Tetebatu

At first, there's just one voice. The lone tenor travels strenuously through the midday heat and slips into our fan-cooled room. Soon it is accompanied by a second, then a third. They set each other off like dogs in a kennel. A multitude of wailing, Arabic exclamations that seem completely at odds with the lush environment.



As one more muezzin joins the call to prayer, I exit our little bungalow and take a seat on the terrace in front. It gives out on an impossibly green rice field. Yesterday we saw black monkeys in a nearby tree. Today, however, there are none.

Mr. Philip Morris

At one edge of the field sits a traditional brick factory, of the kind that went out of fashion in Europe over half a century ago. The family who owns it hasn't stopped working despite the pious singing. A young girl, maybe twelve years old, piles an impressive stack of red bricks on her head and carries them out of sight. I consider how great it would be if my brain could carry more bricks. 

There's not much to do in Tetebatu, this small village in the center of Lombok. You can hike through the surrounding paddy and tobacco fields (Grade A crops for Mr. Philip Morris) to a nearby waterfall. You can navigate a motorbike over bumpy roads towards one of the nearby villages and buy some pots. That's about it. Tetebatu is blissfully quiet, apart from the muezzins and the symphony of frogs that commences at the first hint of dusk.

Penis-shaped sword

The manager of our hotel - really a small cluster of bungalows - worked in a Dutch IT-company for many years, but decided to come home because he missed the lifestyle. One day he tells us we shouldn't look for him on his porch this evening because he will be performing a sacred ritual behind closed doors. He's a follower of Wektu Telu, a religious mix of Islam, Balinese Hinduism and the animism of the indigenous Sasak people. Our broad-minded host eats pork, only prays three times a day and will be honouring the spirit of his ancestors tonight by kneeling in front of a penis-shaped sword.

For dinner we usually go to a little restaurant called Bale Bale, owned and operated by a character straight out of a Gabriel-Garcia Marquez novel. He's a permanently lovesick quadragenarian in the  throes of his third unsuccessful marriage to a much younger girl. With his sullen eyes and slow gait he really is a pitiable character, but he also makes a mean Sasak-style chicken. After his shift is over his mood magically lifts, a horribly out of tune guitar appears and we enjoy his very tolerable rendition of the reggae classic Lombok, I love you.

Lombok, I love you

This is something we first noticed in Kuta, the surf town on the southern coast of the island (not the surf town on the southern coast of Bali with the same name): everyone in Lombok can play the guitar and they all know the words to Lombok, I love you ("Manjakarapoo Hunghablamapo oh oh").

Kuta Lombok is a lot more charming than Kuta Bali, by the way. The town itself has a number of low-key bars and guesthouses for tourists, but the beaches to the east and west are completely deserted. I myself tried surfing there for the first time and ended up in the doctor's office with a cut above my left ear. Not to be outdone, Hannelore spent too much time in the sun and assumed the colour of a ripe strawberry. Never try, never know, as my surf instructor would tell you.

Bali revisited

Four weeks after our initial visit, we briefly returned to Bali because we had to catch a flight from Denpasar airport. There was some extra sightseeing on the east coast and a trip to the Bukit peninsula to watch the surfing crowd. By then I was more relaxed and could appreciate certain aspects of the island, but I still wouldn't encourage anyone to honeymoon there.

Kyoto blues

Bali, in my experience, is somewhat like Kyoto in Japan. The imperial city and the tropical retreat are both hyped beyond belief. While hype isn't necessarily a bad thing, careless development most definitely is.  The allied forces didn't bomb Kyoto during World War II because they considered it too beautiful to ruin. They left that to the Japanese, who disposed of entire traditional neighborhoods in favor of some truly hideous modern architecture. Now, despite its innumerable temples and shrines, the city lacks cohesion and character. Same story in Bali, where an influx of foreign investment washed away what all the foreigners were excited about in the first place.

Pockets of loveliness

Now, I'm not saying paradise is completely lost. The straw roofs of family temples still peek over garden walls in the smaller towns. Even on the heavily developed Bukit there are some idyllic beaches left. You might accidentally walk into a temple where a gamelan orchestra is practicing or wake up early in  your family-owned lodgings to watch the women of the house prepare the little offerings to the gods that pop up everywhere. Small pockets of loveliness persist, despite the overbearing presence of sleazy commercialism.

I hope I'm wrong about Bali. We didn't spend much time there and left much of the island unexplored. Amed, on the eastern coast, is supposed to be lovely. The magic just didn't happen for us.

Done Bali is an Australian documentary about the island's paradise image. Might be worth a looksy!

The original island experience

Bali. Mention the name to a Vitamin D deficient European like myself and images of palm trees and doe-eyed girls in flimsy bikinis will instantly cloud his mind. Advertisements for shower gels and numerous travel shows had convinced me that this particular spot on planet earth, this tiny speck of land in the Indonesian archipelago, was paradise. Plus, Hannelore wanted to go there, so I didn't really have a choice. We both looked forward to the original island experience. What better way to start our journey through Asia?

Kuta del Sol

We arrived very late and decided to look for a place to sleep in Kuta, a beach town close to the airport on the southern coast where - Lonely Planet informed us - we might take some surfing lessons. The moment our taxi dropped us in one of the neighborhoods favored by backpackers, I was planning our exit strategy. This was definitely not the Bali I had imagined.

Basically, Kuta is a developing world version of the Spanish Costa del Sol. Narrow, traffic-clogged streets fill with the hit sounds of the eighties and Aussie laughter at night. Homeless kids peddle their merchandise in front of the numerous 7-Elevens. The beach is littered like the grounds of a music festival – a recurring theme in Indonesia.

We stayed one night and then moved to Ubud, the place where most tourists go to experience the Balinese take on Hinduism. You can't walk two blocks there without bumping into a Legong dancer or crossing a sacred courtyard.

Best pig ever!

However, for us Ubud was primarily the place where celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain had - and I quote - “the best suckling pig ever”. Before we left home, we had decided we were going to find the restaurant he visited and sample its famous babi guling. It was practically the only firm resolution we had for our trip. Giddy with anticipation, we set out on our culinary odyssey. We figured it would take us a few days to locate this legendary eatery, but the first English speaking person we talked to pointed across the street and told us it was right there.

Ibu Oka it is called. Protected from the elements by a banyan tree and a corrugated iron roof, a bunch of lovely ladies serve one meal only and they do it well. Was it the best suckling pig we ever had? No. That honor goes to an open-air restaurant in the German town of Berchtesgaden. You know, where Adolf lived. The Bavarian pig - more tender than any meat I'd ever eaten - was accompanied by large glasses of delicious Helles Bier, while in Indonesia we had to make do with Bintang.

Nagging does work

All the same, it was an excellent, ridiculously cheap meal and I was beginning to feel better about Bali. I bought a book about the rites and customs of the island. The next couple of days we visited some galleries, wandered through the surrounding rice fields, attended a dance show or two. It was agreeable.

Still, I couldn't help feeling a bit restless. This was the beginning of a four month trip, our great adventure. And here we were, in an environment that was decidedly unadventurous. So I nagged a bit and convinced Hannelore to take the ferry to Lombok, the island directly east of Bali. There, I told her, we could enjoy empty beaches, climb a volcano without being assaulted by touts and discover 'the real Indonesia'. Soon she caved in and we left Bali.

The forgetful tourist

I write, because I forget. At the tender age of thirty, impressions and ideas slide off my brain like water off a duck's back. So when my girlfriend Hannelore and I traveled through Southeast Asia and Australia this winter, I kept a journal. It allowed me to better remember what we saw, tasted and felt puzzled by in these faraway lands. Now that we're back in Belgium after four months on the road, I thought I'd share some of my notes as a travelblog.

This will not be a day-to-day account of the whole trip. I'll skip, gloss over and neglect. But I'll also add book tips, share field recordings and make lists (who doesn't like lists?). Hannelore, a graphic designer by trade, will add a much-needed touch of visual sophistication.
 
Since English is not my mother tongue, I apologize beforehand for any errors I might make. However, I'm sure some leeway is granted: most native speakers I know show serious negligence in the spelling department.

Here it is, our brief escape from the daily grind. Hope you like it.