Visiting Luk Luk Bali with Putu

Arriving back in Seminyak from my trip to Karangasem on the SE coast I had to get myself together for a meeting I had arranged in advance. My friend Putu who I met in my first week here in Bali invited me to check out her village and take a few photos. A good journalist always goes after the story so I rode down to where Putu works, the Ryoshi Japanese restaurant in Legian and waited for her to finish work.

Anticipating traffic I drank my usual cup of green tea to help wash away the pollutants. We took off by heading directly across Jl. Legian and down Mataram, the street I photographed a while ago. We hooked around onto Legian, avoiding the one way section and headed up to my house to get the camera which I had forgotten ( good journalist, bad cameraman ).

Putu’s village is called Luk Luk which is north of Denpasar and south of Mengwi. We went through Kerobokan and bypassed Denpasar. Traffic was busy though it was still bright and sunny. The trip took about 20 minutes from my house.

Arriving I noticed the house was located on a busy road and set in a traditional compound with an area for worship and ceremonies and 3 small houses, one for the family and one each for the uncles families. Kids were all over the place using whatever they had for amusement. Here they were spinning the bike wheels and rolling model cars down them at high speed.

Putu’s mum and granny were taking turns in baby sitting and at one point I got a little kid dumped in my lap, I say dumped because if I didn’t catch it there would have been a nasty collision with the ground.

Across the street we went for a stroll through the paddy field, locals were busy at work and there were 2 groups of people, women and men at a couple of swimming holes.

Putu said she was too shy to go down there, but thought it was funny when the naked guys were shouting at us.

Furthur I spotted a soccer field complete with bamboo goal. When the guys saw me taking photos they posed and said in Bahasa �take my photo’. Pretty good natured people around here.

Putu pointed out an area of flowers that were used for ceremonies. The amount the Balinese go through I reckon they’d need a plantation.

Putu’s sister Kadek was around and remembered me saying �hello Nick how are you?’ in English. Her father was away in the village, this was Sunday and for Balinese men that means cockfighting. Women usually do not attend. Its funny as they had a few cocks in baskets inside the compound, one was allowed to go loose and spent his time chasing the chickens, the other cocks going crazy inside their cages.

It started to get dark and I thought it was a good idea to get going. I thanked everyone and showed them the photos I took. My ride back was fast and in heavy traffic but I made it safely.

When Putu says next time she’s going home to her village for a ceremony I’ll have some idea of what it looks like.