The Ubud Handbook
THE UBUD HANDBOOK ~ Your free guide to living in Ubud and Bali in an online nutshell.
Take it or leave it. Tales from the heart of the island.
Health Matters ~ Let's Get Wet ~ The Rainy Season on Bali
YOU MAY NOT realise that getting caught in a cloudburst or shower on Bali – particularly if you're riding a motorbike – is the tropical equivalent of walking naked outside during a Prague Winter after a lukewarm bath.
It'll really slow you down...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Religion Matters ~ 'Nyepi' ~ Bali's Hindu New Year, and the Day of Silence
FOR A SINGLE day and a night during Nyepi, life on the small island of Bali comes to a bone-shuddering halt. Work and travel is out of bounds, and for a brief 24 hours no-one – tourists included – is allowed to stray from their homes or hotels...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Culture Bites ~ Cinema Paradiso
BOOBS AND POLITICAL CENSORSHIP have never been far from the Silver Screen. In Indonesia, they're its bedrock.
The silent flicks of Thirties' Bali sucked hungrily on the island's bare-breasted cabinet-postcard image that encouraged so many gilded tourists – and dodgy stars like Charlie Chaplin – to visit its sultry, forbidden shores...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Religion Matters ~ 'Kajeng Kliwon' ~ A Very Bad-Hair Day on Bali
IF YOU DON'T pray – or pay very close attention – Kajeng Kliwon is the day when you get run off your 'bike; or forget the pan on the stove until it melts; or your dog dies of a heart-attack; or a coconut falls on your head; or you leave your kids behind in the departure lounge; or your walls just fall down.
You have been seriously warned...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Getting Around ~ Surviving Bali on a 'Bike
CHRISTINA IS A SAVVY 60-year-old American who's come to Ubud to set up nest. She's never ridden a motorbike before and has already fallen off twice in two weeks.
– "I've just learned how to turn left," she says, "without feeling as if I'm going to tip over..."
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Tourism & Self-Enrichment ~ Eat, Pray, Self-Love
I'M SITTING IN Ubud's Black Beach Italian restaurant on Jalan Hanuman waiting for my spaghetti bolognese. A tattooed Australian woman in her thirties – all swinging-tits-in-the-salad – picks the table in front of me. Her obedient female friend, all frumpy and over-forty and painfully low on self-esteem, takes the opposite chair.
The Tattooed Lady kicks off with a beer...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Health Matters ~ Scorpions, Mosquitoes, Hornets, Poisonous Caterpillars... And Other Strange Tails on Bali
Nowhere is free from the tax of life. We all have to pay for our slice of Bali paradise – and this often comes in the shape of our biting, stinging, crawling, flying-insect cousins.
It's the downside of environment-sharing...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Getting Around ~ It's Silly Season Again ~ Renting a Scooter, and Crashing it, on Bali
I'M WAITING FOR a friend on Jalan Suweta in Central Ubud. Three young Scandinavian women are at the side of the road clinching a deal on their new scooter rentals. They mount, and look non-plussed as they hunt for the ignition. The rental lady demonstrates how to switch their motorbikes on.
It really doesn't bode well...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Tourism & Self-Enrichment ~ A Dutchman Goes to a Gypsy Fortune-Teller
A DUTCH BOY in Holland goes to a gypsy fortune-teller who tells him that he is, in fact, Balinese. Afterwards, his uncle visits the Island of Virgins and brings him back a wooden carving of a bare-breasted lady.
Lucky for him it wasn't one of those funny-shaped wooden bottle-openers that looks like a cock...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Holidays from the Jungle ~ The Heads of Trunyan
MAYBE I SHOULD have taken Lonely Planet's guide to Bali and Lombok more seriously. Three times they warn the unwary: 'Don't go'. I'm stopped at this remote village's edge by a tough-looking man in his twenties who wants me to change an Australian twenty-dollar bill for Indonesian rupiah. 'And don't worry about the exchange rate'. On his black T-shirt are near-foot-high, white letters that read:
'YOU SUCK'.
Welcome to Trunyan, one of the oldest villages in Bali...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Tourism & Self-Enrichment ~ The Land of Self-Healing and Snake Oil
MAN-BUNS, CAMEL-TOES, hipster beards and Buddha tattoos flood the downtown Ubud scene. Not enlightened yet? Then you're late to the Conscious Party, kid.
Shake out those Kundalini Awakenings with some HoopYogini™ and Bhakti BoogieŽ at the Yoga Barn. Celebrate The Divine Feminine with a splash of Shakti Dance. Puff up your lungs in a Sacred Breathwork Immersion Workshop, insert a Jade Egg at The Womb Temple for luck and polish it off with some tantalising Manifesting And Abundance.
You know you're worth it...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Religion Matters ~ An American Calonarang
NOW YOU KNOW how Jim Carrey felt. Several nights ago, to celebrate the grand opening of the newly-renovated, Disney-style temple in Campuhan, there was a Calonarang ceremony – a spiritually-charged ritual drama where sacred masks are donned, souls are possessed by the unseen and deep trance ensues.
But this one was a little different...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Getting Around ~ The Other Side of the Coin ~ Just Another Motorbike Crash on Bali
IBU KETUT'S LATE. She's normally at my house by 10 in the morning: I'm the second job of the day. After me, she'll spend another eight hours cooking in the kitchen of a five-star Ubud hotel to support her seven children.
It's a great life if you don't weaken.
She starts sweeping, and I notice she's limping. There's a spreading bruise and an angry graze running past her knee and onto her calf. She wants to carry on cleaning: I sit her down and ask her what happened.
She's shy; I press...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Personal Stories ~ Diary of a Market Girl
"I DON'T KNOW how old I am. I was born on Pagerwesi Day – a Balinese ceremonial day where we put offerings out for our Gods to protect our homes and compounds from evil. Pagerwesi means 'iron wall' in Balinese. That's how I remember my birthday. We didn't use Western calendars back then.
I think I'm about 49 years old.
I left school when I was nine. My parents had ten children, although two of them died – my younger sister when she was still learning to speak, and my older brother when he was about ten. We don't know why they died – they just didn't wake up in the morning...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Food Talk ~ Durian ~ The King of Stink
SOFT, SUCCULENT, SPIKY and stinky, the durian fruit is canonised by some and demonised by many, many more. Known to its fans as the 'King of Fruits', it's heavily rich in minerals and vitamins and a sworn enemy of free radicals.
The thing is, not everyone's on the same page – and its critics don't pull any punches when it comes to the pong.
"Ungodly."
"Like a three-week-old dead cow in custard..."
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Religion Matters ~ The Tale of Ganesha the Globetrotter
The Indian Lord Ganesha certainly got around. First stop on his round-Asia tour was a spell in Buddhist Tibet with its strong tantric leanings – a convenient spot to re-invent himself as Vinayaka and then as the dancing red Nritta Ganapati – before a full-blown alter-ego revamp as the scarlet, twelve-armed Maha Rakta Ganapati. Now, Maha Rakta Ganapati was unusually fond of skullcaps filled to the brim with human flesh and blood, and this we might charitably put down to a bad trip.
After all, what happens in Tibet stays in Tibet...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Tourism & Self-Enrichment ~ From Ubud With Love
I'M STAYING AT A CUTE, family-run bed-and-breakfast – a homestay – on Ubud's trendy Jalan Goutama. A young member of the homestay's family tours her compound, blessing it with incense and rice and jepun-flower offerings in little hand-made palm-leaf boxes.
All is well in Bali's spiritual capital...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
Holidays from the Jungle ~ Lombok ~ A Line in the Sand
GILI AIR, LOMBOK. We take a morning walk along the pristine beach, past the new dive centres and manicured lawns where the dry jungle and coconut groves and lazy, grazing cows used to be. Two sun-bathing white men sit in a little home-made nest in the virgin sand. One has balanced a camera on his knees and is pointing it steadily at the edge of the shallow sea...
[ ... » Read on... » ]
© 2021 John Storey. All Rights Reserved.
The Last Pic
Portrait of the Day
Portraits from Bali by Ubud High
Photograph by © Ubud High.
© 2021 John Storey. All rights reserved.
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The Ubud Handbook
THE UBUD HANDBOOK ~ Your free guide to living in Ubud and Bali in an online nutshell.
Religion Matters
∞ The Tale of Ganesha the Globetrotter ~ Bali's Elephant-Headed Hindu God
‘First stop on Shree Ganesha's round-Asia tour was a spell in Buddhist Tibet with its strong tantric leanings – a convenient spot to re-invent himself as Vinãyaka, and then as the dancing red Nritta Ganapati – before a full-blown alter-ego revamp as the scarlet, twelve-armed Maharakta Ganapati. Now, Maharakta Ganapati was unusually fond of skullcaps filled with human flesh and blood – and this we might charitably put down to a bad trip.
After all, what happens in Tibet stays in Tibet...’
∞ An American Calonarang ~ Trance & Possession on Bali
‘To cut an all-night story short, the mask was donned by a dancer who fell into a deep trance. But instead of staying in the temple, he began to run. And run. He became violent and uncontrollable. He ran for four kilometers down the road – the crowd scrambled after him. He ended up in a cemetery just past my house, and in the dead of night began to do frenzied battle with unseen foes...’
∞ 'Nyepi' ~ Bali's Hindu New Year, and the Day of Silence ~ Melasti, Ngerupuk, Ogoh-Ogoh & Manis Nyepi
‘If previous New Years' Days have seen you waking up with a crippling hangover trying to remember what you did the night before, maybe it's time you headed to Bali in March. Nyepi – the Balinese Day of Silence, and the start of the Hindu Saka New Year – is a day, a night and a day you'll never forget....’
∞ 'Kajeng Kliwon' ~ A Very Bad-Hair Day on Bali
‘Kajeng Kliwon is the kind of day when anything that can happen will happen. It invariably does.
You have been seriously warned...’
Personal Stories
∞ Diary of a Market Girl
“When I had my sixth and seventh babies at the hospital – my twin girls – the doctor ordered me to have a Caesarian. And without asking me, he tied my tubes off as well.
I think he thought I'd had enough babies...”
Food Talk
∞ Durian ~ The King of Stink
“On the third bite,” says one hater, “it was as though I'd just eaten a diseased, parasite-infested animal with a bad case of rabies. I prayed I wouldn't be sick because I really didn't want to taste it again on the way back up...”
Culture Bites
∞ Cinema Paradiso ~ Bali's Seat in the History of Indonesian Cinema
‘Boobs and political censorship have never been far from the Silver Screen – in Indonesia, they're its bedrock. The silent flicks of Thirties' Bali sucked hungrily on the island's bare-breasted cabinet-postcard image that encouraged so many gilded tourists – and dodgy film-stars like Charlie Chaplin – to visit its sultry, forbidden shores...’
Getting Around ~ Bali 'Biking
∞ Surviving Bali on a 'Bike
“For me, some of the most dangerous people on the road are white people. I avoid them like the plague. You can tell the ones who are going to hurt others – the fixed grins, the hunched over the handle-bars, the wobbling around corners and shouts of indignation when they finally hit someone – because they have absolutely no idea how life and the road works around here...”
∞ It's Silly Season Again ~ Renting a Scooter, and Crashing it, on Bali
‘She tears into the traffic. She can't stop. She narrowly misses hitting a car head-on, swerves past a mum on a 'bike and slaloms across the road. Before she hits anyone – it's a miracle she doesn't – she falls in a bad-sounding heap of bent metal and smashing plastic. A group of Balinese rush to pick her up before the cops see her...’
∞ The Other Side of the Coin ~ Just Another Motorbike Accident on Bali
‘She starts sweeping and I notice she's limping. There's a spreading bruise and an angry graze running past her knee and down her calf. She wants to carry on cleaning – I sit her down and ask her what happened.
She's shy; I press...’
Health Matters
∞ Let's Get Wet ~ The Rainy Season on Bali
‘Rule number one on a monsoon day? Don't get wet.
You may not realise that getting caught in a cloudburst or shower on Bali – particularly if you're on a motorbike – is the tropical equivalent of walking naked outside during a Prague Winter after a lukewarm bath.
It'll really slow you down. The shivers, hot-and-cold flushes, a chesty cough, diarrhoea, sneezing, stomach pains, a belting headache and aching bones are all at the top of the list...’
∞ Scorpions, Mosquitoes, Hornets, Poisonous Caterpillars... And Other Strange Tails on Bali
‘Nowhere is free from the tax of life. We all have to pay for our slice of Bali paradise – and this often comes in the shape of our biting, stinging, crawling, flying-insect cousins.
It's the downside of environment-sharing...’
Holidays from the Jungle
∞ The Heads of Trunyan
‘Agricultural, and unpractised in the dark art of handling international tourists, the aristocratic farmer-people of Trunyan have acquired a damaging reputation for aggression. Their unique tourist draw – a jungle-cemetery where bodies are left in the open to disintegrate underneath a magical banyan tree – is regularly shunned by travellers on the time-sensitive tourist circuit...’
∞ Lombok ~ A Line in the Sand
‘Ten meters away and the young man finally looks up – an inane, animal-like grin taped across his face as his girlfriend grips his porcelain butt and grimaces towards the empty blue sky. They disengage like street dogs, utter an invective in Russian, and stare...’
Tourism & Self-Enrichment
∞ Eat, Pray, Self-Love
‘My concentration's shot to pieces. The spaghetti keeps falling off my fork. She's on her third large beer now. She starts to say 'facking' even more, and is speaking so loudly that people passing on the street have begun to look her way, and she's spitting bits of ciabatta bread and tomato and fish into her friend's dinner...’
∞ From Ubud With Love
‘I'm staying at a cute, family-run bed-and-breakfast – a homestay – on Ubud's trendy Jalan Goutama. A young member of the homestay's family tours her compound, blessing it with incense and rice and flower-petal offerings in little hand-made palm-leaf boxes.
All is well in Bali's spiritual capital...’
∞ A Dutchman Goes to a Gypsy Fortune-Teller
‘A Dutch boy in Holland goes to a gypsy fortune-teller who tells him that he is, in fact, Balinese. Afterwards, his uncle visits the Island of the Gods and brings him back a wooden carving of a bare-breasted lady.
Lucky for him it wasn't one of those funny-shaped wooden bottle-openers that looks like a cock...’
∞ The Land of Self-Healing and Snake Oil
‘Shake out those Kundalini Awakenings with some HoopYogini™ and Bhakti Boogie® at the Yoga Barn. Celebrate The Divine Feminine with a splash of Shakti Dance. Puff up your lungs in a Sacred Breathwork Immersion Workshop®, insert a Jade Egg for luck at The Womb Temple™ and polish it off with some tantalising Manifesting And Abundance.
You know you're worth it...’
Search Ubud High
Popular search terms:
ganesha / covid / scorpions / scooter rental / trance / yoga and wellness / hornets / nyepi / balinese traditional paintings / rainy season / snakes / 2022 bali spirit festival / dengue fever
And finally, the weather
Today's weather forecast for Ubud, Bali, Indonesia ⇨
