Last Friday I plucked up all my courage and went for a drive to find a beach - and wow it was such adventure for me - I have realised on this journey how bad my orientation and directions are and just can't seem to work out where North is, and where I am in any moment - its quite remarkable how lost I have been getting. Driving in Bali is an adventure, not as crazy as India that's for sure but crazy enough and as I need to go slowly to find things and see things, and the scooters and some of the cars are local and on their own mission to get to point A or B, they must find me extremely frustrating to drive behind. In order to find my way around and to read the signs, which there are many of thank goodness, is a journey within itself, but through determination and trust, and a hand drawn map from the owner of the car that I am hiring, I found the coast road and was so excited to see the sea and the beautiful mountains. But I didn't know where to stop, as , once one is out of the "tourist" areas into the rural areas, there is no western restaurants with 'Illy' coffee signs, or western toilets (and trust me when I say I can do Asian toilets and have done them in India, but asking for a toilet in Balinese and finding what is presented is a bit hairy :-). I needed airtime for my phone and stopped at 3 places where no-one would even serve me and really didn't engage with me at all - it was so weird. I have since discovered that to ask for time for my phone I need to ask for Credit - and it seems that all cell phone shops do not sell Credit - cell phones and sim cards yes. Also what was a little difficult to understand was how the parking works and where one can stop to shop, or look at galleries, etc. as on one side of the road there is parking only for scooters and the other for cars - and this is usually on the side of the road where one is not driving. Parking is a commodity here that actually is very scarce and hard to find - hence most people ride scooters. Well I drove for 2 hours, got to see wonderful things, and came back to Ubud, hungry and exhausted, but so much wiser and was so proud that I had found where to go, found wonderful roads and places to visit, and was able to come back to Ubud. So now this week I am on a mission once again to find a beach - wish me luck - doing things like this alone is not as easy as doing it with a group or a guide so I am being gentle on myself. I still have lots of time to do everything.
Around my guest house are many beautiful places to stay and I have discovered the most amazing little restaurant called "Yellow Flower" - the energy is so wonderful, the food organic, fresh and produced in a tiny kitchen. They even have raw food and fresh squeezed juices and the other night I had a slice of raw chocolate cake - yum ! On Sunday evenings they have a buffet of 3 courses and an iced tea which is home made and delicious - and the food they presented is out of this world - and traditional with wonderful red and brown rice all grown locally in the rice paddies. And the walkway to Yellow Flower is a sacred experience, the path is lined with Buddhas, incense, prayers, candles and lanterns, and there is such a tranquility and feeling of peace. There are amazing places to stay and down each path are many guest houses and bungalows offering such beautiful accommodation. Mainly western tourists come to the restaurant and I have had some marvelous conversations with people for all over the world each on their own particular journey and reason for being in Bali.
I have been for 2 weeks today and leave Bali in exactly 3 weeks - wonderful to have so much time ahead to experience so much or nothing - we will see. I have amazing things planned for when I leave Bali and my friends in Russia have organised a collaboration running some drumming workshops in St Petersburg and at Grishino Eco Village in Siberia. What we want to bring into the workshop is a African Song and Dance and with the researching I have been doing, I have been watching many of the 2010 world cup videos. What an amazing thing happened in South Africa - what unity and colour and absolute joy we experienced during that time - it was amazing and the songs and music and dancing was so alive and rhythmic and filled with something that is hard to express in words.
In 1982 a band called Toto wrote and performed a song called Africa -
I hear the Drums Echoing in the Night,
is the first line of the lyrics of the song.
And the chorus is :
It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
I have been watching what is being playing out in South Africa at the moment and what is very different is to see the picture from a distance with a completely different perspective. I love South Africa so very much and the words of Africa's chorus say so much of how I feel - there is no place like home and I love coming from South Africa. Our country is amazing and it always helps to take a step backwards and get perspective - and remember its 'gonna take some time to do the things we never had'.
Be blessed - I love you - Om Shanti Om xxx
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