Tomorrow (23/1) Tionghoa people believed world is entering Chinese New Year 2563. This year is Water Dragon year as it is convinced to bring prosperity for us. The coming of Chinese New Year (CNY) 2563 is welcoming happily by Chinese people. Any kinds of preparation had done like one in Griya Kongco Dwipayana Tanah Kilap Denpasar yesterday.

Some people looked preparing offerings to pray together to welcome New Year ’s Eve (22/1). Big candles and large lantern also had set up. Some Buddhists also was cleaning some Gods and Goddess statues. Surrounding environment of this temple also looks clean. The leader of Griya Kongco Dwipayana I.B. Adnyana said the preparation of welcoming CNY had almost done. According to him, massive pray will hold on Sunday’s midnight and it will accommodate barongsai show.

Barongsai is the sign of bad luck repellent and a pray for prosperity and a better life. Further CNY is coming with Siwaratri night as it is a great moment to contemplate. He also said Barongsai is a sign to repel bad luck and begging for prosperity. Furthermore it is a great moment to change ourselves to be better. It can start by our leaders so they can be a good example for their people.

CNY also hoped to tight solidarity between other religions to create peaceful life. In the other side same activities also appeared in Cao Fuk Mio Temple on Kargo Taman Street, Denpasar. The huge lanterns had set up while old lanterns also had replaced with the new ones to give a new hope and illuminate the Buddhists. Gods and Goddess statues also had cleaned up. In front of the temple gate, there are a couple of sugarcane bar with Bali cultural style to sign peaceful family relationship. When Imlek day arrives, children are usually using red clothes with dragon or hong bird pictures. Besides clothes, your houses will decorated by lanterns and candles. The one of great tradition is sharing angpao. Angpao signed energy transfer or lucky transfer from married people to the children. “The most important is not the money but also its meaning,” said him.

News by Bali Post

Though the independence celebration is not bright like others, but this event was not only attending by local teachers but also foreign teachers and students. “We had prepared this independence ceremony. The preparation is short due to we have not much time,” said Kristianti, one of teacher in this school. Though it held short preparation, but the most important thing is the meaning of the celebration. It should give them nationalism feeling to the students though they got international curriculum in this school.

In this ceremony, all of teacher had to use batik uniform. The rule is also valid for foreign teachers. The unique facts pointed to some teachers from India who are fluently speaking Indonesian language were also singing Indonesia Raya. The head of the choir group was a music teacher from Philippine also looked gladly singing Indonesia Raya song. However Kristianti added annually Independence day celebration was not hold any traditional games like panjat pinang, eat crackers, and marble games. It is causing by the absence of the most students, further the students usually are back home after flag ceremony.

News by Antaranews

It leapt out of a tree on to my wife’s shoulder and grabbed at her shiny earring. She screamed. I was a few steps behind, so I rushed forward and punched ineffectually at the hairy pest. I am only 5ft 7in (1.70m) tall but the monkey was only about a foot high. The size differential counted in my favor and the monkey tumbled over a nearby temple wall overlooking a steep slope leading down to the sea.

The monkey’s fate remains unknown, but I would put money on his survival and recidivist criminal tendencies.

Unforgettable

The monkeys in the temple gardens of Pura Luhur Uluwatu are famous for their annoying and often aggressive behaviour towards the tourists who flock there. But they are an integral part of the island’s Hindu and Buddhist beliefs and are, ultimately, part of the temple’s charm.

The temple itself is famously one of Bali’s holiest sites. It is a beautiful place, standing on a series of rocky cliffs nearly 328ft (100m) above the white surf of the Indian Ocean. Uluwatu is a guardian temple, dedicated to the spirits of the sea and keeping the island safe from any demons that might inhabit the south-west.

Going to Uluwatu in the late afternoon is an unforgettable experience. The sunset is exquisite and as dusk gathers you can watch a Kecak dance. The men sit cross-legged in concentric circles, naked from the waist up around an ornate oil lamp carved with dragons.

They begin a rhythmic chant of “Chak, chak, chak,” which induces a trance-like state, while their arms move in unison like flames, or the wind blowing. Two young women wearing dresses of silk and gold weave their way through the chanting men as they perform a complex dance telling the story of Prince Rama and Princess Sita.

Princess Sita is kidnapped by an evil king and Rama engages Hanoman, the magic white monkey god, to rescue her. The final scene, well after the sun has finally set, where Hanoman breaks out of a ring of fire and destroys the evildoers is pure dance magic.

Gods and monkeys aside, there is plenty to beguile and fascinate any visitor to Bali. The seas are warm, the beaches white, or charcoal black. The gardens and fields are a riot of emerald and scarlet and bright yellow.

Exquisite Food

One of the most beautiful sights in Asia, I think, are the green and silver contours of the Jati Luwih rice terraces. Rice, the Balinese people believe, is a gift of the gods. In keeping with this, their food is exquisite.

Whether it is the simple delights like nasi goreng – fried rice done with many seasonings – grilled satay or a variety of noodle dishes served by street vendors, coconut, garlic, ginger, pepper, coriander, tamarind, lemon grass are just some of the spices used, and the results are spectacular.

More exotic dishes such as bebek betutu, duck steamed and roasted in banana leaf, or guling celeng, roast suckling pig, are like nothing you have ever tasted before. The seafood grills at Jimbaran Bay are prepared on open charcoal fires and you sit at a table on the beach with the surf gleaming in the darkness just behind you while the lights of planes taking off and landing at Denpasar Airport float through the distant night sky.

Food is a blessing never taken for granted by the Balinese. All over the island one sees little woven baskets called banten jotan containing tiny colourful offerings of rice, fruit and flowers to the gods.

A taxi driver even had one on his dashboard. “Every six months we have a ceremony,” he said. “For a car, for a knife, for anything metal. Also for a building, a house, animals. “Everything has a ceremony. That is our tradition.”

Perhaps the most peaceful place on the whole island is the temple of Pura Taman Ayun, built in the 17th Century. The name means Garden Temple in the Water and it is built on an island in a peaceful river. The gardens of frangipani, hibiscus and bougainvillea tumble over the canals and ancient stones while birds and butterflies float through the courtyards and a large fountain dedicated to the gods of the underworld sprays cool water through the humid air.

Pagoda-like towers called meru rise into the blue sky. The number of tiered roofs is always an odd number, from three to 11. The tallest represent the mountains in Bali above which the gods are said to live. Strolling through its beautiful gardens, it is easy to see how so many have come to believe this island is the meeting place for gods and humans, and of course, monkeys too.

Written by  Hamilton Wende
Published on news.bbc.co.uk

Ceremony

Devout Hindus , the Balinese put out offerings each morning resembling works of art. Fruit and flowers beautifully arranged in palm leaves displayed in front of their shops with rich incense burning to bring good luck and to appease the spirits. Great care is taken top-reserve their tradition and young and old alike continue to practice these beliefs. Everyday you will see a ceremony occur. Whether it be a wedding a birthday or an elaborate cremation, the Balinese enjoy a life full of festivities.

Just a short ride out of the main tourist destination of Kuta beach is the peaceful town of Ubud. This picturesque village situated in Bali’s interior, among lush rice terraces is a place where time stands still.

Farmers tend their paddy fields by hand as their flocks of painted ducks waddle on their land. When walking through a peaceful path, you may be stopped by a local boy who will climb a tree to offer you a fresh coconut.

Rice Farmer

Skillful artists sell their masterpieces to the casual buyer or to the serious collector and handmade treasures of masks and statues can be bought in the many family run shops. Or you can find a real bargain at the colourful market in the centre of town, selling sarongs and t-shirts to crafts and paintings.

It is famous for its traditional dance performed each night in one of many ornate temples.. Masked performers dressed in colourful costumes telling stories of their history and folklore in the outdoor theatres under the canopy sky. Great dedication is given to the study of this difficult craft and a highly skilled Balinese Dancer is revered throughout the land.

Dancers

Quiet cafes line the road leading to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, a protected portion of jungle containing long tail macaques. Unlike other sanctuary’s I have visited in south East Asia, this one does not encourage the monkeys to fend for themselves. Vendors sell bananas and peanuts for profit so that visiting tourists can feed these feisty creatures. They come to expect their treats regularly causing fights among the monkeys and tourists alike.

Monkey Forest

Enjoy a luxurious massage at one of the many spas. For the reasonable price of $12 you will enjoy one and a half hours of pure heaven. Skilled masseurs work out your travel weary muscles with ancient old techniques, finishing with an herbal body scrub and hot floral bath. Pure decadence.

Choosing a meal at one of the many eateries can be a difficult task. With food ranging from traditional Indonesian babi guling (suckling pig roasted on a spit and must be ordered a day in advance.) to Italian pasta and pizza or roasted duck. It is a playground for the taste buds and eating in the candle lit setting while Balinese music plays softly in the background gives a feeling of tranquility. You relax while drinking a Bintang beer and think that you may never leave this tropical paradise.

Ubud is well traveled on many peoples routes in Bali, but its laid back atmosphere dedicated tradition and a thriving artist community give it the facade of being the “real” Bali. Many will say that the real Bali no longer exists, that it has been taken over by tourism and western influence. But I see it thriving in the everyday lives of the local people and the real Bali exists in their hearts.

Article by International Business Times – ibtimes.com

Mr. Salans, 38, who is equal parts French and American, has garnered rave reviews and recently expanded his restaurant to include a workshop, where cooking classes and private chef’s tastings are held several times a week. One evening a few months ago, Mozaic buzzed with life, as every wicker chair in the 60-seat pavilion was taken by 8 o’clock. Since being accepted as a member of the French association Les Grandes Tables du Monde in 2004, Mozaic has also received recognition from Wine Spectator magazine and The Miele Guide, an Asian restaurant guide published in Singapore.

Not long after Mozaic opened in 2001, Bali’s tourism industry was hit by two terrorist attacks. The world financial crisis and renewed terrorism warnings have added to the island’s woes. But Mozaic (62-361-975768; www.mozaic-bali.com) has managed to thrive in a place better known for its beaches and rice paddies than for its cuisine.

“Chris is very business oriented, which comes from his American side, but he’s also very passionate, which illustrates the French side of him,” said Rakesh Kapoor, the general manager of Mozaic, who has known Mr. Salans for six years. “The way he infuses his food with local flavors couldn’t happen without him embracing the culture.”

Guests choose from four six-course tasting menus that change nightly and showcase Mr. Salans’s “market cooking” style, which takes Indonesian ingredients and incorporates them into a range of French dishes, resulting in creations like curry butter-roasted crayfish and passion fruit cream baked in phyllo pastry. Other Indonesian ingredients he uses include turmeric, ginger flowers and cardamom.

“In New York, you’re lucky to work with ginger and lemon grass,” Mr. Salans said, “and they call that Asian.”

He buys as much as he can locally, but imports certain premium ingredients he can’t find, like wagyu beef and oysters from Australia and cèpe mushrooms from France. He hires a full-time employee to “go knocking on the doors” of farmers on Bali for fresh passion fruit. He buys baby lamb and crayfish from the island of Java.

Guests are first seated in a newly renovated lounge decorated with white sofas, where they sip Champagne and select their menu before moving to the main dining room and garden, full of tropical greenery. The prix-fixe menu costs 550,000 to 750,000 rupiah ($46 to $63 at 12,303 rupiah to the dollar) a person before wine.

The workshop in the back of the restaurant feels like a cozy studio apartment with an open kitchen stocked with equipment from the German oven maker Rational, the French cast-iron cookware company Staub, and Epromas, a Singaporean sous vide equipment manufacturer. The companies donated the equipment in exchange for exposure to the Bali market.

Mr. Salans holds casual half-day cooking classes for tourists and professional training courses for local chefs working at luxury hotels and high-end restaurants. Asked whether he’s creating competition for himself by teaching the island’s chefs, Mr. Salans said confidently, “Just because you go to college for three days doesn’t mean you can graduate.”

From an early age, Mr. Salans, who has a French mother and a Jewish American father, has felt the pull of different cultures. Though he was born in Washington, his family moved to Paris when he was 2 and he grew up there. After high school, he moved near Boston to attend Tufts University, majoring in biology.

Deciding on a career was a struggle, and his father pushed him to go to medical school. To delay the decision, he returned to Paris to enroll in Le Cordon Bleu. He then landed his first paying job at the Paris restaurant Lucas Carton, where he became addicted to working in a kitchen, despite the horrible conditions.

He said he was underweight, “pale white, and everyone cried at least once a day from the mental abuse.”

“It was like the military,” he said, “and if you’re a masochist — most chefs are — you enjoy it.”

Eventually he landed positions as the chef de cuisine for David Bouley at Bouley Bakery in New York and head chef at Bouchon, Thomas Keller’s bistro in Napa Valley.

While working for Mr. Bouley, Mr. Salans accompanied him to Thailand for a cooking exhibition in 1995, which set off another period of bouncing between two continents, this time Asia and America. “It was the first time I had been in Asia as a chef,” he said. “I loved the explosion of lemon grass, turmeric and galangal,” a gingerlike root.

Mr. Salans was so enamored of the food in Thailand that he began searching for a position in Asia. When the boutique hotel group GHM offered him a job cooking at a property in Bali, he accepted, even though he didn’t know where Bali was. “I looked on the map and saw that it was a tiny dot in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

During his stint in Bali, Mr. Salans met a Javanese woman, Erni, whom he later married and with whom he now has two children. (“They’re trinationals,” he said proudly.) He converted to Islam for his wife, though he calls himself a “bad Muslim” because he “eats pork, swears and drinks.”

After a few more years of cooking in the United States for Mr. Bouley and Mr. Keller, Mr. Salans, along with his wife, went to Bali on what was supposed to be a one-month vacation but resulted in a permanent settlement on the island. Away from the competitive atmosphere and the culture of celebrity chefs in Paris and New York, Mr. Salans has been able quietly to develop his cooking style, with the help of James Ephrain, his British sous-chef.

But being in Bali is not without its challenges. Because Mozaic is one of the few fine dining restaurants in an isolated place, service and cooking standards are difficult to maintain, and the chef is known to drill his staff with classroom lectures, role-playing exercises and even graded tests. “It’s like pulling a truck,” Mr. Salans said. “Sometimes I think I should just be making sandwiches.”

And of course, Mozaic is facing the difficulties of operating in lean economic times. Hotel occupancy rates in Bali are the lowest the island has seen in several years, according to the Bali Hotel Association. “But the good thing is, my business was born in crisis,” Mr. Salans said.

“We opened one month before the World Trade Center bombing in 2001 and we survived the Bali terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2005. We’re resilient.”

Written by Jen Lin-Liu
Published on The New York Times – travel.nytimes.com

Utama Spice won an award last year from the local government as the best natural-care company in Gianyar, the Bali district that includes Ubud. In addition to managing Utama Spice, Lilir is also responsible for sourcing raw ingredients and developing new products for the line. Lilir says that herbal lore is “in her blood”. She was born into a large family of twelve children, in Padangtegal, near Ubud, in 1972. When she was growing up, her parents never took the children to doctors when they were sick “They only used herbs,” Lilir said.

When her mother had a new baby, she did so with the help of only Lilir’s father, without a midwife, nurse or doctor. Lilir’s father, a balian, or herbal healer, would first coat the newborn with turmeric powder, an anti-bacterial agent, then coconut oil, then wash the baby with warm water. After the baby was clean, the father applied ground candle nut mixed with arak to the baby’s umbilical cord stump, twice a day for three to four days, at which point the cord would fall away, with no infection.

He also fed the new mother the steamed young leaves of black taro, so she would pass the afterbirth. If Lilir’s mother didn’t have enough milk for the baby, he would scoop out the soft jelly of a young coconut to feed to the infant. Every Saturday, Lilir’s father made his own version of jamu, or traditional herbal medicine, for the family by mixing turmeric juice with lime and palm sugar. Lilir refers to the mixture as a daily “antibiotic healing” juice.

“I drink this every day, and I haven’t been sick in years,” she said.

Her parents also stressed the use of only natural, organic plants, grown without fertilizers or insecticides. In her family, said Lilir, a wealth of traditional herbal healing lore was passed on from the parents to the children as they grew up. In 1988, Lilir started working as a nanny for an Englishwoman, Melanie Templar, an aromatherapist who had settled in Bali. After 10 years, when Templar’s children no longer needed a nanny, the two discussed working together to develop a line of products based on the traditional healing herbal plants of Bali.

The two set up Utama Spice as a small, cottage industry which could give jobs to poor women, initially producing massage oils. Templar encouraged Lilir to study botany to augment her traditional knowledge of Balinese herbs with scientific training. Lilir also studied Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture with traditional Chinese doctors from Indonesia and the United States.

In her formal study, Lilir had to learn the scientific names of the local flora, as well as the local names. Researchers now come to her for advice, as they often know only the scientific name of the plants they seek, and other local healers often know only the Balinese names, allowing Lilir to bridge the two worlds.

Having already inherited her parent’s faith in organic, or bio-dynamic, sources, Lilir found as she began to develop new products that organic ingredients extended the shelf life. Lilir then studied permaculture with the Indonesian Disaster, Environment and Permaculture Foundation. “They gave me methods for organic farming,” Lilir said.

With her husband, I Made Westi, who had also trained in permaculture, Lilir set up organic gardens to supply herbs for the company. However, as demand for products grew, they quickly outgrew their small plots so she began to work with the Bali Organic Association and its farmers to source more ingredients. She later arranged with a local organic market to have a stall on Saturdays, where she sells Utama Spice products, her homemade turmeric jamu, and rice, cocoa, coconut oil and spices from BOA farmers.

Lilir’s husband Westi also works for Utama Spice. Having come from a family of farmers who also used healing herbs, Westi understands native plants and their uses and benefits, and, like his wife, is a walking encyclopaedia of herbal knowledge. Westi said he tries to be supportive of his wife as she balances her career and a family. As Lilir is so busy juggling her various commitments, he said, he often does the daily shopping or runs the Saturday market stall.

When other Balinese men tease him about doing what are traditionally seen as a wife’s duties, Westi tells them he represents the future of more egalitarian marriages in Bali, that they are stuck in the past and that their relationships with their own wives would be much happier if they emulated him. “Watch and learn,” he tells them.

Lilir said that in tourism villages, like Ubud, most Balinese have left the native healing traditions behind and flocked to Western-trained doctors. “But now many are returning,” she said, “because they’re always sick and weak” from smoking, stress, long work hours and sedentary jobs.

She said people remember a time when Balinese were healthier and lived longer. In smaller, rural villages, people still use traditional herbs and don’t have as many illnesses. What people don’t realize, she said, is that as they lose their agricultural land to development, they are also losing their traditional medical heritage, and are forced to rely on Western medicine; while an entire natural pharmacy grows wild in and around the sawahs, or rice fields.

Lilir is also an advocate for healing massage, and has trained in techniques developed at the Esalen Institute in the United States. She said that massage is another traditional healing practice in Bali families that is seldom practiced anymore. She recently started offering two-hour classes that teaching people to make jamu, custom-designed body oils, scrubs and masks. She said that as she often has tourists taking the class, she uses ingredients that are easy to get in the student’s home countries, or offers a list of alternative materials they can use.

The company’s largest wholesale customers, she said, are from the United States and Japan. The Japanese love Utama Spice’s Bug Begone, a neem and patchouli-based insect repellent, and Lilir said she sends more of the repellent to Japan than all the other products combined that are shipped there.

Utama Spice products are sold across Bali and Indonesia, where the best-selling items are still the massage oils. Inti Spa on Bintan Island has been a customer for more than 12 years. The Four Seasons, Kaman Dalu and many other spas use Utama Spice massage oils and body scrubs. Never one to stop learning, Lilir was recently selected for a four-year scholarship to study Ayurvedic medicine at the Hindu University of Indonesia in Bali.

“Ayurvedic medicine and Balinese herbal traditions are very similar,” she said, explaining both systems are based on old holy books and healing plants. She plans to leave Utama Spice at the end of her studies and set up an Ayurvedic practice. However, she said, it will be difficult to find someone to replace her running the business. Templar returned to live in England several years ago and is no longer involved on a daily basis.

Lilir has tried to train two different people to manage the company, but found that her own unique skill set, with a knowledge of herb lore and botanical training, plus the management and marketing skills she’s had to learn on the job, make her uniquely qualified and make the position difficult to fill.

“People who come to work at Utama Spice have been educated or learned about herbs from books, but they don’t have an intuitive feel for herbs and their uses,” she said. “You can always look up a scientific name on the Internet, but it’s not the same as having a sound working knowledge of Balinese herbs.” Developing products is a skilled art, she said, as herbs and “essential oils can be dangerous if you’re not careful or well trained and experienced in using them.”

A Medicine Cabinet in Your Backyard

Ni Wayan Lilir and her husband, I Made Westi, felt so strongly about educating people about the traditional herbs of Bali, and teaching the importance of saving the natural environment in which the herbs grow, that they developed a guided walk in the sawahs, or rice paddies, around Ubud for tourists and locals. On the tour, they show people how to find traditional herbal cures for many illnesses.

Lilir said that when she was a girl, the rice paddies stretched much further, but now that the artist town of Ubud is becoming heavily built-up, the paddies are becoming fewer and fewer as families sell land to developers. There was a time, she said, when Balinese knew instinctively what healing or useful plants were in season at any given time of year. “But now, many people have forgotten what plants grow together, or they remember only one or two.”

The tour identifies plants used for shampoos, for soap, to treat dandruff and even to set semi-permanent waves in hair. There are leaves for the treatment of diarrhea, ear infections, sore throats and dysentery, and roots to combat hemorrhoids and upset stomachs and even to dye clothes. Walkers also learn what saps clot bleeding, treat cold sores and lessen body odor, which flowers to use for cataracts, conjunctivitis and to aid easy births, the seeds that kill internal parasites when ground and drunk like coffee and the wild spices that alleviate asthma, tuberculosis and colds. Lilir encourages people to taste and smell the various leaves and flowers while walking slowly from plant to plant.

Three- to four-hour-long herb walks start each day at 8:30 a.m. Bookings must be made in advance at 081 2381 6020/4 or on www.baliherbalwalk.com. The cost is $18 per person and includes herbal drinks and tea, Balinese cake and tropical fruit.

Article written by Elizabeth Sinclair
Published on Jakarta Globe – www.thejakartaglobe.com