Galungan is a time of big celebration. It’s when the ancestor spirits come back looking for their home. Houses and businesses of the believers have huge intricately decorated bamboo poles out front. These are called Penjors, which the ancestors are expected to remember. Preparation takes a couple of days to make the Penjor, roast pigs and make offerings. Then businesses and schools close for three days of happy time. The ancestor spirits apparently hang around for ten days.

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So after schools and businesses open again, party time continues for another week. This is marked by little boys walking round the street with a Barong – a lion like mythical creature that uses 2 people front and back (like a pantomime donkey) and a team beating very noisy gamelan gongs. They collect money, a bit like hallowe’en.

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Then Kuningan comes, the gods go back to where they live and the people make processions and offerings in the temple. We were driving through the village of Mas when we were stopped by police to let a procession go through. Approximately 200 women all dressed immaculately in temple clothes passed by. Each was carrying a fruit offering on their head, about 40cm high with apples oranges etc perfectly placed in a pyramid with glittering decoration.

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Rice harvesting time. Smoky fires as they burn off the straw. Then the fields are flooded and the ducks are turned loose to the snails and insects and fertilize the ground for the next planting. Ducks have the same problem that Peter Rabbit had with Mr. McGregor – the young tomato plants look so attractive, but the farmer has a long stick, and sometimes a whip!

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A different Sunday lunch-time at the Villa. It’s a photo shoot for the web page. Professional crew of director, chief cameraman, assistants with cameras, white umbrellas for flash, big round reflectors and computers. The manager of the Villas Wayan is overseeing everything including having his beautiful daughter in many of the shots. We had a starring role in being served and consuming breakfast and lunch. Sweetiepie thoughtfully changed gowns between brekky & lunch. The staff were kitted out in full Balinese regalia but still have to do the same chores. And for the swimming pool shots Gyan and Heidi were brought in to provide youth and glamour.

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Last year we had delightful trip to Sidemen, which was a sort of Shangri-La in the hills. A blog post from sept. 2011 called the green green hills of Bali contained a video clip of a weaving workshop in action. This year we again stayed at Tabola Inn, but there were some new experiences. The famous tile factory is making not ceramic tiles, as expected, but decorative concrete tiles. Completely new to me. Not pavers, but floor and wall tiles, superior in many ways to ceramics. They are not glazed, but waxed, and the coloured design goes about halfway through the tiles. There is no glazed skin to be chipped and scratched with use. Years of traffic burnish a sort of patina into the tiles, which is enhanced by periodic waxing. More expensive than ceramics, they have been used in some European churches and public buildings for centuries. The Sidemen tile workshop is run by a Balinese man who married a Dutch woman. This probably explains the Delft influence on some of the patterns.

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On the last day in Sidemen, our precariously faithful Suzuki rust bucket made a loud expensive noise going over a rough wooden bridge. The steering went funny and the noise got louder. Thought it prudent to head back home rather than venture further into the hills. The noise got louder – imagine driving on the rims without tyres. Sweetiepie managed to get the hire car company man to come with a replacement car, (about 1 ½ hrs drive) while we waited by the roadside, providing amusement for the locals. Thoughtlessly and carelessly neglected to do a video of the gyrating free dangling front wheel – would have made a good YouTube funny home movie. The owner had a look and decided that a bolt had fallen off the front suspension and he would drive it 40 km back to Ubud!! He hoped to find someone with a bolt and a spanner along the way. Such a fearless attitude to mechanical and electric things is soooo Bali. He must have found someone with a spanner and a bolt, because a couple of days later he gave us back the rust bucket.

There are parallels between the car story and the situation at the pottery. At the pottery, they manage very well with little reliance on fancy tools. I did some ‘show and tell’ and wrote a three-page report describing alternative tools, techniques and approaches to training that might be useful at the pottery. Their attitudes may change, they can certainly be ingenious and adaptable. My attitudes certainly have changed.

As the main road leads down the hill from the tourist hustle-bustle of Udud and up into Campuan, it is possible to take about a hundred steps off the road down a little track to be in another world. The confluence of two rivers leads into a sort of deep canyon below the lofty Campuan bridge. An important temple has been built on the point of the peninsula between the two rivers. There is access to the temple via a bridge from the walking track. It is an active temple, so proper Balinese dress code applies. Behind the temple, the track leads up the very steep Campuan ridge to the next village. No motor access at all. Heroic push-bikers have to carry their bikes up a few flights of stairs. The path on the razor-back ridge is only 2 metres wide in places, falling steeply away to rivers on each side. 40 years ago this was a treacherous car track from the next village down to the temple. But after a couple of cars took unintended short-cuts from the ridge-top to the river bed below, stairs were put in at the top and bottom of the path to stop further loss of life. The 2km path between upper and lower stairs is paved the whole way with 3 rows of 400mm concrete pavers. Just ordinary pavers, not the fancy Sidemen tiles. A couple of km beyond the upper steps a cafe awaits.

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