Arriving on a quiet night in Denpasar airport I had experienced a very pleasant and friendly flight from Perth by IndoJet. I was comforted to see the 90% Australian crew board at Perth and the plane was lucky if it was a quarter full.
This is my fourth time to Bali so I know to take my own bags from collection so I don’t have to pay to have them carried to the airport entrance. From past experience it was a very quiet evening at the airport without the stress of the bustle of porters and drivers, so I was also able to find the driver organised for me with ease in the relatively small throng of airport pickups holding up signs – this part was my biggest fear of my trip to Bali! Finding the driver!
As we drove to Ubud, about an hour from the airport, Budha told me that normally it would be a very busy night due to the celebrations of Nyepi (new year) but because of the upcoming elections on April 9th they had to keep the festivities toned down. Streets in Kuta were most likely closed to traffic for the parade which included tall agah agah dolls but everywhere else was expected to be subdued celebrations. The following day of Nyepi is a day of contemplation and meditation and everything closes down. Even tourists are expected to stay inside but hotel staff have the day off so I asked Budha to stop off at a shop to pick up some food for the following day on our way to the hotel. Chips, two minute noodles, bread, butter, jam.
Driving into Gianyar we found the celebrations were in full swing. Locals were in their “Sunday best” laughing, carrying big puppet heads on sticks, creating impromptu music by banging on metal pipes and the bottoms of kitchen pots. They thronged the roads and created a perfect western world traffic jam with their festivities. This is what Budha had expected the whole drive to be like. Traffic wardens and police helped keep the traffic flowing waving us on with lighted red batons. Then we started hearing the pops and bangs of homemade fireworks launched from the side of the road by kids – some of them were all bang and no fizz. The first and subsequent loud explosions caused Budha to jump and even swear. He told me that he is nervous of loud noises since the last bombing in Kuta which he saw from his house – too close to home for comfort.
Even though it was 7.30 at night the drive afforded me my first glimpses of anjing jalan. I spotted about half a dozen along the route sniffing out and eating the food that was part of the offerings for the fesitival. I was surprised to spot one with a collar, obviously a pet. Without prompting Budha asked me if I had heard about the rabies. I said I had and he told me that another person had died from a rabies bite last Tuesday.
Driving into the streets of Ubud I was surprised to see how touristy it is, the street lined with shops, minimarts, beauty spas, internet cafes and restaurants and tourists everywhere. Even at night Ubud is what you expect of Bali if you’ve never been there before – tropical plants, rice fields, traditional architecture, stone and wood carvings. The shanty style buildings of Kuta and Nusa Dua just don’t compare.
Nyoman Karsa Bungalows is situated on busy Monkey Forest Road with a small frontage of carpark and reception. It is small and neat and modern but with very traditional architectural features such as the stairs leading up to the pavilion style reception area and the stone carved entry that lead into the grounds. Two monkey god statues stand either side of the entry giving you a permanent Aussie style “thumbs up” in greeting! I was ushered into a clean and modern small hotel room with aircon, big bathroom, queen sized bed, tv, dvd player with a selection of movies, and personal balcony overlooking the pool and surrounding rice fields. I found there were no facilities for making coffee or toast, and no bottled water or bar fridge were provided so once I had unpacked I stepped out to find food for Nyepi that didn’t need cooking and something to drink. The streets and restaurants were now almost deserted and only lit by an occasional shop light. No more than 200 metres down the road I found a store open that sells everything from washing powder to beer, grabbed some choc chip cookies and oj and headed home.
I remembered Janice (the founder of BAWA) saying that the bungalow was situated next door to her jewellery store so on my way back I stopped to check out the nearby buildings. I found that I was actually right next door to BAWA’s office with big pictures of street dogs on street signs and in their windows!
The morning of Nyepi brought the peace and quiet of rural Bali – only the sounds of birds and insects. It is so tranquil here. I have a beautiful view of the pool, rice fields and a not too distant view of Mt Agung. My first glimpse of a Bali dog that morning was collared and chasing birds through the rice fields! He had the same boundless joy that dogs back home do when they get free reign at the beach on a Sunday morning.
Photographing street dog for an exhibition is the first point of this trip. The second is to meet with BAWA (Bali Animal Welfare Association) to organise their participation in a program Belinda Riley and I have started that puts Australian volunteer vet nurses together with overseas animal welfare clinics. BAWA is very interested in joining our program so I am also visiting as a test volunteer to review accommodation, work environment, duties and access to things like meals, washing, internet – things a volunteer vet nurse is likely to look for on a 3 month volunteer assignment. Nyoman Karsa Bungalows has no website and only a couple of photos posted by tourists are available on Trip Advisor.com, so Nyepi was spent photographing the hotel room, amenities and grounds. Personally I found it comforting to “see” what the hotel would be like before I got there and if Nyoman Karsa Bungalows is the accommodation of choice for anyone interested in volunteering at an animal charity or an orphanage in Ubud.
I met Nicky and Marit down by the pool this afternoon, two Dutch girls working as English teachers for the past couple of months here in Ubud. They live in homestay accommodation with Balinese families but moved to the hotel for a couple of nights over Nyepi. Marit has a pretty good handle on the Balinese language by taking a 10 day course here in Ubud.
They were a wealth of local information regarding Nyepi, the upcoming elections and the street dogs. Thanks to them I also now have coffee!
They heard that there was a threat of rival campaigning factions getting into fights during the festivities over Nyepi which is why the celebrations had to be toned down this year. I had no idea that elections were looming let alone that they could be volatile!
Their experiences of street dogs here in Ubud are very different to what I have encountered in the Nusa Dua and Kuta areas – where dogs roam with very little interaction with people. Here in Ubud they are territorial, defensive over food scraps, chasing people, barking and growling. It would be hard to tell if a dog was suffering from the dementia effects of rabies here or just worried you are going to steal their hard found food. The dogs tend to come out more at night and the girls say it is quite scary to walk home and they are often threatened with barking and growling. The threat of a rabies epidemic is widely publicised and the locals now really worry about losing more tourism especially when they have not yet recovered from the last bombings.
The girls believed that the government wouldn’t ask the locals to try to eradicate some of the dogs themselves because it passes along some power to the people that they would prefer they didn’t have, and while they had heard about the shootings they hadn’t come across any stories of animal cruelty. I had noticed dogs with collars when I came into Ubud last night and the dog chasing birds in the rice paddies this morning had a collar on also. Dog owners have been asked to put collars on their pets to distinguish them from street dogs so they don’t get shot. But Maritz says while they may have collars and a home to go to, they are no different from street dogs – they forage at night, run with non-pet dogs, are territorial and aggressive over food, unhealthy and just as scary as any other street dog. Even though many dogs come out at night it will be more difficult to photograph them and even startle them due to the flash. Nicky and Maritz both live in homestays within minutes of the hotel and have told me there are quite a few dogs in their streets that would be easier to photograph during the day. I hope to get street names and directions from them in the morning before they head home.
While I never had the intention of feeding, befriending or interacting at all with the dogs, I have come to realise that my plans of sitting quietly, as a fly on the wall, to photograph them using a long lens in a photojournalistic style will be the only safe way to get the pictures I’m after.
