Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2010, Bali: Pleasure in gardens, good company, and fine literature

In the restrained style to which she is accustomed, Marie snatches a little sleeping, 

reading, napping, writing and snoozing before the beginning of the 

Ubud Writers Festival.   Yep, ya gotta get in training.

This year we booked all our festival accommodation well in advance, as we recalled the grim last-minute squeeze in 2009. Pity, because we later discovered the Festival committee had introduced hotel-and-ticket package deals which might have made it all a little cheaper and more streamlined. OK, next year, perhaps ...if we don't default to the Galle or Jaipur festivals instead, festival junkies that we are. After all, Jaipur offers free tickets.

 

In Ubud, ideas and words breed as readily as the moss gathers on the walls. The festival venue in the next photo is a neat metaphor of the lush intellectual climate and warmth of exchange that is on offer. Like Chiangmai in Thailand, Ubud is a long-time retreat of the Artist, the Outcast, the Thinker, the 'Other'. Let's hope that commercialism and corporate sponsorship don't corrupt that. 

By way of example: if the major sponsor (a bank) covered costs this year, how is it that the "Meet-the-Writers" dinners still cost so much? Especially when the wealthy festival director owns most of the venues...

 Let's be honest, this year it appears even more that Ubud has become a middle-class project which is propelled as much by money as it is by altruistic love of literature. Its clientèle is by-and-large Australian, grey, and female. This doesn't in the least diminish its validity, but certainly builds fences around mind-set and values, which can become apparent during Q&A sessions. It's sometimes as much about the questions and issues that aren't raised as about those which are. There is a tendency to skirt around core issues and bring up relatively tangential points.

 A festival venue with a trillion-rupiah view.

Given the structure of the timetable where events coincide or overlap, every person necessarily experiences a unique festival. Standout writers for me were Anne Enright (whose tendency to go for the jugular is so endearing), Nam Le (whose intellectual perspicuity and articulate manner nourish deeply), Thomas Keneally (comment deemed superfluous), Antony Loewenstein (the self-confessed 'secular Jew' whose bipartisan approach to the middle-east should be declared mandatory in the U.N.), and Louis de Bernèires (whose well-practised humorous/anecdotal patter was nothing if not entertaining).

Other writers worthy of note for me were Cate Kennedy, Etgar Keret, Tabish Kair, William Dalrymple, Frank Moorhouse, Christos Tsiolkas, Mark Treddinick, Shamini Flint, Tash Aw, and Richard Gombrich the Oxford Buddhist scholar.

Finally, I was interested to hear what Burmese surgeon Dr. Ma Thida had to say - and also in what she didn't (or couldn't) say. She spent 6 years of a 20-year sentence in a Burmese prison (for alleged anti-Junta activities) before being released. She managed to obtain a passport (unusual for a person with such a record, even after 5 years of applications), and is now free to come and go. She's been traveling for a year, presumably on her own resources, giving interviews about her experiences.
Communication like this can only be applauded, but I needed to hear from her [a] how she secured her pardon with the help of Amnesty International, and [b] how the Junta decided to trust her sufficiently to allow her to travel and speak in public. This was the elephant in the room, around which she mostly appeared to dodge.
Having criss-crossed Burma in 5 visits over 8 years and spoken with many Burmese, the conspiracy theorist in me has come to understand some of the fear tactics adopted by the regime. I would not rule out, for instance, the possibility that members of Ma Thida's immediate family are being held in defacto ransom back home... a deadly form of good behaviour bond which the Junta often uses like blackmail. In many instances, people can only secure passports if they are related to a high-ranking military officer - or if they can pay bribes. Being a qualified doctor in Burma usually suggests a background of some means or connections.
Bribery isn't something which might occur an Australian in the benign context of the Ubud Literary Festival, but it is normal and universal in Burma - at all levels. One perceptive audience question about the demise of Rangoon in favour of Pyinmana, and the rise of Chinese influence met with a brief 'too-hard-basket' dismissal. I would prefer to think it was too challenging for her limited skill in the English language, not a political side-step to avoid being forced to criticize the Junta. I hungered for clarity. To read about our last trip to Burma, click here.

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From this point on I'll revert to a pictorial diary of our days exploring eastern Bali after the conclusion of the festival.
First, we drove up to the central highlands around Besakih and Sidemen to visit the Puri Besakih temple:

Next to a restaurant in the rice-growing mountains of the Rendang district. Beef Rendang for lunch, of course, overlooking the active Gunung Agung volcano and eye-achingly green rice-paddy terraces crawling up the steep mountain slopes:

See other images of the volcano here or here.

Then to the south-east coast at Candidasa (in Bahasa Indonesia, you pronounce c as ch). An interesting history, and, indeed, a cautionary tale for budding tourist developers. In the 1970s and 80s, Candidasa's tourist infrastructure boomed. In order to get lime for all the cement, the breakwater reefs were harvested - causing the disappearance of the sandy beaches by the early 90s. Here, for instance, is the sand-free (low tide) view from our beach-front resort (Aquaria):

Adjacent to the resort was one of Candidasa's only beaches. Ta-DAAA!!

Welcome to Candidasa Beach

But, undaunted, we discovered where some of the best original coral had been secretly stashed... disguised as feature panels in a stone wall up on the main road:

Result?  The once touted Candidasa hasn't flourished too well of late:

 Video, anyone?  Maybe chill with re-runs of 'Friends'?

Nevertheless, there were some attractive local details, albeit off-stage:

Time for a short side-trip inland to Tenganan, an ancient village of the descendants of the original Balinese, the Orang Asli or aboriginal Balinese. A toothless village elder showed us around:

 Painted fighting cocks, placed side-by-side to get revved up and suitably aggro:

 The old Banyan tree in the next pic was the home of many village ancestor spirits, just like in Thailand. The ubiquitous black/white check cloth is symbolic of the constant presence of both good and evil:

Next to the tree was the village feasting area with its pig-roasting fire-pit. Lucky ol' spirits, I say... the Balinese sure know how to do spare ribs. 
(PS - I truly recommend the ribs at Naughty Nuri's in Ubud, even better than Thailand in taste and value. I pigged out).

 At the other end of the social spectrum is the nearby Tirtagannga Water Palace, a water-feature extravagance constructed by a former Balinese King, taking advantage of the abundant gravity-fed water in the area.The name refers to 'waters of the Ganges', hence the stone cow statue on the far side of the pond:

A bried movie pan around the grounds...

Marie watched calmly as I was slowly devoured headfirst by a Very Gruesome Beast:

...then had breakfast with my ghost in the Royal Breakfast Nook-for-Two:

Our hotel room was inside the palace grounds. The bathroom's design mirrored the overall 'water-feature' concept of the gardens outside:

Next day - back to the beach. Padangbai, on Bali's south-east coast, is basically a backpacker standard ferry terminal for travelers going to Lombok and other islands. Not much to report except the anomaly of this bar's name (remembering that Bali is a Hindu island in the middle of Muslim majority Indonesia):

...and there's even a fish symbol to complete the quorum.

The unusual outrigger boats which, when fitted with their skinny pontoons, appear just like crabs walking on the surface of the sea:

Thence to Nusa Dua, our one-night 'treat' in the far south. This is Bali's gated community of exclusive resorts:

...and Balinese dancers - de rigeur...

We began heading back to Denpasar, spending a night at Tuban, not far from Kuta ...hmm, but maybe not far enough. Backpacker city, crawling with loud-mouth Homer Simpsons and Monstrous Margs in ugly bikinis emphasizing bulging love-handles, all sucking Coca-Cola. Tourists on a long leash can be so unpleasant and disrespectful to the polite and gentle Balinese. Nouveau colonial Raj mentality - which I'm sure wouldn't be tolerated back in their home countries. Certainly not in Australia.

Apart from cranes, all that was visible on the Kuta Beach skyline were huuuge McDonalds golden arches. Q.E.D.

Early morning flight out of Denpasar. I'm dangerous before coffee, but thanks be to Allah there was some at Kuala Lumpur, where we stayed overnight. It was the shopping week before the festival of Deepavali, so people were out boosting the GDP in preparation for all the parties:

I enjoyed the cardboard boxes in the top display window.

Perhaps contemplating kick-starting a 'Marie Magdalene' fashion trend?