Last Friday I flew to Bali with Erni and Jostein (/the Great Dane,who is the owner of the export company). So far it has been a experience of extremes. We started our trip at the Bali office which is located in a slum, mud puddles, decrepit little houses and garbage. The next day we drove to a little fishing village on the east coast of Bali called Amed. The trip started out getting stuck on a crossing because of total gridlock.  It is worse than Capital Hill.  Nobody can move, not even the motor cycles.  After about 30 minutes of this some drivers get fed up with the situation, get out of their car and start directing the traffic.  Within 5 minutes the square is clean.  Amazing, we should try this at Capital Hill sometimes!  And than we took the coastal road with hardly any traffic and absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Now I understand why people love Indonesia. The cities are awful. But the countryside is gorgeous. We stayed in this magnificent villa on the beach. The reason we were there is because Jostein is going to have his 50th bday in this resort and they had to plan some things. Steffen, the Dane who is in charge of the Bali office, and I just came for the ride. The highlight of the weekend, and I would say my stay in Bali so far, is sailing out with the fishermen. I was told that they leave between 4 and 5 am.  I got there at 4:30 am. But nobody. Just the funny skinny boats with sort of arms for balance, the stars and a full moon. It was such a romantic setting. Around 5 the fishermen showed up. All young guys in their teens still. One of them asked: ibu sail?  Yes, ibu wants to sail. I handed him 200.000 rupees and I was put in one of the little skinny boats. It has a deep haul, a small little seat, a sail (which was not used this time, no wind) and a little put-put motor. The whole fleet (about 20) goes out to sea and sort of disperses. So it feels you are all by yourself, with the full moon and stars of course. Absolutely breathtaking. My fisherman didn’t speak a word of English and I no bahasa, so we did this in total silence.  The sun comes up around 6 am. Slowly you see the contours of the other fishing boats emerging. The way they fish is by throwing a line out which they drag behind the boat. I assume there is something at the end of the line on which they catch the fish but I didn’t see anything. Around 7 they go back to the shore.  The shore is so beautiful with mountains, a vulcano, a few little houses and palm trees. Unfortunately the battery of my camera had completely depleted by than so I just have to do this again.  What a wonderful way to end my stay in Amed. Now I am back in busy, dirty, hectic Denpessar.  Besides arranging Jostein’s 50th (had a massage today because he wanted to try out the masseuses to see if he should hire them for his 5-day party), we are also here to find new things to export.  That was actually fun.  There are these little villages where they have all thee little shops or workplaces more with all kind of beautiful handicrafts and antiques.  

 

Friday Erni and I fly back to Yokyakarta were I will stay the weekend with Marnix who arrived in Indonesia last Friday to teach english for a year.