Life in Ubud

Blog #5: We've been in Ubud for over ten days and when it wasn't raining like crazy or I was sick (more later) we had a bunch of fun. Going back in time from yesterday we signed up for a bike ride at 8:30am beginning at a 1,000 year old village high on a ridge near the top of Mt.  Agun.  We rode down through small villages on trails in rice paddies and little roads. The guide pointed out cinnamon trees and gave us a piece of the bark to try and it tastes like cinnamon! And a clove tree, but the cloves were not ripe yet. And a cocoa tree with huge pods. We stopped in a small village where they grow coffee (in Bali coffee is the number two export after rice) and saw the plants and tasted the beans and saw a primitive roasting set up they use. The coffee roasters in this village get about $2/lb for their coffee. We continued on for another few miles through fields and villages and finally ended up at the Elephant Safari Park!  OMG! Real elephants just walking around. There was an elephant show and you could ride them and feed them and pet them. There was a very nice upscale hotel at the park, too. We had lunch at a fabulous buffet at the park restaurant, too. This was a really beautiful big park and I recommend visiting it to anyone coming to Bali.

The big event in this town, Ubud that everyone was talking about for the last couple of weeks was the "Cremation". Several months ago one of the kings of this province who was quite revered and had done many progressive things died and so a huge and ceremonious cremation was necessary. It was scheduled for Tuesday and the town was busier and more crowded than usual. The ceremonies started on the previous Friday with the building of the huge "movable" (just barely) pyre consisting of a huge and beautifully done white wooden and paper mâché bull about ten feet high in which the coffin resided. This was on a decorated platform that was also about ten feet high. The whole thing was to be moved on Tuesday to the cremation grounds at the main temple in Ubud about 3/4 mile away. We tried to go to the building ceremony on Friday, but couldn't get within a block of the place. On Tuesday we did manage to get to the starting point of the precession along with thousands of others; it was hot and humid and super crowded and we actually got to where we could see it and take some pictures, but we nearly died in the heat so we had to come back to recuperate in the hotel pool. We would go to the actual cremation later at 5-ish.
At 5pm we headed to the cremation temple and the roads and sidewalks were crowded to where you could barely drive or walk, but most people seemed to be coming back. Did we get the time wrong, did we miss it? We decided let's just go anyway and see what is left. Turns out we didn't miss the cremation, the huge pyre had arrived and they were setting it up for the cremation. I guess the other people who were leaving had only wanted to see the procession or most likely gave up waiting in the heat.
The temple grounds at the cremation site were full of thousands of people in all manner of dress from dignified to casual patiently sitting and standing and fending off people selling everything from overpriced water, odd snack foods to unnecessary sarongs. We found a shady, comfortable spot with a good view about a hundred feet from the pyre and watched the preparation and waited. And waited. Finally, after about an hour and just before sunset at 6:15 and surprisingly without any fanfare or warning they set the pyre on fire with big gas torches! Slowly the huge bull lit up with flames leaping in the air and the crowd just watching quietly and the fire trucks dowsed the flames here and there to control the burning. After about a half hour the bull and the coffin and it's contents were embers and that was that and everyone started leaving. That's Bali; burn up a dead revered king, no big deal.

On Saturday before the cremation we went for a motorcycle ride to see the rice paddies and whatever else, but I had to come back early because I felt so exhausted. I wasn't hungry for lunch or dinner. I even had to lay down and rest after laund-r-aobics that night. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what. Later that night around 2am I started getting a fever. The kind where you hallucinate and pant and then have the chills and then feel better than you don't, repeat until morning. I thought I might have gotten malaria or something. We called the hotel front desk and they called the local clinic doctor. (in third world countries doctors make house calls.) They, a female doctor and a male nurse took my temperature (102 degrees, no wonder I was hallucinating!) and a blood sample. They returned later and told me the blood test showed that I did not have malaria or dengue fever, but that I probably had some kind of water born bacterial infection and I would be better in a couple of days. They gave me some fever and anti-biotic pills and left. Total cost: $156. Following another day of off and on fever and chills and some minor GI issues by the evening of Monday I felt about 90% and declared myself cured and by Tuesday morning I felt totally fine.
Whatever that was I don't want to go through that again, but it could happen again. We have been careful about what we eat and drink, but I guess eventually you'll get something. We figure the reason Lily didn't also get sick was that she was taking anti-biotics for here head cut and it probably killed the little guys before they could infect her. I think I would have preferred the gash on the head.

Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Amed on the north coast. It is quietier, drier and has beach right at the resort. I'm sort of done with Ubud and the traffic and heat.