ww

w.g

roov

ekor

ea.c

om M

ay 2

017

66

ubud in the tWilight of SilenCe Nyepi, ogoh ogohs, and the essence of BaliStory by rob Shelley Photos by Jamie koch and rob Shelley

tr

av

EL

Bali’s

ww

w.g

roov

ekor

ea.c

om M

ay 2

017

67

ubud in the tWilight of SilenCe

S treet dogs laze along the narrow roads, motorbikes and vans speeding down upon them. The drivers don’t slow down; the dogs don’t hurry up. They know

there’s no need. Just before disaster, the dogs slug-gishly trot to the shoulder of the road—safe and sound. That’s Ubud, the heart of Bali.

relaxation and balanceThe city of Ubud, in central Bali, exists as a

contradiction of chill relaxation and insane bus-tle. In one way, it has become the cliche place to find yourself in that hippie, new-age spiritual way. My wife visited recently for yoga, meditation, and chakra healing, and she decided go back for her spring break. This time she took me.

I just finished five years as a hagwon teach-er in Gangnam and was excited to unplug. Like most folks today, I find myself spiraling deep into a techno-vortex of smartphone screens and stim-ulus addiction. I can barely eat or wash the dish-es without the glow of TV or the drone of a pod-cast reverberating in my ears. I hoped the warm weather, friendly people, and chill island vibe would reboot my brain; along with a healthy dose of meditation, yoga, and massage.

I could also eat clean food. I don’t know if it’s the inevitable result of West-coast hipsters flock-ing to the island’s cultural capital, but Ubud is in many ways the spiritual sibling of the Pacific Northwest. Many of the restaurants are vegetari-an or vegan. Cafes not only have quality espresso but next-level options like butter coffee, nitro cold brew, and tons of dairy-free milk. It is like being in Vancouver or Portland—organic-this, locally sourced-that. I also saw shops offering the neo-politan ice cream of hipster fashion: tattoos, body piercings, and dreadlocks.

I thought everything was aligned for us to have a peaceful and restorative vacation, but Ubud was not the cliche I expected.

tr

av

EL

69w

ww

.gro

ovek

orea

.com

May

201

7

noise and dangerThe mostly Hindu Balinese seem never to

run out of festivals. I figured the ongoing Spirit Festival might be just what I needed to nes-tle into Bali’s nurturing hands. But like many things in Bali today, the Spirit Festival was for tourists. The only real signs of a Spirit Festi-val were packed streets and a weekend-long music festival with DJs and musicians from around the world.

Luckily my wife and I stayed at a quiet resort on the edge of town, near the rice pad-dies. Unfortunately, the resort next door held the music festival. The bass was still thumping when we fell asleep after 3am.

The town of Ubud was also much busier than my wife led me to believe. I guess it was this festival. Motorbikes flooded the streets of Bali, outnumbering cars by about 8 to 1. And a strong minority of these bikes were driven by shaky tourists.

Bali is a kingdom of motorcyclists. My wife’s coworker warned us of their danger. A Korean, he had taken a ride on a motorbike taxi that had toppled over. Later, his mother visited Bali and he warned her not to take the motorbike taxis. She didn’t listen and she, too, toppled over. My wife and I both love walking, and now had a wary attitude towards motor-bikes, so our feet carried us hour after hour

while we sweated underneath the Indonesian sun. The problem with walking in Ubud is that it takes the concentration and reaction time of a competitive video gamer. The sidewalks are less than 3ft (1m) wide and are somewhat busy themselves. However, they are also obstruct-ed with parked bikes and other vehicles. Worst of all, they are in a state of disrepair that should be criminal. It’s like a series of isolated earthquakes hit only Ubud’s sidewalks. Stones thrust upward at random spots and an-gles, and great gaps are scattered throughout the city. If you don’t look down closely enough, you could literally fall into the sew-ers and die.

With your eyes glued to the sidewalk in front of you, you see the need to frequently step into the street to walk around ob-structions and missing sections. But if you for-get to look (which is surprisingly easy consid-ering the Balinese drive on the opposite side of the road from Koreans and Americans) you could also die. One time, I managed to glance over my shoulder before stepping out: a tour-ist, clearly afraid of Ubud’s thick and chaotic traffic, had been hugging the curb behind me

while zooming down the street. This was one of about a dozen times I figured I saved my own life.

The roads buzzed with traffic. You had to look down. You had to look over your shoulder. There wasn’t a single crosswalk, traffic light, or stop sign that I saw. Needless to say, it wasn’t the relaxing, bal-anced atmosphere I had envi-sioned.

twilight of silenceTwo days before leaving for

Bali, my father-in-law asked us what we planned to do for Nye-pi: the Balinese day of silence. Apparently, right in the middle of our spring break vacation, the entire population of Bali planned to take the day off. Many take a vow of silence or even fast for

the day. The airport shuts down. Every busi-ness shuts down. It’s illegal to even step onto the streets. Presumably, the street dogs finally get to nap between lanes.

Luckily, as tourists staying at the beautiful Byasa resort, we were allowed to speak and use electricity. Most of the island even keep their lights off for Nyepi.

it’s like a series of isolateD

earthquakes hit only ubuD’s

siDeWalks. stones thrust upWarD at ranDom spots anD angles, anD great

gaps are scattereD throughout the city. if you Don’t

look DoWn closely enough, you coulD literally fall into the seWers anD Die.

70w

ww

.gro

ovek

orea

.com

May

201

7

musicians playeD oDD, horror-moVie music, anD little

chilDren grabbeD the bamboo

scaffolDings of these Demon

floats anD stageD mock battles to the Delight of the croWDs. as the tWilight

before bali’s Day of silence

DescenDeD upon ubuD, tourists anD locals alike Drank big glass bottles of bintang lager anD applauDeD the chilDren.

However, leading up of the day of silence was a festival sort of like our Halloween. Res-idents presumably spent many months craft-ing parade floats designed as anime-style de-mons, called Ogoh Ogohs. Just before sunset, crowds gathered in the streets to watch and cheer. Musicians played odd, horror-movie music, and little children grabbed the bamboo scaffoldings of these demon floats and staged mock battles to the delight of the crowds. As the twilight before Bali’s day of silence de-scended upon Ubud, tourists and locals alike drank big glass bottles of Bintang lager and applauded the children.

The day of silence itself was our first op-portunity for true relaxation. All the restau-rants were closed, but the owners of the Byasa invited us to share homecooked meals with them. However, there happened to be anoth-er festival on Nyepi that, one server told us, only comes to Ubud once every 40 years or so.

I found it hard to believe that our luck could be so bad, again, considering our accidental prox-imity to the music festival days before. This new festival, on the day of legally-enforced si-lence, involved some sort of wooden contrap-tion clanging and banging without melody or discernable rhythm, hour after hour.

bali baliOnce the excitement of the festivals was

over, things in Ubud became more like I ex-pected. The lines at the famous Yoga Barn were no longer blockbusters, and we could ac-tually sign up for some meditation. We did two music-based sessions. The first, called Sound Medicine, consisted of two musicians playing different instruments and walking around the room, while we laid down, about sixty of us, and centered ourselves.

At one point I became so centered that

I woke myself with a thunderous snore. The proceeding adrenaline from embarrassing myself kept me from sleeping, or even relaxing, again. Still, there’s nothing quite like emptying your mind in the quiet dark while a dude plays the didgeridoo a foot from your head. It’s an ex-perience to feel your hair follicles vibrating.

The next meditation was called Gong Bath. It took place in a sort of crow’s nest where there was a canopy surrounded by open walls. It was at night and it rained heavily through-out, which was itself insanely peaceful.

The gong bath consisted of another medi-tation leader playing several gongs after asking us to consider the possibility that each gong was tuned to the frequency of the planets. Somehow the suggestion was enough to al-low me to have a mild psychedelic experience where I imagined myself floating through space, eventually entering a black hole and appearing in another universe.

tr

av

EL

71

Suddenly, I became aware people getting up and leaving. I thought it the very defini-tion of rudeness, until I realized there was no more gong. Apparently, announcing the end of the session wasn’t our leader’s style; his style was to leave half-sleeping people in the dark to just figure it out for themselves. Aside from the street dogs, this might have been the most quintessentially Bali experience.

Soon it was time to leave. Our driver was a local guy who my wife had hired a few times before. Like all Balinese people we met, he was both extremely nice and also nearly in-comprehensible. With all the Balinese I talked to, it seemed as though if something wasn’t understood in conversation they felt it was better to just laugh and pretend to understand; remaining chill and happy rather than risk embarrassment or stress.

In Bali, meaning slips through the cracks but the easy, positive vibes and constant con-

versation glue people together. A lover of communication, our driver, de-

spite barely speaking English, informed us that he was well on his way to barely speaking Mandarin. When he found out that we lived in Seoul, he told us that lots of Koreans had started coming to Bali, and showed us that he could say 안녕하세요. We got into a conversa-tion about Korea and Bali—conversation bare-ly ceased between us the whole trip—and we praised his island’s relaxed vibe. He told us about his casual schedule and all the things he liked to do to chill, proclaiming things like “Dis is da Bali way!”

Then I thought of another Korean word that I knew would both explain the essence of Korea and be useful to him when talking to Korean tourists: Bally bally (hurry hurry!). It wasn’t until I heard the words out of my mouth that I understood what I had said. Bali, the home of chill island people, was also the word

for Korea’s anxiety-driven obsession with hur-ried productivity.

The three of us—my wife, myself, and our driver—sat there in our first uncomfortable si-lence, days after Nyepi had ended, stunned by how the word Bali could encapsulate two very different peoples, and that we were soon leav-ing one for the other.