Little Altars Everywhere

street offerings
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So where was I?  I seem to have fallen down into Alice's looking glass and now I am in another world.  One full of holy moments happening all through the normal day.  Each time one turns around here you see someone preparing an offering or making an offering.  Small paper boxes full of flower petals and grass and possibly a cracker of some food item.  They lay about the streets, lanes, in front of offices and bars.  Attached to the front of homes or stores there are wooden altars with incense burning and something flowering.  Sometimes you will find stone altars on the side of the road or in front of a gas station.

A deity in front of a new upscale housing development
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And then there are the temples.  Unlike their Indian religious relatives here the deities are stone and unpainted.  Not always but mostly.  Vivid teeth, fearsome and wide eyed.  The buildings themselves are often exciting at the entrance and then basically empty inside.  Awaiting the creations of the people who worship there.

Bali feels like a land so very attached and living of and with the landscape.  So close to the rural even in the bustle of its largest city, Denpasar.  No buildings overpower the physical presense of the holy places.  And the holy places are around every corner.  Even commercial places will have effigies of fantastical religious characters that surprise you.

Adi
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I have a new boyfriend.  His name is Adi and he is from Sumatra.  He has become my driver for Bali.  He speaks excellent English and is constantly bragging to me about how lucky I am to have him as a guide because he knows so much.  Well,  he does know a lot but not about Hinduism because he is Muslim.  In fact he seems rather scared of the Hindu temples prefering to wait while I go and look.  Most Hindu temples do not allow visitors inside the grounds.  Often the walls are low so you can view inside which is mostly outside as the actual roofed parts are small and inhabited by deities doing whatever deities want to do. When you go to the sites you must have long pants or you will be asked to don a sarong and even so you are given a strip of orange cloth to wear about your waist in respect of the place.

The cliffs at Uluwatu
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Uluwatu is the southern temple which sits upon the cliffs.  It is a dramatic location which reminded me some of the Oregon coast.  After we stopped in a fishing village where I had an excellent dinner of prawns and snapper grilled perfectly over a coconut shell fire.

The weather has been overcast and the beach here in Kuta, the tourist trap area is nasty with sea and human trash.  So we left town and traveled north to a lake in the cool upper altitudes of the Island.  By the lake is a stunning temple called  Ulundanu surrounded by a manicured garden.  Teegar loved it.  He felt right at home.  On the way there we stopped at a vegetable market.  Wow.  Such beautiful veggies in big baskets.  Along the way there were vistas of terraced farm fields with the misty cloudy mountains in the background.  Motorbikes are the most common form of transport so like all places traffic can be spooky.  But not nearly as intense as Hanoi.  The number one spot I have been to for scary traffic.  On our way back we stopped in Denpasar where friends of Adis have a farm right in the midst of the city.  About an acre with dozens of various things such as eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, papaya, bananas, and long squash that I wish He had seed from.

A ceremony going on in the temple
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Elisabeth found my hotel and has moved in.  We met for dinner tonight.  I will be here for the rest of the week as I start a PADI diving course on Wednesday.