lucydiscovery

Serengeti will never die

2009-09-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

This was almost all taken on one drive up to Seronera where I was headed with my boyfriend to visit our HQ! A 2 day drive from Goma, eastern DRCongo...

Impalas grazing in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania (July 2009)

Suddenly, spotted by a spotted hyena! (see him behind long grasses at back?)

He is getting closer...

Luckily, just crossing the road...

Ostrich couple courting

Cheetas chillin'

A punk!?

Giraffe couple at sunset

Eles playing with ears

Ele poo!

Wildebeest migration

Why do hippos yawn all the time?

Rainbow greeting

Sunset colour

Sunset

Singapore nostalgia...

2009-05-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

(site under construction)

Laying Buddah in temple in

Buddah

Fruits

Temple priest

Indian Hindu temple

Chinatown shophouses

UWC main entrance building

Girl's boaring house

Bali's biggest temple - Besaki

2009-04-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

On the Balinese calendar's New Year's day, my friend Django and I rode to Besaki to see the huge gathering with a special ceremony that occurs every 10 years or so...
Sweating in the searing heat and humidity, we climbed up endless stairs to the last temple on top of the hill.

You have to be respectful and wear a sarong to cover your legs and a sash around your waist. Except here my colour coordination is so good that Django thought I looked like a bonbon!

We followed the crowd as they walked to the temple.

Met with a group of young men starting early on the Arak (traditional palm wine alcohol) - see blog post 'Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali' for more on how this is made.

The Barong dance was performed by differnet groups all along the road back to Ubud.

Motorcycles and snorkelling down Bali’s north east coast – Amed.

2009-04-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

The coastal road is one of the most lush and beautiful in Bali...

Then we arrived to this: Amed

My friend Django came to spend his well deserved RnR from Bangladesh! We rented a motorcycle and cruised down to Amed for a bit of beach-bumming and snorkelling. There are a few old Japanese shipwrecks to snorkel around which kept us busy for an afternoon. Amed is a sleepy fisherman’s village with a series of small bays with limited sand beach space but a very chilled out place to take in the beach life...

At 'Good Karma' lodge, the hamacs on every porch says it all. The owner has 2 Japanese wives!

Django - the sea God...

Concerts and hippes

2009-04-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard Michael Franti's music? He is the lead singer for his band Spearheads?

That was my first time ever hearing him and his very earth-conscious, rebel against the capitalism system, and promoting peace and love and understanding all over the world! Set in the beautiful Bamboo Foundation grounds, it attracted about 1400 people and the event was to raise funds for a school here in Ubud. Was an enormous success.

Here he is:

And his slash-looking guitarist!

See this link for an example of a song he sang and the message that goes with it!
http://www.metrolyrics.com/hello-bonjour-lyrics-michael-franti.html

So lots of hippy, happy, jumping people, all loving life and feeling connected through Michael's feel-good vibe, charisma and sounds!

All 3 of us had been in the retreat together and we may have been the ones jumping the highest!

And of course a bit of fire poi to top up the evening...

Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali

2009-04-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

After a week of silence, I couldn't imagine being alone not speaking to anyone right after it so with one of my new-found friend Katarina the Kiwi world traveller, we decided to hang out for the next couple of days and we just talked non stop! It was hilarious! We went on a bike ride from central Bali coming all the way back - but all downhill, I assure you, this was no workout!

This below is a sophisticated traditional system to extract the purest form of alcohol from the cononut palm to make the best arak! Basically the palm boils in the pot, the fumes come up through the bamboo and collects in the recipient leaving only the most concentrated liquid in there to be drank straight up.

Stopping by traditional Balinese villages, visiting their houses, seeing local produce being made (including palm wine - had a few shots to keep us going!), and visiting temples and ridding through rice field terraces. The guide knew everything about the Balinese culture which was so refreshing.

I love this scene: a man is very carefully and lovingly washing this calf in the river, scrubbing her up with a bunch of leaves...

Silent Vipassana meditation retreat - one week

2009-04-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

It may surprise some of you but I wanted to learn how to meditate so I thought, what better way then just thowing myself in at the deep end...

A one week Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Bali's oldest temple way up north is what I went for!

Some pictures all taken on last day (Nyepi), of the calmness found there.

Day programme for 7 days:
2.45 am Bell for getting up to start meditating
6.00 am Bell for breakfast
11.00 am Bell for lunch (last meal of day)
14.00 pm Bell for 2 hour break as meditating throughout afternoon
22.00 pm Bell for bed time!

And that was not the hardest... the hardest was to stop thinking! And be aware and mindful all the time...
I thought I was spiritually void before I experienced this week, but I had some incredible happenings during that week which I did not expect at all... I think we should all try this at least once in our lives!

This last one was on the last evening, when the teacher was speaking to the Indonesian-speaking group and a lighting storm lit the sky behind him. I caught a part of the lit sky on this last picture.

Surfin' Lebih

2009-04-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

My friend Django came to visit so we went to the nearest spot on the coast from Ubud and we came across a bunch of local surfers just riddin' the Lebih waves...

I like this one, caught in the act of being wipped-out!

Kecak Fire dance

2009-04-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Kecak fire dance is performed all over Bali but this version in a temple in Ubud was particularily impressive with better costumes, and an incredible fire-walking performance at the end...

There are a few rhythm leaders which set the tone, pitch and rhythm of the "kechakechaketchaketchaketchaketcha...." sound. An all human orchestra - very rhythmic and impressive.

This man is in trance and was walking and kicking burning hot coconut husks all over the floor. At His black feet at the end looked charred...

Ubud cultural centre of Bali

2009-04-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

Ubud finally!

I am sooooo late in posting so having to do some serious catch up, I’m keeping my word count down and instead letting you indulge in the pictures...

Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali. Many artists, expats, hippies, tourists come here to chill in the green rice-paddy surroundings and get away from the mad clubbing of Kuta and the shop-till-you-drop temptations of Seminyak. Here in the evening it is so calm and quiet on the streets that you wonder where everyone is! Well, they are all at some cultural show like the Kecak fire dance or the Mepantigan – which I’ll give you a taster of.

The Mepantigan Balinese Martial arts (or Mud-wrestling) in a rice paddy field! Now this I stumbled upon as I was walking past the ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Arts) in Ubud. Every night there is some kind of performance but this one really blew my mind...

Here this young boy looks entranced and playing with a type of fire-poi. Him and his fellow performers were kicking around an inflamed coconut husk making it look like they'd just invented fire-football...
More fire-poi here.

The boys also spit fire which makes them look even more terrifying as they represent demons as they fight with the Gods...

Here the good and evil fight each other in a cacophony of grunts, groans, screams, screetches, yelps, hootings, grumblings and evil laughter... They are all killing each other with sharp krisses... All this under full moon of course.

KuDeTa

2009-04-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

KuDeTa:
A very cool lounge/bar in Seminyak on the beach where you can drink cocktails, listen to live lounge music and ethnochill by live DJ, lay on the sofas and watch the pink sunset with the pirate ships floating in it ... Real nice... My favourite drink: Espresso Martini... but you gotta pay the price for the 300% tax on alcohol so the 15$ cocktail will make you make it last longer...

Pink cocks!

2009-03-04T22:58:00.000-08:00

Pink cocks and original Balinese...

The original Balinese... 300 inhabitants, no marriage outside the village, strict rules apply... Welcome to Tenganan
Now this is an interesting piece of anthropology – the Bali Aga call themselves the original Balinese, and they have kept traditional customs from before the Javanese influence. They do not burn their dead and their hierarchy is not based on a caste system. There are a few hundreds of Bali Aga communities living in the mountains of the north and east of Bali but the ones from the Tenganan village, have known how best to sell themselves:
If you happen to be a woman from there and marry outside the village and follows him, the village looses the land she inherited. She is banned from the village and can not return even if she divorces or becomes a widow!
There are about 300 households only so you don’t have much choice inside the village... (think again when you complain you can’t find a boyfriend in Paris or London!) Plus the women’s fertility levels have declined and some hereditary problems have been found in children.
Tourism has allowed these villagers to save the ancient weaving technique of the double Ikat where the you dye the bunch of threads first with different colours and when the women weave them, it makes perfectly symmetrical patterns! How they do it, I don’t know but it is truly an art! Toni Tack, an amazing woman who has lived in Bali on and off since the 70s and who came to give us a talk on Bali and the islands east of it at the Longhouse (one of the activities available for those staying there), told us that studies showed that the Tenganan villagers blood types were tested and it was found they had the same type as the Gujratis and a group of Japanese, who all have in common the technique of the double Ikat weaving!
Of course I had to get one as they are quite nice and I like the ‘primitive’ style they have, and bought it with even more enthusiasm from the most beautiful old lady had seen... She was still so beautiful and clear-eyed but had long plaited white hair, and so graceful and apparently had 20/20 eyesight as she wove that Ikat without any glasses! (photo lovely old lady)

The other cool things to find there are painted egg shells. They are left to dry on a cactus which makes for strange decorations in the garden!
Pink or yellow cocks! For cock-fighting, still tolerated for ceremonies, you want to make sure you can tell which one is the one you betted on so when they are both white, this is what happens... (photo of pink cock!)

Whole scrolls with the whole Mahayana and Mahabarata stories engraved on Lontar (Palm) leaf – the husband of our lovely old lady showed us how he makes it.
Thinly woven baskets, boxes, place mats, pen holders etc from Ata leaves... (photo of old man reading scriptures on palm Lontar scrolls)

An interesting trip for sure but leaves you wondering what the future of these people is going to look like...

Karangasem Palace in Amlapura – We stopped off to visit what was once the head of the Karangasem Kingdom and met one of the King’s descendants who told us in perfect English that he has a house in Canada. I took a picture of one of the old photos of the Colonial Dutch and some Indonesians which I thought was intriguing.

On Valentine’s day – visited 2 temples – one of which had cool bats hanging upside down in the cave, covering the floor in Guano, and monkeys cheekily waiting to grab the food and goodies people were bringing as offerings! And a bunch of seriously over-zealous bracelet vendors outside the temple who pounced on us and made us want to run for the car... I mean seriously aggressive! We never found the second temple but instead visited a glamorous hotel - Di Mare - which may as well have been on the cliffs of Capri! I think that was the idea. There was even a cool cable car/lift thing to get to bottom of the cliff where we had a drink on the tiny beach and where I underestimated the waves, and came back with my trousers drenched to my underwear, thinking I’d just dip my toes in... Very classy.

Blessed the house again! This time in the Goa Gong temple just up the road where you can usually only attend a ceremony during full moon, and foreigners not allowed in, but this time we were the ones asking for the Longhouse to be blessed, so we did the whole ceremony in style! We even had bits of the original story of the monk who travelled from Java to look for a holy place and found this cave. Toni Tack again – and when we showed we knew something about the history of the temple, the priest himself asked us if we could help him by sending him written info about it! Inside there are stalagmites and stalagtites and one joining up which if you hit, sounds like a Gong inside the cave... apparently only special people can hear it also from outside the cave. Another cool thing about it is that it is for the 4 religions: There was a side for the Christians, the Muslims, the Buddhists and the Hindus in this temple! Typical Bali, so accepting! We did this ceremony with all the staff from the Longhouse and they were so proud to be able to do it.

The beautiful view from the Longhouse...

Day trips in Bali

2009-02-17T00:21:00.000-08:00

Do you know how to make jewellery?

Combining Jewellery and eco-friendly way of living – the John Hardy lifestyle
I liked this concept – the guy designs his jewellery and seems to treat the factory workers well – they all eat together at lunch and it is mostly organic food, like the brown rice grown on the property! The show room is a fantastic bamboo structure which has water running under it, and everything is made of bamboo. Underneath it there is a safe room where a lot of the jewellery is exposed and that room is made of wax! JH used to make candles, and there was a bit of a surplus!
I saw in the factory that to make a bracelet for example: you sculpt the design and full bracelet from the sketches made by the designers out of a hard wax. Often there are many pieces of jewellery made from one wax piece. Then you put it into a cylinder that you fill up with a white liquid which you then bake it – it solidifies and creates your new mould! Then you pour in your silver or gold and put in the furnace. Break the mould and you find your now silver stand with several pieces of jewellery on, so just clip off the bracelet from the wax stand where other pieces may be, polish it, and add on whatever bits of other material. Hard to explain but fascinating to watch!

We had lunch with the management team (although John Hardy himself just retired) and were able to get the inside stories of how this place runs. JH opened up a “green” school that does IB! But we didn’t have time to visit it.
Of course couldn’t take pictures inside the factory or of the jewellery but they have their own website for the latter. (Couldn’t afford anything in this place despite the 70% off though...)

Bali finally

2009-02-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

Bali finally...

Garuda Airlines, offered me the bumpiest ride so far from Jakarta to Bali and despite the 4 mg of Valium, freaked me out pretty bad... The black clouds on my way to the airport in Jakarta had prepared me for it and we flew into a nice monsoon tropical storm... so the plane reacted accordingly – basically the seat-belt sign just never switched off!

Having survived that and relieved I don’t have to fly for at least another 2 months, I arrived at the Longhouse, in Djimbaran on the hill overlooking all of Bali – See on map it is on the little peninsula south of Bali http://mapsbali.com/

The Longhouse was conceived by Linda Nederkoorn (Amanda is my friend from school in Singapore and the Linda’s daughter!) who worked together with the architects, interior designers, lighting specialists, construction company and picked out all the decoration herself! Robin her husband was in charge of some aspects too including the landscaping and the garden. These two Indonesia lovers used their extensive knowledge and travel of the region even around Bali to decorate each of the 6 bedrooms with the artefacts and style of an island around (and including) Bali – so Lombok, Sumatra, Sumba, West and East Java and Bali of course). I’ve taken some pictures myself (see in Flickr - yet to be completed), but the website they have done is great, have a look! http://thelonghousebali.com/

Last April Amanda, a friend of hers, me and a friend of mine joined Linda and Robin and were the first “guests” to try out the Longhouse. That amazing experience inspired me to come back and here I am! I may even get a little involved in the villa’s management, so that is all very exciting!

Jakarta

2009-02-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

Jakarta (I'm late as still figuring this thing out so am posting from Bali... ooops...)

Daniel the driver was waiting to take me to Hana’s house where I was kindly housed for my 5 days there. I’d been there when I was 17 yrs old when I’d spent my first New Year’s away from my parents (was quite a debauchery, Hana and I reminisced)...

Hana is one of the sweetest people I know (another UWC but a border and one of my close friends there) who has kept in touch and at least has managed to visit me in France and London regularly throughout the years. She is getting married to a great French-man, Antoine soon! She is so kindly putting me up and lending me her driver for my various needs around Jakarta. So cool!

First night out, a great Indonesian restaurant Lara Djonggrang and then a fierce Wii-Band playing competition in one of their friend Mat’s bachelor pad: Wii, wide flat screen, pool table... Very fun! For those who don’t know, with the Wii you can pretend you are part of a cool-ass band and you have the guitar, drums and mic and follow on screen instructions to play either instrument or be the sexy lead singer! Takes coordination and some GnTs to get over the humiliation of trying to have any rhythm while playing percussion and then getting a measly score – as you even get judged by the computer on your performance!!! All this on the 16^th floor of a 30 floor tower block which swung so violently last year during the big earthquake that Mat was literally thrown out of bed!

Jakarta – in my eyes – is a Megatropolis of extreme luxury areas next to poorer derelict areas. The 5 star hotels are breath-taking in their high standards and architecture. The 10 storey shopping malls are freezing with air-con and all complete glass elevators and Gucci, Dior, Guess, and even high end Indonesian brands. There is even a Harvey Nichols but also Zarra... Women stride past in their high heels manipulating their Blackberrys and enjoying chain coffee shops like Starbucks and Coffee Bean. The toilets in these malls have the air blade system to dry your hands and have a little spout thing to wash your private parts – which I first mistook for the flush and got squirted on my already pulled up trousers making me look like I just peed myself... Hence the “use while sitting down sign...” So this place can be like Europe, only a huge step up on the customer services (in the high end places), quality and cleanliness and mostly much cheaper.

So lunch and gym at the 4 seasons, cappuccino and Wi-Fi at the Pacific Place, and a visit up JP Morgan’s tower (building called energy tower as a part of its energy generated from solar!) to pick up Hana.

Visited an older area of Jakarta called Kota which had remains of old Dutch colonial buildings that were abandoned but had so much charm with their overgrown vegetation and looking out onto what was once probably a clean canal (now the bubbles and the smell whiffing out if it participates to the country’s methane emissions...). It got us all dreaming up plans of rejuvenating the area. Went inside Cafe Batavia which had a whole wall covered in old pictures of Hollywood stars, had a bar layered with black and white cow hide, pictures of Queen Elizabeth and of one of the Dutch princesses, rattan furniture and a 2 man band playing early 90s songs. We walked to the old train station where I finally understood I may be too old to “rough it” again like an 18 yr old backpacker when I saw the state the business class was in...

We also met up with Harumi and Mario, two more Indonesian friends who were in school with me in UWC. So great to see people you haven’t seen for over 10 years and still get along! With Harumi and her husband Sinartus, we dined at Crystal Jade Palace for some great Dim Sum, and with Mario to the best Japanese (non-Sushi) I’ve ever had!

Yes, South East Asia is all about eating with friends!

(next blog Bali... Promise)

(Hana, me, Harumi!)

Geneva-London-Hong Kong-Jakarta

2009-02-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

My itinerary: Geneva-London-Hong Kong-Jakarta

But who said getting there was going to be easy...

Nowadays unfortunately, it is often not as simple as just getting on an airplane to get to the other side of the world... I started off in Geneva airport where my mother dropped me off on the French side, convinced that British Airways did their check in on this side. .. to only find out I had to cross back over the border to Switzerland (invisible line in airport), go down some stairs and down some empty corridors until I popped out into the arrival hall, as if I just got out of an airplane and had to go through passport check to get out into Geneva, all this lugging my heavy bag around with me. How I was even allowed to do this is beyond me and makes me doubt the usually famous Swiss rigour...

Finally checked in and relieved my bag was exactly 22.6kgs (allowed only 23kgs) and thinking that that painful week of packing and repacking and selectively taking one tiny item out and re-weighing was useful after all – I saw on the departures screen that all flights to London were either seriously delayed or some even cancelled! The 2 inches of snow which fell in the UK was enough to paralyse the country for the last 3 days (wasn’t I watching the news?) and delays upon delays resulted in cancelations... The horror of being stuck in Europe any longer, or worse, bumping through an ice storm while flying, crossed my mind. But miraculously, my BA flight to Heathrow was the only one which wasn’t cancelled and was just 20 mins late! That would allow enough time for my connection... Phew!

I got to Heathrow’s impressive new Terminal 5 and was pleasantly told at transfer desk that I had been bumped up one class to Executive World Class or something! That great news, plus the 2 mg of Valium (the result of flying for 2 years in DRCongo...), the upbeat phone conversation with friends before flying out and the wide seats and personal TV with lots of movies got me up on a Valium high! We happily taxied to the runway and just as we revved the engines up, we just stood still... the pilot embarrassingly announced that the flaps on the right hand side of the wing were not working! He said safety was first with BA especially for him as he had a wife and three kids... I wondered if they were told to say that during their customer sensitivity training... But hell, I agreed.

5 hours later, we were still in the airplane and about to take off with a brand new motor for the right flap that the best engineer in the airport had put together in the few hours – during which the poor lot in Economy class were sweating like mad as they had to turn off the air-con at the back of the plane...

So I was definitely going to miss my connecting flight in Hong Kong to Jakarta so I just hoped they’d put me up in a hotel and fly me out the next day. As could do with a break after being 16 hours in this plane! Of course that’s what happened! Hurray! So called my 3 friends in Hong Kong and managed to see even 4 of them...

I met up with Alex the HK (Hong Kong) salsa on-the-2 King for a few mins at the central station – He left the UK scene about a year ago and just radically changed his life around, moved to HK and now runs the only on the 2 salsa dance school in HK! And he is doing just great! Then Christine, a UWC (Singapore) friend took me to diner in a 24 hour place in the centre, where Wendy (another UWC person) joined us and we laughed and giggled about the good old days.

Then off to one of the hippest RnB clubs where we met up with yet another class mate (Left, photo me, Avi, Christine), after having walked through the urban jungle of drunk “Guilos”, red-faced Chinese, and stumbling tourists in HK’s hottest night spot. We unfashionably queued while the fashionistas cruised on past us... Inside it was so packed and tight and people dangerously waved cigarettes in your face while trying to move their hips even an inch to the RnB beats.

Left by 3 am back to my airport hotel which had a grand hideously kitch fake-marble lobby and a luxury SPA but no free Wi-Fi! ?*£%^!@~#

Did I mention how shocked I was at HK’s clusters of tightly packed sky-scrappers dangerously bordering on the sides of the sea shores!? This place in un-real! I am finally in ‘culture-shocked awe’, very contrasting to the type of awe I experience back in Congo...

Going to the Island of the Gods!

2009-02-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

Selamat Pagi! (Greetings in Indonesian)

This is my first blog ever... I thought I may start one as a new way to keep people who are interested informed on my whereabouts and activities, instead of sending the group emails like I always do. Now people won't feel bad if they didn't read my 3 pages of monologue, but can just check the blog when there is a new post, and they should be shorter, I hope!
But it is also for me. I have a bad memory as most of you who know me know... so this is also to organise my thoughts. Well I'll try.

I'm now about to leave on a trip for the self, the mind, the spirit and all the senses - no drugs involved I assure you - to Bali...
Why Bali? Well, I've been there twice: once when I was 17 with my schoolmates - a huge party with lots of drinking, beach-buming, clubbing, partying, staying up til sun rise, sleeping until the afternoon, hooking up... although it was supposed to be a class trip! Main place of hang out was Kuta beach and some time at the Bamboo Foundation in Ubud where our class project was...

Then, I went back this year when I turned 30 with one of my best friends and it was a totally different experience: mostly in Ubud - the cultural centre of Bali, where we enjoyed lots of SPAs, massages, walks in Padi fields, eating healthy food, did cooking classes, yoga classes and a day at the beach with some diving. But this time, I knew there was something about this place. Something so south-east Asian that I missed so much, something so peaceful, but intense. Something that just drove me to go back there but on a different agenda. Perhpas a sort of spiritual quest, a place to be just me. A place to search, learn, discover, experience the little pleasures of life with the most authentic eyes and mind. Just to be.

I have little contacts and little plans out there but I'm going to let myself be guided by the good that comes to me and see where it takes me. I have to be carefull to not have such high expectations, but the few things I want to do there are: learn to meditate, practice yoga, work on my memory, learn how to do something creative with my 10 fingers, fully rest my mind and then, perhaps start looking for jobs - maybe even there! Dream on! I know... Well, one can just hope.

So I'll leave it at that. I leave tomorrow Geneva-London-Hong Kong-Jakarta... I don't adore flying but this trip should be well worth it.

I'll try to update when I get to the mad city of Jakarta - 23 million people, the world's 12th largest city with traffic jams of at least 2 hours to succumb to before getting home. But I'm sure it has its charms...

See you later.
Lucy F