by Eric.

The trouble with Ubud is you can't walk down the street without several people trying to sell you something. They say, "Hallo? Transport?" to offer you a cab. You could pass the same guy twice in one minute and both times he will say, "Hallo? Transport?"

Poor looking people try to sell us these black chopstick cases, with four pairs of chopsticks inside and a wood carving on the outside. The lid slides down and the practiced salespeople demonstrate this feature like it is some clever trick. The trouble is, we haven't seen a single person in Indonesia eating with chopsticks. They use forks, knives and spoons. I imagine these are some super mass-produced Asian souvenir made in China.

We had said No to these a thousand times when a very poor looking cross-eyed woman tried to sell us one for 1,000 Rp., or about 10 cents (the normal price). You could tell she didn't have her heart in it. We said No out of habit. A moment later we realized we had passed the place we were going so we turned around and walked past her again. Again she tried to sell it to us, without the least zeal. This time Joan, despite being hardened by panhandlers in San Francisco, for years, handed her 500 Rp. as a gift. (Not much, but hey). Some men standing nearby, and also trying to sell us something, said Thank You to us, for helping her.

The other thing people try to sell you are tickets to the various performances. Each one tries to tell you the whole story of the dance like you hadn't heard it already. You have to admire their relentlessness.

I screwed up the first day we were in Ubud by actually talking to one of these guys. Joan was off shopping and I didn't want to buy a ticket without consulting her. But I couldn't get rid of the guy. Like a good fisherman, once he had a nibble, he was going to play me until I was in his boat. Then Joan showed up and got me out. I said, "Maybe later." A mistake.

He said, "If you buy a ticket, buy from me." (These guys charge the same amount as the official ticket office, but they probably get a small commission).

Joan and I then went to the information center, looked at the three shows that night, and bought tickets for the same show he was selling, at the same price. Then damn if we didn't walk past the same guy again a while later. Again he tried to sell us a ticket. This time Joan said "Sudah" ("already," a very useful word in Ubud).

"You were going to buy it from me!" he yelled, rather angry. I said "Sorry," smiled and walked on. Whoops.

The next morning we visited the Monkey Forest at the end of Monkey Forest Rd. There's a big sign in English at the entrance that says, among many other things, "Don't Feed the Monkeys." Right next to the sign several people offer to sell you peanuts and bananas for feeding the monkeys.

We weren't in the park 30 seconds before we saw a little western boy get bit by a monkey. He handed the monkey a peanut. The monkey reached out and grabbed it and set it between its legs, never taking its eyes off the rest of the peanuts the boy held. This did not satisfy the boy. He wanted to see the monkey eat the peanut, so he reached down and grabbed the peanut back, to offer it again. Instantly the monkey grabbed the boys arm and wrapped its mouth around the boy's wrist. The boy cried out and his father told him to let go of the peanut. This worked. Luckily the monkey didn't break any skin so the kid was OK. A minute later the kid's mom was attacked by a monkey as she tried to pose for a cute and cuddly photo. It grabbed her hair and wouldn't let go for awhile. It looked like a scene from a horror flick but she wasn't hurt. (Joan: I was amazed at how the mom hadn't learned from her son's mistake, or from the warnings posted all over the entry to the park).

After that we left the monkeys alone and they left us alone. I couldn't help but be reminded of the incident the day before with the ticket vendor.

Walking back from a shipping company just outside town, we had a bad experience with a bemo driver. Bemos are sort of like a public bus. Most are minivans. And they have certain routes indicated by the color of the van. But the driver is independent. He bargains fare prices, at least with tourists, and roams around the streets for a long time so he can fill up his van before starting the route. You can pay the driver extra to leave right away.

We were thinking about going to a nearby town Gianyar, that day. The narrow road with fairly heavy traffic made the walk a little perilous. We had to walk single file facing traffic. A bemo driver slowed to walking speed in the far lane and yelled to us asking if we wanted a ride. Joan made the mistake of saying something besides Absolutely Not. (Usually Absolutely Not will receive the reply, Yes? But two or three Absolutely Nots works).

Joan asked how much to Gianyar. He said 6,000 Rp. Joan said No way, too much. She asked for 3,000 Rp. He said No, No, 5,000 Rp. We just waved him off. We wanted to eat before we left anyway. But he stayed with us. All the traffic had to nearly run us down to go around him. We kept waving him off and telling him No, but he persisted. "OK, 3,000, get in!" he said. "We're not going, we have business in Ubud. Go away!" he yelled. But he persisted and cars kept zooming right by us. Finally Joan turned around and yanked my arm to follow her. We walked up the road, so the bemo driver could only follow by doing a U-turn or going in reverse. We ducked into a gallery to look at paintings, hoping he would leave. Joan peaked out the door and saw that he had stopped his car in the middle of the road about 50 meters away.

We looked out every few minutes until he disappeared. We started again down the road. A moment later, he was back! He drove up from behind! He must have pulled into a driveway and waited for us to pass, and then pulled out again. He yelled, "3,000, I take you to Gianyar, yes?" No! we said. "Yes????" Finally, after yet another car just about hit us while trying to swerve away from the van driver, Joan threw a fit. "GO!! Get out of here!" she screamed, waving her arms. He looked startled. He drove a little ahead and said, "Yes, Go!" as in Let's Go to Gianyar. Joan screamed again and he left. (I yelled PERGI! which means go away. Later I had a nightmare where I was screaming, PERGI, PERGI!).

One afternoon while we lazed around on our porch resting a Wayan came calling (most Balinese name their first child, girl or boy, Wayan, and then Made, Nyoman and Ketut, for Nos. 2, 3, and 4. No 5. is Wayan again). We knew he was trying to sell us something, but I decided to be friendly until he reached his spiel. We had studied Bahasa Indonesia (the national language of Indonesia, spoken by most everyone; however people grow up speaking local dialects, like Balinese on Bali, and Javanese on Java) every day since our arrival, and I hoped to practice on Wayan.

Wayan tutored us for quite some time, taught us about the Balinese Hindu class system. They have four classes, Brahmina at the top and Sudra at the bottom. Ninety percent of the Balinese are Sudra. Sudra speak low Balinese among themselves, but high Balinese to the upper castes. However, in business, education, etc., Wayan insisted it doesn't matter what class you are. It's just a caste, it does not affect how much money you have, or how you are treated. In his grandmother's day it did.

Eventually, Wayan got around to his purpose. He paints and showed us about 100 of his paintings. We recognized all of them but one as very similar to the styles we liked most at the Neka Museum. It made me feel educated to recognize the style that came from the village of Batuan. The style we didn't recognize was very different and involved long skinny figures with odd body angles and pots on their heads. These drawings were done in pencil on yellow paper.

We liked the idea of buying paintings because they are so easy to mail home. Also, I like buying directly from the artist. We spent about $50 (in Rp.) on seven paintings and felt pretty good about it. We could have talked him down to about $25, I'm pretty sure now, but we didn't because it seemed like stealing. We could see the painstaking work that went into some of the most detailed paintings.

Of course, two days later, we saw works almost 100% identical to Wayan's, including the drawings of long skinny figures, done in pencil, on yellow paper! For just above half the price we paid Wayan. I checked the signatures and I saw no signature at all on some. The ones I found were not Wayan's. We knew Balinese artists imitate each other but we didn't think they did it so much that their paintings were like photo copies of each other. I figure they have an art school in Batuan where they teach young artists not to paint in general, but to paint exactly certain paintings. If you ever need a forgery done, come to Bali. Carvings are the same. This isn't a new phenomenon. At the Neka Museum, we read that the sculptures and other art forms did not vary that much over the past 1,000 years or so before Western influence. When they find something successful, they stick with it.

A lot of work went into the paintings we bought. I will assume Wayan actually did them. Later, in another town, we met some other tourists, who also bought paintings from Wayan. Greg said, "I wouldn't do a paint-by-numbers" painting for the price he was getting paid. He figured maybe he got suckered a bit, too, but he didn't mind.

Next: Volcano

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