Hillys history lesson

5th July Guest Editor: Hilary Hodge


It must be the anti- histamines I am taking to keep the allergic reaction to the sun at bay that is causing all this sleeping in – despite an alcohol free day yesterday and an early night I still didn’t wake up until nearly 10am. James has had an upset stomach during the night so he decides he isn’t feeling up to coming out – a shame as Katut – our driver – has kindly invited us to his home to have lunch with him and his family.

Tomorrow is a big Bali Hindu celebration called Galungan. This celebrates the coming of the gods and the ancestral spirits to earth to dwell again in the homes of their descendants. The festivities are characterized by offerings, dances and new clothes. The ancestors must be suitably entertained and welcomed, and prayers and offerings must be made for them. In their terms it is equivalent to our Xmas so everyone is busily preparing for tomorrow. Outside each house is placed a very long bamboo pole which curves over at the top at about 6 metres high and the pole is decorated with all sorts of shapes and colours – equivalent to us decorating Xmas trees. Great preparations go into making the offerings to the gods. Katut’s wife showed us what she had made – it is difficult to describe – but there were about 20 - 30 small offerings consisting of a little basket of flowers lying on banana leaves, to which she had added a variety of articles including a coin, a few rice grains, a button, a few grass cuttings, peanuts and so on. In addition to these there were about half a dozen larger plates with fruit, cakes, biscuits and local delicacies. These are placed on the various temples in their community which are numerous – they even have their own temple in their garden.

Anyway we sat on their veranda and had lunch with Katut, his wife, his 19 year old daughter and 12 year old son. His wife kept apologising for their house, the dirt and anything else she could think of – oh dear my campaign to stop women apologising all the time has now spread to Bali. Luke suggested to Katut that he needed an entry on Trip Advisor which he and James use to find out which places to go to, good accommodation and people to use for various services. Using Katut’s daughters computer – she is studying informatics at university paid for by a variety of relatives – Luke drew up a profile for Katut which James will put on Trip Advisor for him. They felt confident enough to show us round their house which is pretty basic and Katut continues to build it when he has no customers to drive around.

After this we set off for the butterfly park which consists of a very peaceful garden with netting over the top to stop the butterflies escaping. The range of size, colour and patterning of the butterflies is stunning. We were then shown the collection of chrysalises and some newly emerged butterflies which can’t fly for the first few hours. These were placed on your hand and body for you to take photos. After this we walked through a dark tunnel where there were displays of a variety of insects, beetles and scorpion - housed in glass cages I hasten to add. The final display was of stick insect type creatures which again were placed on Luke – I declined this experience.

The next visit was up to the Batukau Temple which was in a beautiful setting against the Batukau mountain with green luxurious forests all around. We again had to put on a sarong and were then accompanied by Katut around the temple – we were amongst only a handful of other tourists - in fact I’ve had to ask Luke whether or not we actually saw anyone else. The temple turned out to be a hive of industry with great crowds of local men and women preparing for the next days celebrations and the religious leaders preparing the worship areas. In one of the villages on the way up a pig had been led across the road in front of us and into a cart attached to the back of a motorbike – the reason for its journey now became obvious!

Katut then took us across country – if you think some of our roads are narrow and potholed then Bali beats them hands down. The scenery was wonderful with vast swathes of rice terraces, forests and the mountain in the background. We went through village after village with the preparations for the celebrations going on in each one of them. The down side to all this is that it took rather a long time to get back to the villa – but when we did we found James feeling a good deal better. I sat with a gin and tonic, Luke just turned out a tasty omelette, then we reminisced about Colin and after a while we went off to bed.