jdobias: Days 93 and 94: Mongoose-poo anyone?

Day 93

For god knows how long I have had a hankering for a water park. You just have to love the adrenaline rush from knowing there is nothing but the laws of physics keeping you from slipping off the edge as you fly down an open-topped chute, combined of course with the childish glee of feeling like Augustus Gloop sloshing round in Willy Wonka's factory. Consequently after some carefully placed hints we ended up spending today at Bali's 'Waterbom' water park.

In common with everywhere we had seen in Bali so far the park was incredibly slick with high-tech wrist straps that functioned as credit cards, wet-suit clad photographers to capture every look of fear and more staff than bathers all sporting bright blue contact lenses.

I decided to force myself to try every slide in the place. Highlights were the whirlpool (orange below) where a very steep drop opened out into a sort of giant washing machine and the boomerang (greenish-blue below) where an incredibly steep drop led to an almost vertical climb to the very edge of death before thankfully gravity kicked in.

The real test of courage though came with the aptly named 'Climax', a terror of a ride where you are sealed into a standing glass coffin five storeys up. The ride operator then gives a warped smile at you through the glass as a computerised voice counts down - 3, 2, 1. Suddenly the floor under your feet opens up and you plummet a good few storeys before coming into contact with a near vertical slide which swiftly guides you into an upside-down loop-the-loop before spitting you out at great speed unto the cheering spectators. Thankfully my first go on the slide went without a hitch. However on my second attempt the girl in front of me got stuck in the middle of the slide and we were treated to a good minute or two of terrified screaming before the rescue.

The women preferred the perfectly named 'Lazy Bath'.

Among the tid-bits we ate throughout the day were some traditional Indonesian Nasi Bungkus (a rice dish cooked in a banana leaf and sliced into coin-shaped segments). It was indescribably horrible! A bit like glutinous chalk (see the bottom-right of the picture below).

Day 94

Representing perhaps the only totally free day of our trip to Bali, today was the perfect time to do a tour of the island. My mum and I chartered a driver and guide and we were whisked around the major sites over a very packed 13 hours. Bali has long been renowned for the high quality and sophistication of its art forms, ranging from painting through sculpture to music and theater and much of today would be themed around exploring this rich culture.

We began with some traditional Barong-Keris dance. This dance/play is of central importance in Balinese Hinduism, telling the story of the eternal fight between the good and evil spirits which pervade the island's belief-system. The dancers train in the art from the age of six, learning sets of codified hand positions and gestures (mudras) as every articulation of the face, arm, finger, knee and foot is specifically coordinated with the layers of the percussion in the accompanying gamelan music. Equally impressive though are the costumes which would make Elton John look modest.

The dance started with a short tale of a tiger killing the children of three men, who then attack the tiger in revenge.

First Act - Two girl-dancers appear who are the servants of the Rangda (an evil demon). They are looking for two servants of a Mrs Dewi Kunti.

Second Act - One of the girl-dancers changes into a witch and enters both servants of Dewi Kuntu to make them 'angry'

Third Act - Dewi Kunti and her son Sadewa appear. Dewi Kunti has stupidly promised the Rangda (the evil demon) that she will sacrifice Sadewa to him. The witch/girl-dancer reappears and enters Dewi Kunti to make her angry as well. Dewi Kunti orders her son to be taken into the forest and tied up to a tree.

Fourth Act - Unknown to all the God Siwa appears and gives Sadewa immortality. The Rangda (see the picture below) appears and tries to kill Sadewa but of course the now immortal Sadewa survives. Now the morality of the play gets a little iffy. The Rangda repents for its sins and asks Sadewa to redeem it. Sadewa however refuses and kills the Rangda.

Fifth Act - The girl-dancer/witch also repents and asks Sadewa for redemption. Sadewa also refuses. The girl-servant gets angry at this and changes into a boar to fight Sadewa. Sadewa and his servants are able to defeat the boar though. Next ensued a really weird 'comic' scene in which a bunch of clowns including a dwarf set out gutting the boar and examining its rather prodigious assets. The prude in me was very shocked.

The witch/boar then transforms into a bird only to be defeated again. Finally the witch turns herself into a new Rangda. In response Sadewa turns himself into a Barong (a mythological good animal). The Rangda and Barong them fight an eternal, unending fight.

Next we went to see some batik cloth-making (a dyeing process involving candle wax), gold/silver smithery, wood carving and painting, followed by a trip to a waterfall and Goa Gajah (a 1000 year old elephant cave temple).

(mum and me in the unflattering sarongs one must wear to enter temples)

We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Batur volcano and Lake Batur.

We began the afternoon strolling round a coffee plantation, which also seemed to grow every other bean, spice and fruit imaginable. I had a good nibble on some coffee beans fresh from the tree, licked some cinnamon, sniffed some lemon grass and generally had a good time. The owner then showed us the secret to the plantation's success, its mongoose farm. The mongooses are fed the coffee beans, which are then reharvested from their droppings and ground down to make the world's most exclusive and expensive coffee. - Kopi Luwak.

(coffee on the tree)

(about 10,000 pounds worth of mongoose-poo-coffee)

Mum and I then sat down to a tasting - chocolate coffee, lemon tea, vanilla coffee, gingseng tea, chocolate tea, ginger tea and ginger coffee. As I never drink coffee (indeed in my life I have probably had less than five cups) you can imagine the effect that seven large glasses had on me. In my caffeine-induced craziness I even summoned the courage to feed the owner's pet vampire bat which was the size of a large vicious dog.

After the coffee plantation we visited Tegalalang for a beautiful view of rice terraces and Wenera Wana, a forest temple overrun with overly friendly monkeys.