Eat, Pray, Loathe

We decided this morning to bite the bullet and visit the 'cultural heart' of Bali: Ubud. Everyone we had spoken to about Bali had mentioned Ubud in glowing, almost hyperbolic terms. I was keen to see what all the fuss was about.

Famous most recently from appearing in the novel (and film) 'Eat, Pray, Love', Ubud is a small village that has grown into a town, attracting painters, sculptors and craftsmen from Bali and the world over. A major factor in this concentration of culture on one town was the settling of German-born Walter Spies in the 1930s, who taught art and created an atmosphere conducive for Western and Balinese artists alike. Now, Ubud blends into the surrounding villages and the streets emanating from its centre are lined with shops selling all kinds of sculpture, paintings and other artworks.

To reach Ubud, we took a taxi along the bypass road to get around the traffic that has clogged Denpasar. We headed directly to the Agung Rai Museum of Art, more succinctly referred to as ARMA, to start our cultural odyssey.

Having left without breakfast, we first fuelled up at The Onion Co., which, unlike our usual locale, offered vegan rice bowls. Welcome to Ubud. The café offered "superfast geek-powered internet", but in practice was no better or more reliable than anywhere else on the island. In the end, I suspect all traffic has to run over the same wet piece of string to Jakarta. Welcome to Bali.

Dragon bowl

For breakfast, K went with Asian porridge (a congee-like soup with various toppings), while i opted for a 'Dragon bowl'. This was steamed rice adorned with 'dragon balls' (crunchy mushroom nuggets), soft-cooked jackfruit, crunchy tempeh, fried tofu, and green beans in dressing. On the side were a couple of sambals to add fire to the dragon bowl. It was a heartier breakfast than we had intended and we waddled over to the museum and gallery.

At the ARMA, we stumbled upon the Sunday dance class for children. These and other cultural activities are run for free for local families to keep the traditions of Bali - such as batik painting, wood carving, gamelan playing ,and legong dance - alive.

Dance class at ARMA

Even at a very young age (I estimated some must be only five or six years old), the quality of the girls' control was excellent. The teachers manhandled them into the correct but angular positions for the pendet, or welcoming, dance.

Parvati and Shiva

Walking around the serene grounds of the museum - itself a trove of carvings and statues - a man wearing typical Balinese dress approached us and started to tell is about the museum. Having experienced something similar at the Bali Museum - in which unwanted guides force themselves on unwary visitors and then demand extortionate payment for their services - we listened politely and went about our own visit. It wasn't until looking again in the accompanying museum brochure that we saw a familiar face and recognised Agung Rai, the founder and owner. How we were ashamed at our distrust.

Inside the galleries are examples of ancient artwork as well as modern pieces that show the progression of style after European influences arrived.

Anak Agung Gede Raka Turas - "Wild fowls, heron birds"

The traditional Batuan style of paintings was quite captivating, with an enormous amount of detail in the picture, depicting several scenes, locations or characters, often viewed from several angles in the same crowded frame. There is such detail that the eye cannot take it all in from a single glance, and one must study the painting inch by square inch.

I Ketut Murtika - "The Wheel of Life"

Many of the artworks, both older and modern, envisage scenes from great epics such as the Ramayana, the Tantri, and the Mahabharata. These tales are rich with fantastic imagery, such as a man's wife transforming into a deer, a prince being born as a water buffalo, and egrets pretending to be a high priest (and then ignominiously killed by an angry crab).

More recent paintings show depictions of modern life in Bali. These include images of tourists bent over snapping locals with cameras, surfers, cyclists, a few cars, and even the odd aeroplane, but not a single moped or motorbike. I couldn't imagine any corner of Bali without the ubiquitous scooters, so it was strange that they have been edited from these studies of modern life.

I Ketut Sadia - "Lion Floating Happily"

We made up for the cold shoulder we had unwittingly given Agung Rai this morning by joining him for a coffee at the museum's outdoor café. He is a smiling man, who seems to be endlessly walking the grounds enthusing to visitors about Balinese culture or chatting with local artists over a cuppa.

Agung Rai has a rosy view of Bali and Ubud especially. We had a fascinating conversation with him. He claims that the humility of the Balinese - the fact that things are made not bought, and are offered up as sacrifice - means that there is no avarice in the people. I wondered about the heavily developed tourist zones, such as Kuta, where there could be a temptation to exploit the disproportionate wealth of foreign visitors for personal gain. "Kuta is not Bali". I was disturbed by this response. How long before that could be said about Ubud or other parts of the island that have transformed beyond recognition? Is it right to annex parts of the land to be given over to tourism and to sacrifice cultural values?

The steadily increasing interest in Bali by outsiders is not a new phenomenon. Glossing over the influence of the long Dutch occupation, we talked about the artists of the 20th century. Before this period, art and sculpture was primarily created as offerings. Decoration was a side benefit as most houses and towns would be gloriously resplendent solely for ceremonial purposes. I wondered whether a greater creative skill - resulting in a more aesthetically pleasing carving, or a more graceful dance - might please the gods more. This seems not to be the case. An offering is an offering, provided it is given humbly and with a good heart. So, I ventured, did the Balinese lose their innocence when the Europeans brought their notion of aesthetics and the indigenous people realised the value of their art? Certainly, some artists were and are valued more highly by westerners - both monetarily and through professional esteem. Agung Rai's view was that this was a healthy cultural exchange - the Balinese learned as much from the Europeans as vice versa. Talent was encouraged and skill improved. Prosperity also happened to increase through the sale of secular artwork. Everybody gained.

On learning that we were from England, Agung Rai recalled the royal visit in 1974. His recollections were of the "all fields" variety. At that time, there was no TV, no electric lighting, and few roads. I doubt the Queen would recognise it now. The ARMA grounds preserve some of the rice fields that used to cover this area.

Paddy field at ARMA

On ritual, Agung Rai was refreshingly pragmatic and non-mustical. We had heard of Nyepi - the new year and day of silence that follows loud celebrations. One explanation offered had been that the entire island drives out the evil spirits with a great brouhaha, and then simultaneously falls silent so that the evil spirits think Bali is deserted and leave it alone for another year. At this, Agung Rai looked amused and offered an alternative view. The day is an opportunity for contemplation without distraction. The 'evil spirits'  are the bad thoughts and lazy habits that have built up within us over the year and need expunging. It is telling that the silent day is followed by visits to one's neighbours to ask for forgiveness. A day of enforced introspection for the entire population is laudable and I would love to see other countries emulate it.

Agung Rai has a philosophy of cultural curation and pride in the Balinese character that I hope persists and succeeds. ARMA is an inspirational place and one to which we will return.

We could have spent, and indeed did spend, many hours at the museum alone. But I was conscious that we were rapidly forming an opinion of Ubud based solely on one place. We vowed to strike out to see what the rest of the town had to offer.

Wheatgrass - fifteen of your five a day 

On the one hand, Ubud is a microcosm of organic food, man buns, wheatgrass shots, and yoga barns. The atmosphere should be serene, but Ubud itself, disregarding the quieter surrounding villages, is compact and every bit as crowded as parts of Denpasar.

"Transportation?"

Many roads do not feel residential, existing only for people to hawk souvenirs, taxi rides and offers of massage every two steps. With the same frequency, one finds ornate temples but they have to share space with restaurants and gift shops and are often placed on top of the shop frontage.

Look up

True, the souvenirs are actually crafted by the people rather than factory produced and shipped in. Bit the Ubud market place ranked among the most aggressive we have been to. It was a dispiriting walk through town, so we stopped for dinner.

Warung Sopa offered us a quiet place and vegetarian nasi campur.

Vegetarian nasi campur

Selecting from the available dishes to accompany the healthy-for-your-gut red rice, we ended up with a selection of Balinese vegetable curries, deep-fried tofu stuffed with miso, and various other fries morsels. It was all pretty good, but the vegan chocolate and coconut cake afterwards was better. The vegan branding is a little odd for Asian desserts, as many of them use no dairy or gelatine, instead favouring tapioca, agar-agar and coconut milk, in contrast to the West's predilection for enriching everything with eggs and butter.

We returned, inevitably, to ARMA in the evening for an outdoor performance of classic legong dance.

Legong dancers

The dance was accompanied by an all-male gamelan orchestra, producing a mesmerising, almost atonal rhythm on metal gongs and xylophones. They started with an instrumental piece "Kebyar Susun", showing their extreme prowess at the instruments terompong, gender, and ceng-ceng.

The legong dance was a more refined and accomplished version of that which we had seen being practised in the morning. Complete with angular limbs, outstretched fingers and eyes that darted left and right, the girls welcomed us with the pendet dance.

Dance with your eyes

Facial expressions in Balinese dance are as important as the hand and arm gestures, but we were also treated to a topeng (mask) dance, in which a character of an old man (topeng tua) stumbled about the stage recalling his past glories.


The most arresting performance for me, however, was the baris dance, in which a warrior, squat like a tiny Napoleon, performed a precise set of steps with such tension and explosive movements. With his neck all but hidden by the enormous epaulettes, his appearance and jerky movements verged on the ridiculous, but the concentration of effort made it a captivating martial display that is supposed to demonstrate a warrior's "emotional maturity".

Baris dance

The majority of our day was spent in ARMA and this institution represented everything that we had expected of Ubud. I fear life outside its walls does not live up to the lofty ideals within. For me, the experience of central Ubud itself was disappointing. We ate well, we saw plenty of praying, but there was little love for the town on my part.