Beauty, Batik, Boats, Boredom & Boys
Bali and its neighbor, Lombok, show two sides of Indonesia
B is for Beauty
The beauty of Bali blows you away. Every morning, you watch women gently carry offerings to the sidewalk, palm-sized square grass baskets filled with fresh flowers, cookies, a handful of rice, sometimes a cigarette, a wrapped candy. They murmur words over a cup of water and sprinkle the water on the offering, asking for good luck and health for the day. Street animals, birds, and sometimes an errant monkey nimble at food, welcomed by the Balinese.
The tradition has roots in Hinduism but is classically Balinese, occurring nowhere else on the 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The result is edifying as you walk the alleys and lanes of Balinese towns: little dots of color and floral perfume fill the air at every step. In the evening, people sweep up and dispose of the offerings, many still vibrant and unmolested, accepting the impermanence of all things and readying the place for the next morning’s basket.
