After a while, something happened, and the people started to enter the temple. The rules on the temple state that you can only enter in traditional dress, so even though Pallavi is a Hindu, she was out! But she so desperately wanted to be in, because of the walls of the temple, you could see the top feathers of what we could only guess was a ceremonial headdress. It was fascinating.
We decided to explore the market and then make our way to the Monkey Forest Temples. The temples themselves are surrounded in lush forest, with ancient trees, and a small river running on the bottom. These grey monkeys are absolutely everywhere with a good amount of forest rangers to protect the monkeys from the tourists eager to feed them anything. All of the structures are covered in moss, from a stone bridge carved like a dragon to statues of monitor lizards.
When night dawned, we decided to go and see a Kecak & Fire Dance performance. The Kecak part of dance is the Ramayan, a famous traditional Hindu story, by a choir of men sitting down and ‘singing’ the background soundtrack, interrupted by various narrators.
The men’s chitter is meant to sound like monkeys. The different characters emerge, dressed in Indonesian traditional costume. It was a bit like watching ballet – no clue what was going on, but enough clues to figure it out. Then the Fire bit of it had again the male choir, one man on a rocking horse, and a lit pile of coals. The rocking horse apparently symbolizes being in a trance, and in this trance, then man dances about kicking bits of burning coconut & ash.
No sooner than we left the dance performance and sat down in a small wurung (local restaurant)than we hear a Hindu prayer chant. It’s the same one the men were just singing! And the same one we heard in the morning. Full circle, full bellies, full day.
