by Eric.

Once out of the city of Denpasar, we saw about the same kinds of shops and buildings as in the city, except now they were separated by rice padis.

Trees lined the road much of the way, so it wasn't so hard even though we were gently climbing the volcano at mid-day. The rice padi scenery wasn't the classic pretty stuff you see in pictures with lots and lots of terracing. The slope was still gentle here so the terracing was not so dramatic. There would be a field about 30 feet by 60 feet, then a two foot terrace, then another field about the same size.

You see people everywhere doing anything.

Many times you will see a table under a simple roof, like a picnic pavilion. Sometimes six or eight people will be sitting on the table, and they will usually yell something at you. Often "Hallo!" Or more usually, something I don't understand. Sometimes one or two people will be sleeping on the table. Commonly the pavilions are empty. (Joan: my theory is these were bus stops).

You'll pass people in a creek , sometimes in a ditch on the side of the road. Some are bathing, some are just hanging out.

Columns of women with baskets on their heads walk up and down the roads. The baskets contain anything from rocks to laundry to corn.

Sometimes a man carries his harvest in two giant baskets attached to the end of a six foot-long, four inch-diameter bamboo post. The post rests on one shoulder and the same arm wraps around the top of the bamboo. He holds it at about 45 degrees to his body.

If you're lucky you might see groups of women thrashing the rice. A dozen might stand in one of the terraces, each holding a handful of green plant that looks like tall grass, about two feet long. They whack the "grass" up and down against something. I could not see what when we passed. It makes enough noise to convince you that they are working very hard.

You might see a man trudging knee-deep through mud behind a couple of cows dragging a heavy wooden contraption through the muck. He's aerating the soil of a rice padi, I read later.

After seeing these things, I became interested in rice growing. So here's Eric's little lesson on rice--as I read in the Lonely Planet.

The "wet rice" method they use here came from China about 2,000 years ago. Some of the terraces are that old. The wet rice method is very advanced. It requires flooding the field and then changing the water level regularly until harvest time, when the water is drained and the field is allowed to dry. There are at least two advantages of wet rice over dry rice farming. Wet rice produces two crops a years instead of one. And wet rice is ecologically neutral. The same ground can continue to produce wet rice forever. It does not lose nutrients. Other methods require crop rotation or other ways to keep a field fertile.

The trouble or perhaps additional benefit of wet rice is that it requires a division of labor. People have to work together and depend on each other. Theoretically this sort of thing results in a government of some sort. And that is why they suspect that wet rice growing coincided with a great surge in Bali culture.

As we rolled up Monkey Forest Rd. (the name is in English), many young men yelled to us, "Room, room?" We ignored them all and walked into a losmen called the Frog Pond, where nobody was around. A sign on the wall said, "If we're not here, go ahead and take a room." So we did. It was $1.50 a night including banana pancake breakfast.

Ubud is an interesting place. Generally guide books refer to Ubud as a cultural center. Lots and lots of tourists go here, yet there are no Dunkin' Donuts or KFC. There is however, FedEx. FedEx is there to help you ship back all the cultural wares you purchase, or to help importer-exporters do business.

We visited the Neka Museum first thing. The museum shows an excellent history of Balinese art, from way back through early Western influence to today. (It also has a comprehensive collection of photos of the people/govt. officials responsible for creating the museum).

Artists and craftsmen from all around the area fill Ubud's shops with paintings, carvings, baskets, jewelry etc. Prices range from a few thousand Rp. for a small wooden trinket to US$900 for fancy gold rings. In the villages around Ubud, we commonly saw a dozen or more boys and young men sitting under a roof carving away amidst enormous piles of wood shavings.

We visited at about the apex of Indonesia's currency crisis. Not only was the dollar worth more Rp. than ever in history, the prices of many things had not yet risen to compensate. We got some great deals. In fact, the prices of what we bought are small next to what it cost to ship the goodies home. (The prices did start rising while we were there, and are still going up. Note: one of the largest, most expensive things we bought, hand-carved doors from a shop in Tegallagung, near Ubud, never showed up. We ordered the doors and paid the shop in advance for shipping, instead of buying the doors and taking them to a shipper ourselves. All the stuff we took to shippers made it home. So beware of paying for products that haven't been completed yet).

It's fun just to walk through the shops. Along Monkey Forest Road, a line of 20 banners said Selamat Datang Visa, and in English, Bali Welcomes Visa. Few stores took credit cards however.

Every night Ubud has at least two or three shows. This could be a wayang shadow puppet theater or a dance. They charge 10,000 Rp. admission. On top of that there are many Hindu ceremonies around town.

We went to a couple dances. The costumes are the best part. A character called Barong Keket, who's on all the Bali icons, is played by two men sort of like a horse in a circus. The man in front holds a scary mask with a permanent smile and bulging eyes and long upward fangs. He can make a loud crack by snapping the jaws closed. Even though it is not a human face, he is able to show an amazing range of emotion by moving the head around and opening and closing the mouth.

Other characters also have elaborate costumes and sometimes masks. The precise eye and finger movements struck me as truly original. They dart their eyes back and forth in quick jerky movements. The fingers slowly move into weird configurations that truly managed to convey some feeling. Whether they portrayed the feelings they were supposed to, I have no idea. The narrative is in Javanese and some Balinese. Even if it were in English Idoubt I would have understood much. I think the stories are a little like opera. It doesn't matter if you understand. Actually, we did get a little help: the theater handed out brief English language synopses of the dance stories, which are based on the Ramayana and the Mahabarata.

The gamelan orchestra was also the best part. Eerie rythmic and chaotic. Half the orchestra sits on one side of the stage, and half on the other. There's a gong and a couple of drummers, and as far as I can see the rest play gamelans--a xylophone keyboard instrument that's struck with a mallet.

Next: the trouble with Ubud.

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