The seventies Hippy Trail 3

2-4-1974
Kuta Bali Indonesia
Dear folks,
Please write to Poste Restante Jakarta before 15-4-74 because we are leaving here in a couple of weeks for Jakarta and from there we are going to Singapore and from there we plan to travel across Asia and perhaps go to Europe or South Africa. Please let me know how my finances are in the bank and is my insurance due yet and can i Get it? I am going to leave that money in Australia and wire for it only if I get into difficulties and want to get home.

Kuta Bali Indonesia

I got your letter today and I was stoked with the photos - they are unreal. I have taken untold photos here and will get them developed in Singapore I think. The other day was Balinese New year and on New Years Eve all kids were racing around the streets with fire torches and banging drums to drive away evil spirits. I was up in the village tower banging away at the wooden bell thing and then went down to a feast where they had roast pig and palm wine called "buang". A few of the local balinese young people got a lot drunk on the palm wine and they were really acting foolish. It may have been that they are not used to drinking or because most young people do not have many skills in dealing with alcohol.

The surf has been average but nothing really good. Australia has lots better surf for sure. Well bye bye and write soon and I will keep in touch to let you know where we are going. The surf was not very good because we went to Bali in the wrong season. We went in the off season. The best time to go surfing in Bali is from May to September when the big swells roll in from the Indian Ocean. The swells come from way down in Antarctica in the Southern Ocean where the roaring forties whip them up into long lines of swell that travel thousands and thousands of miles from below south africa all the way to indonesia. By the time the waves get to Indonesia they are long, consistent, and powerful.

Bali Resources

Next Stage on the overland trail to Europe

Each Balinese village has its own dance team and gamelan orchestra wich perform a great variety of dances at religious festivals, marriages, and other ceremonies. Most of the dances are based on religious or mythical origin. Many are stories derived from the ramayana or Mahabharata - the great hindu epics. Their plots are simple contests between good and evil. Some of the dances are vigorous and others refletc stylized patterns of movement. In the barong dance, the lion clashes with an evil witch called Ranggda, while the dancers seem to stab themselves with kris knives.

Among the most important Balinese dances are the legong, the kecak, and the barong. In the legong, a story teller relates the epic while costumed girls enact the story with facial expressions and graceful movements. The kecak or monkey dance tells a story from the Ramayana in which King Rama searches for his abducted wife. More than a hundred dancers, sitting in concentric circles, accompany the dance by swaying and flinging their arms while chattering and hissing in a monkey-like manner. In the barong dance, a mystical lion helps the people in their fight against evil. The lion's followers in a trance stab themselves with ceremonial dancers.

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