Even this news failed to arouse me. However the Balinese arranged to package and store their bacon for export, it could wait, I decided, until morning.
10 BALI, JAVA,
THE KEELING-COCOS
“A sense of uneasy anticipation....”
Bali was worth all the trouble it took to get there. Not only is it spectacularly beautiful, with its rugged mountains, its misty vales, its crumbling temples, and the glossy green of its rice paddies, but the people are beautiful too. Outside of Den Pasar, where the tourists congregate and create understandable disruptions and where it is considered “rude” for women to go about unclothed above the waist, the Balinese serenely follow their age-old customs, practice the Hindu religion, which is the hard core of their society, and preserve their independence and integrity.
In contrast to other countries we had visited, even the more remote islands, we saw little influence of the West in Bali. No American movies, not even in Den Pasar; no Cokes or chewing gum. Music could be heard as one strolled the streets of a village at night, and it was not rock and roll but the hauntingly compelling music of Bali, played on drum and gamelin.
Our first act, after officially entering the next morning, was to take the bus to Den Pasar to meet Barbara’s mother. Minnetta herself was on a trip around the world, traveling by a somewhat faster means and at a bit higher altitude, but the motivating aim of her entire junket had been to meet us in Indonesia!
No one seemed to know the bus schedule, but all were happy to show us where to wait for it. Eventually, a dilapidated bus pulled up, so we climbed on and waited. And waited. And waited.
Several praus with wishbone sails pulled up to the sea wall and willing hands began to unload. Stalks of bananas, bunches of coconuts, matting bundles were all unloaded, carried up the sloping sea wall to the road and thence up a narrow ladder to the top of the bus.
The driver returned, carrying a woven banana leaf tray on which were a few carefully arranged yellow flowers and a few leaves. He placed this in a niche above the driver’s seat and stuck a stick of burning incense into a holder on the dashboard. (There’s an extra that American models don’t have!) We wondered if he was exorcising whatever demons may have gotten aboard with us.
A little later the people began to get on. Soon the bus was full, but still we waited. Down at the waterfront another prau came in. This one was loaded to the gunwales with large turtles and Barbara scrambled out with her camera.