The fire is cold: Videos of people in trance walking on fire in Bali

These are videos i took of the people walking on fire near Bedagul....there were about 40 of them old and young, 

male and female.

They chanted : 

the fire is cold 

the fire is cold

 the fire is cold

A bit of luxury after rooms of 8.50 euros a night......

Went yesterday to Nusa Dua (http://wikitravel.org/en/Nusa_Dua) peninsula (a super luxury hangout for the real rich about an hour by motorbike from Sanur where i have the house) to hang out at the beach a bit after 4 days of mountains and ricefields......splurged a bit and had a 98.000 roepies (8,50 euro) lunch ( my normal lunches here costs 12.000 roepies ;)  and hung out at some exorbitantly luxurious hotel for the day.  

I beat the Grey Alpha Monkey with Basketball in the pool who claimed he was "very sportive"  while i have not played basketball since i was 13 which is more then 3 decades ago by now.....so he did not earn his bananas.....;) 

Will have to go now but soon more about the amazing healing I received from the sjaman in Ubud the day before i left........

A walk around the Rice Fields.....

In monkey forest i ran into a nice alpha male who invited me for lunch and was willing to show me around on the back of his rented motorbike to see some rice fields outside of Ubud. We found some amazing scenery and had a 2 hour walk on really steep terraces and along rivers, holy springs and temples. It was magic, however unfortunately the battery of my camera ran low and i could only take a few pictures, but here they are:

The grey alpha male told me he would sent me his pictures but he, like all male monkeys, probably wants lots of bananas in return......;)

But here are the pictures that came from my camera...     

MONKEY FOREST

There is 2% difference between humans and chimpanzees - 

in whose favour......?

In Ubud there is a sacred forest with lots of funny monkeys.  It is the monkeys who are in charge in monkey forest and the tourists,  as long as they  behave,  can come and visit and bring bananas or other fruits. If you don´t behave in a way approved by the monkeys they will bite you, throw things at you, pee on you, redo your hair and run off with your hair pins or with your sunglasses, bag, or camera. I was peed on and bitten.......see pictures below......

Do you see that vicious look of that monkey????   I am still smiling here but 3 second later i feel his warm pee running down my neck......;)  

And this little bastard bit me real hard in my arm 30 seconds after this picture was taken.........for 4 days a had a blue bruise...i hope he did not have rabies......if i have foam around my mouth in january stay out of my way....;)

For further reading: http://www.primatesworld.com

Wellnessssssssssss..................

Ubud is probably the Spa and wellness capital of Bali. I don´t think the density of spa´s is higher anywhere in the world....here every second shop or building houses a spa. Today in the afternoon i got stuck in a Spa as it was raining for about 2 hours and met 2 Indonesian girls from Jakarta there who had come to Ubud  to work.  One is working in the film industry as a director of documentaries, the other one was working for the writer festival they did here in Ubud in October.  


I assumed they would be celebrating Galungang day tomorrow but they said they were not Hindu and actually admitted they were not religious which is very exceptional here in Bali. One was raised Muslim and the other one as a catholic but both did not practice any religion nor believed.  It was a fun afternoon getting pampered, fooling around doing girls things and girl talk while outside everything was getting flooded.  It was nice meeting some educated women who spoke good english and asked you something else then "where do you come from" , "how many children do you have" and more of the obvious. When I left after 2 hours they had shown me a totally different side of Indonesia then i had seen so far.  


The main talk here at lunch tables and dinner tables is which treatments did you do? Did you try abc massage? Have you done xxx meditation already?  The best nailsalon in Ubud is in xxx street...quite boring...;)  Sjaman swamibami has some hours free as he will not be traveling to India ...;) .... No serious  but there are quite a few really interesting people here too.  Lots of Yogis and Yoginis, or intellectuals that lost the way here 10 or 20 years ago and are still hanging out here ...but i definitely meet more interesting people here then in Torrelles de Foix....and all have manicured nails .... ;)  

Magical Ubud.....Galungang Day

I am still in Ubud.  There is a big hindu holiday here tomorrow called Galungang Day http://www.wonderfulbali.com/ceremonies/galungan.htm for which everyone decorates their homes with huge bamboo sticks of 6 to 8 meters long called penjors. 


A Penjor is made from a long bamboo pole about eight meter high with curved end, and decorated with palm leaves, rice paddies, corn on the cob, coconut, cakes, a piece of white or yellow cloth, etc. It is the symbol of Mount Agung and also as gratitude for the agricultural produce. The arched top of the bamboo pole represents Mount Agung, the body of the pole is a river that flows from the mountains to the sea, and along its route are the products of the harvest, tied to the pole.The people in my guest house have been spending days and nights getting the thing ready. 

Tomorrow morning everybody will go to the temples with offerings to celebrate this most important holiday here in Bali.  Here in Ubus there will be a competition for the most beautiful Penjor, rumors say the winner will get a Honda motorbike.......

Ubud´s healer who makes you glow.........

Today I caught a ride with Lisa to Ubud.  They were going to see a healer who massages you in a way that makes you glow and looks like you have had the best sex in your life when you come out....  I have not tried it (yet)  but obviously I am very curious.....
Unfortunately there is a waiting list of 3 months before you can see him.....;(   


I will add some pictures later of the temple like buildings where he is doing his healings......the "masages " he gives high up in a tower overlooking Ubud.


Ubud is great, about an hour inland from Sanur and not as hot as the coast. Lots of things to do and a really artsy atmosphere with lots of funny art galleries, museums and shops. Great restaurants and bars, i´am sitting in one right now using their wifi.


I have left Lisa and her mother in law with the healer at 9 this morning and found myself a little bungalow for 10 euros a night breakfast included.  Let´s see if they still glow when i come back on monday or tuesday to the house....;)  

Bike ride to Kuta

Today i biked to Kuta ( Bali´s surf Beach)  in 42 degrees celcius....was quite hot ....;). I biked by a Bikram Yoga studio  ( = yoga at temperatures above 45 degrees in sauna like rooms)  but i think they just have to switch of the airco here and they have Bikram yoga everywhere, they probably invented it here....i  was so glad to get there that i parked my bike next to what looked like a little white temple entrance door with a public toilet on the right hand side for easy reference.  Jumped in the sea and went for a long walk to watch the surfers and came back to realize that the whole beach front had these "little white temple entrances", there must have been 200 of them and yesssss almost all with public toilets to their right.  Well to make a long story short , i became the joke of the Balinese vendors who helped me look 2 hours for my bike....up and down the beach .....they showed up with all kind of bikes but i had to disappoint them...mine was grey with a basket and a bunch of flowers in an offering plate in the basket ......a gift from one of the maids that morning...but i found it next to little white temple entrance number 286.....  


I forgot my camera otherwise i would have taken pictures of a few beautiful statues i have seen in an art gallery, a wonderful little house of teak which i would love to put in the garden of the masia,  an amazing temple I passed where they doing a ceremony and some amazingly fat australians who were getting tatoos done at their bellies at the beach.....they probably did not have any intention  ever losing weight as these tatoos would probably look quite horrible  after they would lose 50 kilos.....anyway this couple looked pretty happy with their roses and dolfins on their pot bellies....so let them enjoy it.


Came home had a shower and went to the beach for my daily massage by Nauama ( i think that is her name, will ask again tomorrow).  She is a little old lady with hands of iron and a beautiful smile.  She is very happy i come to her everyday her daughter confirmed me, now the family has a bit more money these days.....the massage costs 40.000 roepies which is 4 euro for 1,5 hour in heaven.....even i can afford that every day...;) , the daughter will do my finger nails for free tomorrow as she is so happy i give here mum some work.  




Nauama was sad today though and worried as her daughter went to the village because her husband was getting his teeth cut of ( appearently a hindu tradition that you do when you are around 25 or 30).....she did it herself as well but they have grown a bit again.  She assured me almost every Hindu in Bali does it ( I will look more at peoples teeth from now on) and ask someone who knows more about these things , why the hell you would want to cut off your teeth at age 25.....


My Indian friends (one of them is the principal of a local school) where not there today but i will accept their invitation to come to the school tomorrow and will try to find it on my bike. I also promised to help Martin with his letter though....busy busy here ....and you guys thought i was relaxing here....;)?????


On my way back i went to Hardy´s the biggest local supermarket in town and gazed again at all the great spices, fruits and things they sell there.  Mangos for 40 cents a kilo.....!!! papaya, pineapple, ripe bananas...and ginger tea, bali coffee, tofu, tempe, satay sauce and all the "boemboes" i miss so much in Spain....and incense for 17 cents a kilo


Tonight i will force myself to go to bed early to finally get out of the stupid jetlag.....last night i went to bed at 4 am because i fell asleep from 5 pm untill 9 pm and then was fresh awake and could not sleep all night. I misses a trip with Lisa to Denpassar this morning as a result of it....


So off to bed now and hopefully i will wake up early so i can go and do yoga at the little temple on the beach at 6 am at sunrise.....  another wonderful day in Bali......;) 

Sandy feet

martin .....one of the odd birds of paradise

This is Martin the brother in law of a friend of mine in Barcelona. I knew he lived here but ran into him by coincidence here at the beach. Martin makes incredibly beautiful drawings on toilet paper and napkins and has hundreds, maybe thousands of them.  I will ask him if i can photograph a few of his pieces of art tomorrow because i think he should find someone who can help him to set up an exhibition. His drawings are amazing and intrigue me.  I bought him a sketch book and some drawing pens and he promised to make me one. 


He reminds me of Joris, my ex on a bad hair day.....;) 

Massage!!!!!!

I just had a 2 hour massage by the person that comes here to the house a few times a week to give a massage to the owner and the other people living here. It was the best massage I ever had in my life!  Muscles i did not even know i had were massaged and i have the feeling i had a total workout. Not an inch of my body was missed ...well actually a couple of inches were obviously not touched .....;),  the rest of my body was  squeezed, moved, folded, stretched, and turned. The masseur learned it from his mother in Java.  What a great gift and tradition to pass on from parents to children.  It reminded me of the 70 plus years old aunties of my first boyfriend who was half Indonesian who were always massaging us after we had sateh, rendang, gado gado and rice there at the big table in the livingroom. Now i am going to the beach before the monsoons come in at the end of the afternoon. 

Photos from my weekend trip to Bedugul

I just got back from my weekend trip to Bedugul (http://www.balistarisland.com/Bali-Interesting-Place/Bedugul-Garden-Yard.htm) about 2 hours north from Sanur where i am staying now. Here are some pictures of the views i had when i woke up this morning:

Lisa and her kids

This was the botanical garden on Saturday:

My toe nails after a 1,5 hour Balinese pedicure including tiny flowers.......  

Me with my host here, Lisa.


Later on i will figure out how to upload the videos i took of the people meditating and afterwards walking 3 meters on fire.....without any sign of burns on their feet.....it looked so easy i almost wanted to try it! 

A LIFE OF LEISURE......

Despite my plans to wake up early today and try to get into Bali time , i woke up at 1.30 pm today.....so half a day past before i even saw the daylight....and i need to be fit and ready to go tomorrow morning at 7 to go to Bali treetops and botanical gardens with Lisa some friends and their kids.  This is just a couple of hours after my regular bedtime or no falling asleep time here.....and my body will probably think it will be an afternoon nap when i go to bed at 9pm.


I had a very relaxing day today: went to the beach and had another 1,5 hour full body Balinese massage with my new Balinese friend Nawang, after which i had a fresh fruit juice, a manicure and a pedicure by her daughter and a Gado Gado (vegetable dish with sate sauce).  


Met a very nice english school teacher who used to be an IT consultant before he moved to Bali one year ago.  So we chatted about Baan, ERP systems and our past lives in the real world but by the time the sun set and the cafes on the beach lit their candles, concluded teaching english and running a casa rural provide for a much richer life style then running the rat race....;)


Came home to find my house all cleaned up , with fresh flowers everywhere from Putu ( no,  not Puta...!!) the cleaning lady.  In the altar in the living room she every day puts baskets with donations of food and flowers with a candle and incense for the Gods and spirits around. Maybe that is why i feel so good here......;)   


Now i ´am going to put candles and incense all over my Joglo and prepare my bag for my weekend trip with some nice music and will do my yoga and meditation to prepare my body to go to sleep.


Still did not take any pictures but they will come i promise.....

Saturday to Bali Treetops....

Saturday i will go to Bali  Treetop:  http://www.balitreetop.com/  with Lisa my host and her 3 kids......

SOME BALI PICTURES ( not taken by me)