Friday night in Ubud Bali

Friday night in Ubud getting ready for the Royal cremation ceremony I got settled in my guest house on Jl. Kajeng right next to the main temple (Pura Desa ) on Jl. Raya Ubud.

All my activities while in Ubud this time focused on Jl. Raya Ubud.

From my room I could here sounds from the temple even though my room was located a couple of hundred meters away. Jl. Kajeng provided the handiest of all staging points from which to view the cremation ceremony and that’s why it was mostly fully booked.

My guest house, Lecuk Inn is family owned and operated just like most of the guest houses here and has the family living in a front section, while the more modern structures are for rent. I was very happy with my room, it was comfortable, spacious and clean and cost 70,000rp.

Crowds were out on the street in front of the Pura Desa viewing the cremation tower and huge bull while listening to the ‘glong glong rattle rattle’ of the gamelan orchestra. Its hard to get good photos at night particularly when people are moving around but here is a snap so you can get the idea.

Feeling starved I walked eastward along Raya Ubud to a restaurant called Nomad and sat there along with other tourists from Japan, Australia and Europe enjoying a couple of beers and a tuna steak (25,000rp). This place is decent and I can recommend it.

The internet cafes were still open at 8.30pm and I popped into one hole in the wall place to check email. It was funny because I asked to use the bathroom and inside there were half a dozen pairs of underwear hanging up together will soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste�a real family scene. Crappy hardware and an average connection.

I wanted to check out the pulsating night-scene in Ubud so strolled to the Jazz Caf� on Jl. Sukma No. 2 Tebesaya. A jazz band was in swing and the place was packed. This definitely is a civilized place and the clientele seemed to be fully international. I sipped a couple of beers and the party next to me from France sampled some red wine. A couple of things I liked about the Balinese jazz band were that they had a couple of gamelan guys sitting right there playing jazz tunes on traditional drums and at one point the lead guitarist flipped a switch and made his guitar sound like a drum. He then did a drum version of ‘duelling bango’s’ with the drummer.

I had 3 small beers for 45,000rp.

I left after an hour and walked home. On the way I passed the cremation floats and the pavilion on Jl. Raya Ubud. Underneath the pavilion they were showing an old documentary movie shot in black and white about 20-25 years ago by an American journalist. He was friends with Tjokorda Gde Sukawati, the last king of Ubud and interviews him as well as details some of the points of Balinese life. There was some wonderful footage of a female Balinese dancer from those days and the locals were all getting into it, even though most of the dialogue was in English. They know when a dancer is good and appreciated the look into the past. The former king seemed quite up to speed with modern times and talked about tourism and schools. At one point the interviewer asked him if tourism was greatly affecting Balinese life and he said not really. Back then Ubud was a village of 5,000 people and tourism brought 500,000 people a year to Bali. The king said that he saw that most people come to Kuta and Sanur and then leave rather quickly, not staying around long enough to affect the locals, at least in Ubud.

The interviewer asked who was the king’s favourite visitor out of all the famous people who had come to Ubud and he said Marlon Brando. He said when Brando arrived one night he knew he was coming and heard the car honk outside, he walked out and there were 2 men sitting outside on the grass, the king introduced himself and one of the men said ‘Hello I’m Marlon Brando’.

The king was asked why Balinese people and the people in Ubud particularly are gifted in the arts and he said ‘its in their blood’.

The film ends with the king’s cremation and the final moment is when his ashes are delivered to the sea.

I myself remember Ubud from 1993 when there was a ‘pasar malam’ (night market) serving food in the middle of town and not much else going on at all.

Having spotted a couple of mosquitoes in my room I stopped at convenience store and picked up a packet of mosquito coils. I asked one of the smokers at the film show to light a coil for me and walked back up the hill to my guest house. This time of year temperatures are cool at night and while I was not cold while walking around during the night it got quite a bit cooler and I glad of the light blanket provided.

Hear all about the cremation ceremony tommorrow.