Ubud D63-Eternity: Ian Gets Dengue & Yoga Barn

Dengue Fever is a mosquito-borne illness that is just part of life in tropical areas. It causes fever, headaches, nausea, body aches, and sometimes a rash. It wears you down. You're mildly and uncomfortably sick for 10-14 days, unless you get a bad, bleed-from-all-orifices strain of dengue, where you might not make it 14 days (and if you do, you can have residual physical and psychiatric backlash for up to two years). Yay!

Oh yeah, the best part: there is NO CURE. You just drink water and take it easy. If you start bleeding from the mouth, you go to the hospital and they hydrate you intravenously. 

I have a fair amount of bites, but I think the bugs in Bali actually try to consume Ian. One day he wakes up sore with stomach cramps and a fever. Oh no. We take it easy.

The next day is the same. And the day after. I think it's dengue. Ian's in denial. 

One of the main complications with dengue is that you start to feel better before it gets worse. You don't actually know if you have hemorrhagic dengue until the fourth or fifth day of feeling sick. If you push it in the first four days, your chances of getting deadly sick increase exponentially.

So Ian is a prisoner in his own body. He tries to tell me he's fine, perhaps it's just a cold, and begs to go out and do things. The few times I take him to dinner he sweats through his shirt. 

Day five and day six of him feeling ill, he doesn't actually feel ill anymore. This is textbook dengue fever. You're temperature will drop, you'll feel fine, but the disease is biphasic and the second half is around the corner. 

So while Ian lay dying, I do the good girlfriend thing and give him space and get my vagina steamed. 

I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but the author of Eat, Pray, Love wrote one of her sections about being in Ubud. (We hear time after time about a factual misstep in the movie, where Julia Roberts bikes from Ubud to the beach-- this is not possible.) I don't think she intended on ruining Ubud for years to come, but... 

 

The "Eat, Pray, BUS" tours around town. Boo. 

And so Ubud is full of 30, 40 & 50 year old divorcee's who've come to find themselves again. I'm not particularly mad at it (except when I see companies ran by expats exploiting Balinese heritage and resources). I get that it's exotic and cheap, and people are comforted by spiritual healings. A lot of shops seem to be gimmicks targeting the vulnerable crowd. You can buy as many crystals here as you can in Sedona, Arizona. 

Yoga classes are abundant, and if you're looking to do yoga in Ubud you have many options. The most well known yoga spot is the Yoga Barn:

 

The Yoga Barn is an absolutely gorgeous set of indoor/outdoor venues. They offer many classes a day, ranging from breathing-focused yoga to Pilates to gong meditations. They also do intensive trainings where you can get certified to be a yoga teacher. In a few weeks they will host the "Bali Spirit Festival", where teachers and gurus from all over the world come to teach and guru. 

The classes are American-priced. The participants are tourists, travelers and hardcore yogis.

I buy 5 classes for 475,000RP ($36). Each class is one and a half hours long, and you need to be there 15 minutes prior to register. Dengue could last Ian a while, and no one wants to be watched while having the poops, so this gets me out of the house at least a few hours a day. 

My first class is an "Intro to Yoga" class, because I'm a noob. Enter Carlos, this beautiful Brazilian super-human with ombre dreads and a big, bright smile. 

There are twenty of us in class, and most of the participants are timid white girls like me; then there's one guy with short-shorts and a crop top with a Lincoln beard, a British couple in their fifties to my left, and  two Russians in front (one is translating everything Carlos says to the other in the softest Russian voice I've ever heard.. though still way too loud). Carlos asks if any of us have done yoga before and two arms are half-raised. 

Carlos spends the first twenty minutes discussing why we do yoga and the benefits of yoga. It rained right before class, and now the sun was out so it was 1,000% humid. His speech kind of drags on. "Any questions?" I raise my hand. "Can we turn on the fans?" He holds my gaze and walks over to the side of the room to turn the switch. Was I just reprimanded? It just got hotter in here. 

 

We start with some breathing exercises. Carlos says things like "OK, everyone breathe in and count to four." Then he waits a second and says "OK, go. Now we inhale... one, two...." His rhythm and instructions were off, and everyone was out of breath. I  start to think I don't like Carlos until he walks by me, leans down and whispers "Hey." Swoon.

He teaches us a few poses and then we lay on our backs. I look at the husband to the right of me and he has a total boner. Poor guy. We're on our backs for 20 minutes. No new instructions, we're just laying. I watch some geckos on the skylight catch bugs. And... class is over. 

Intro to Yoga is not really a yoga class.

The next class I sign up for is Capoeira. The description for the class reads: "Dance: Capoeira is a perfect practice mixture of strength and flexibility, rhythm and agility. It is a dynamic art form of flowing in balance through movements."

I'm thinking it's a dance-aerobics class, and I've been known to KILL IT at Jazzercize. Turns out it was a little harder than jazz.

We learn ways to fall gracefully and avoid being hit. Our teacher, Noko, has us run in a circle while he runs against us and bats at us with a yoga mat. We're supposed to jump over or fall under the mat as gracefully as we can. Some guys can literally do flips and cartwheels to avoid the mat. I am not some guys.

 

Class got really hard really fast. Capoeira is basically a game of martial arts where you pretend you're going to hurt someone but avoid contact at the last second. We had to spar with one another, kicking over each other's heads and flipping out of the way. The class started with 11 people, and two dropped out before it was over. It was really tough. 

Noko ends the class by telling us there's a big Capoeira meet the following day, where players from around the island will come and spar. 

The next day there is a beginning acro-yoga class. Ian and I have talked about wanting to try this, but I'm worried he's still sick. He begs me to go, and says if the tables were turned he'd let me go. Ian takes his temperature and it's normal, so we go. (I later found out he had put the thermometer on the tips of his lips, and totally duped me to go to class... reason 6,894,579 I'd make a terrible mother.) 

We get to the Yoga Barn in time to see the Capoeria fight.  Hippies and yogis are everywhere. This is me and Ian sparing:

 

Look at all these unvaccinated kids!

Acro-yoga is a blast. Carlos is the teacher again. He gives very little instruction and sits in a corner while we balance on each other. A couple of people eat it, but Ian and I are surprisingly great. I could even base Ian for a hot second!

We go home and Ian feels ill again. Repeat. Repeat. It's not getting worse, but it doesn't get better for a while. He'll be OK. 

I enjoy a little more Bali life. Ubud is an interesting mix of locals and tourists. You always see people working on crafts. Women carry everything on their heads, including bricks and stones. There are offerings all over the ground. Don't text and walk; the sidewalks are terrible and OFTEN have three-foot holes you can fall in. 

  

 

Ubud D65: The Lotus Treatment (Vagina Steam)

Dear Gwyneth Paltrow, 

I took your advice and got a V-STEAM because I think it makes to total sense to get vagina advice from a blog named GOOP.

There are all kinds of massages to get in Bali-- some you'd find in any old US parlor and others that are more... err, unique. These unique massages are said to be of Balinese tradition, and they're touted for their ancient healing properties that you can't find anywhere else (just kidding Gwyn! You probably know a million exclusive locations to find ancient healing properties). If you're lucky, you and your sore yoni will stumble upon this:

After riding all day on the pointy seat Bali on Bike provided, I was bowleggin' around town. But, hey! Relief was just a fog away.

I enter Tulasi Dewi and point at the Lotus Treatment. "Can I do this?" The two girls look at each other and giggle. I think the treatment is less popular than the oil massage. 

One of the girls says "OK, you're sure? It will be hot." Yeah, I'm sure! Anything for investigative journalism, amiright?

I wait a few minutes on the couch as she prepares the throne. I start to get cold feet, but it's not like they can burn her off... right?

I undress waist-down and I'm given a sarong to wear. I walk through the massage complex to the garden where my Healing Throne awaits. It looks a lot like a box with a toilet cushion on top. Underneath, embers of herbs are glowing.

Here she is, conveniently placed next to employee parking:

I lift the sarong and sit with my gal open to the heat. It tingles. It's warm and it feels soothing. Every once in a while, condensation on the beave drips back down on the embers, making for a fantastic sizzle and heat wave. I'm on the hot-pot for 45 minutes, giggling at the steam rising from under my sarong.

My masseuse tells me this is a traditional Balinese practice that women in her culture get before their wedding (sort of like a bottomless brunch in our culture, Gwyn). It's to clean the flower, make her smell nice and tighten her up. I'm suspicious of the healing powers of herbs, but I'm already doing this, so I nod earnestly, like a Paltrow. 

Time to move to phase 2: the herbal bath.

A bucket of hot water and herbs is poured into a bathtub and I'm told to soak for 15 minutes. Instead of lavender and roses, I'm soaking with lemongrass and ginger roots and what seems to be a lot of... bark.

I'm curious. What has happened down there? I feel. 

This is weird. I SWEAR that all that which is normally tight is... almost sealed. Could this be? 

The bath is soothing, though I'm mystified at how down-there has changed. After 15 minutes I towel off and meet my masseuse once more. She has some news for me:

"All done! You are a virgin again!"

I'm shocked. The look I give her is like, "WHO, ME?" She nods, points to my bits and says, "I hope your fiance like it."

I skipped home to find out.

Ten stars.

Sincerely, your steam-sister, 

Rosie

Ubud D62: Bali on Bike

I wake up. We slept in a new room last night. Ian's still asleep. I realize I'm SO itchy. I let Ian sleep and I sneak to the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water feels extra refreshing on my back. Much better.

I sit on the bed by Ian's face and I sweep his hair from his eyes and then- "Don't move." I reach for a tissue and kill a bug that was right by his head. The bug was a hard bead and it popped when I killed it. Blood soaked through the tissue. Ewwwwwwwwww.

We go to the restaurant for breakfast, and while we're waiting for our meals I remember that I need the receipt for our biking adventure today. I return to the room. Where is that damn receipt? I pull back the covers of the bed and my heart sinks. 

BED BUGS. Many, many bed bugs, FULL of blood. Pop, pop, pop! The phrase "I CAN'T EVEN" comes to mind, and I think this is the perfect application. I pop all the ones I see- it's a bloodbath- then I start packing. No way are we staying in this room another night. 

I go to throw away the tissues in the bathroom and look in the mirror. My FACE has four bites on it alone. (I slept on my face, under the pillow because it was light in our room. The HORROR.) I reluctantly do a spin. FORTY-SIX bites I count. I hold back tears and go to the restaurant and tell Ian to skip the eggs and go pack.

The thing is, we LOVE the Puspa Ubud Hotel. Everyone is so sweet and it's a hell of a bargain. Had it been our first night in Ubud we would have booked it out of here, but since we had no problems with the other rooms, we give them the option: either we change rooms or change hotels. They find another room for us.

All of this happens before 8AM. At 8:15, a driver named Wayan picks us up. The car already has two riots inside, Bianca and Sasha from Melbourne. The four of us are the entire biking crew today. 

The plan is to start the morning with coffee and breakfast at a coffee farm, then drive to the base of a volcano. From there we will bike mostly downhill through villages, stopping at interesting cultural points on the way. We will end at around 2PM, arriving at Bali on Bike's owner's house, where his wife will make us lunch.

We pull in at the same coffee farm we went to with our first Wayan driver. This coffee farm must be a popular tourist destination. Here we meet our guide for the day, and CAN YOU GUESS WHAT HIS NAME IS? (Wayan.)

It's fun to watch Bianca and Sasha very politely HATE the lowak coffee.

After breakfast we drive to the base of the volcano. We pick our bikes (I scour mine for bedbugs) and start our tour, and...

SNOOOOOOOOOZZZEEEEEEE. The entire first hour is downhill. We literally don't have to pedal more than twice. Our only physical exertion comes from our hands pulling on the brakes.

Bali on Bike has a truck following us most of the way to ensure other cars wouldn't get too close. It also carries extra bikes should anything happen to ours. I get that it is for safety, but for some reason I felt like it was a lame caravan. 

Though we aren't getting the workout we had hoped for, we get to explore Bali's countryside. Riding around we see  nightmare bugs, spiders as big as Ian's hand (not as big as his other extremities though... high five!) and other wildlife less seen around town. We're on roads we haven't been on yet, and Wayan does a good job of stopping to explain things along the way- an elementary school, a community center, village temples, etc. 

Everyone's friendly. We go through villages where we get to see real-life Balinese people at work, and they all smile at us. Kids yell "Hal-lo!" and giggle when we say it back. A few even stretch out their hands for high fives... and then some pull them away at the last second, just like punk-ass kids from home!

The road starts to get really gnarly. There are two SUPER steep hills to go down on loose gravel, followed by two SUPER steep hills to bike up against oncoming traffic. We see a few bikers eat it, and Bianca from our group eats it pretty hard.

We arrived at... not the house we would have lunch at. Wayan stops at some random street and us and tells us the biking part is over. We get in the car... and we're driven 500 meters to Bob's (Bali on Bike's owner's) house. 

Every house has a chart of how many family members live inside. This is for their census.

Once at the house, Wayan teaches us a little about how families live in Bali, and gives us similar information we had heard at the cooking class the day prior. We head to an outside dining area where our meal awaits.

The food was OK. We don't really LOVE Indonesian cuisine, and it was unfair to compare this meal to the one we made in class the day before. This meal had been waiting for us, while the other meal we ate was fresh. 

I'd definitely recommend Bali on Bike for a family or group wanting to see some of Bali's countryside at a slow pace. It's a safe, easy, and dummy-proof system (minus the two hills; novice bikers can walk their bikes), with good educational stops on the way. Since we wanted a workout, had already been to the coffee farm, had learned a little bit about Bali life, and compared our meal to our cooking class, we didn't have the ideal time. But then, who gets a five-star review when the writer's covered in bedbug bites?

Ubud D61: Paon Cooking Class

A driver picks us up at The Puspa. His name? Wayan, of course! He takes us and a few others to start our day at the Ubud Market.

The Ubud Market looks totally different than when we first came. From 4AM-10AM it's a food market for locals, then at 10AM it turns over to a gifts and crafts market for suckers. 

Wayan is our tour guide for the first part of class. He takes us to different stands and explains the fruits, vegetables, spices and cooking tools that are unique to Bali. He tells us that every market has a temple, and everyone who sells stuff makes an offering before they're open for business. 

Unlike when we took the cooking class in Thailand, we don't actually buy our ingredients at this market. Wayan said this is because the Paon Cooking School doesn't want you to get "Bali Belly" AKA food poisoning. He can ensure our food at the school is grown organically and washed properly, so for that, the stop at the market is for educational purposes only. 

Next we ride out to the rice fields. Wayan explains the life cycle of rice, which is interesting because... who thinks twice about rice? (Maybe you have. Maybe you've seen cranberries grow on water and pineapples sprout from a bush. I'm an eat-first, ask-questions-never kind of gal.)

Rice has to be planted in water underneath compost grass for two weeks. In those two weeks, the rice will grow ten centimeters. The farmer takes the seedlings and plants his entire field within one or two days, ensuring the field matures evenly. 

Before the pods are ready to harvest, they are green with a milky or powdery substance inside. Once they are yellow, they are the hard rice that we know. The farmers use the Grim Reaper's sickle to harvest the yellow pods. The rice is then dried one or two days, taken out of the skin and steamed. 

From there the fields are left as-is until the rice springs a second grow. The second grow is less reliable, so it's not harvested for eating. Instead, ducks are let on the fields to fertilize for three or four days. The remaining rice is cleared, and the process starts all over.

Stop sleeping, it's actually cool!

After the rice fields we're driven to the Paon Cooking School- definitely a rich person's house. We're greeted with frozen lemonade drinks and have a welcome speech by the owner of the school. (I totally forgot his name... probably Wayan.) His wife, Puspa, would be teaching the class today.

The greeting was really interesting. The owner explained that the layout of a Balinese house is built in relation to a compass. The temple is in one direction, and then there is a kitchen, discussion room, grandparents house, etc. All the houses in Bali are the same, though this is a mansion compared to others. 

I don't know how we got into it, but the owner told us interesting bits about having a newborn: you bury the placenta in front of the grandparent's room, prevent the child from touching the ground for the first six weeks, keep a piece of the child's umbilical cord around its neck for three months, and then take the child to a medicine man who will inspect it for birthmarks and tell you what the child's past life was like. They all do this. Mind=blown.

Other interesting things: you sleep in your grandparents room the night before your wedding, you never move because your ancestors live in your temple, and you're not allowed to go to bed without talking your problems out with each other.

No segue here- the man looks at his watch, we gotta start cooking! We're moved to a courtyard that overlooks the jungle. There are a few long tables for cooking and a few long tables for eating. Everyone gets coffee or tea, and is dressed with an apron and hand towel.

Puspa introduces herself and gives us the itinerary for the day. She's the first to mention she got her MBA, which means she was Married By Accident (points to belly). We hear this expression a lot on the rest of our trip. 

Before getting started, Puspa asks if anyone has any allergies. "I'm allergic to fish, shrimp, all crustaceans, (names everything in the ocean), and I have an EpiPen just in case-- but someone will have to give it to me!" says an over-enthusiastic lunatic. She goes into detail about what happens to her if she eats these things. EAT THEM ALREADY.

Puspa looks around. "Anyone else? Anyone?" Ten-second delay. "OK, let's move--"

"I'm ALSO allergic to fish," blurts someone who decided she didn't want to eat fish that day. 

Puspa reveals the menu for the day: clear mushroom and vegetable soup, yellow sauce, chicken in coconut curry, minced chicken grilled on bamboo sticks (sate), vegetables in peanut sauce, coconut and snake bean salad, steamed tuna in banana leaves, deep-fried tempe (tofu) in sweet soy sauce, and boiled banana in palm sugar syrup.

Next we're briefed on the ingredients we will use. Everything is washed and beautifully displayed. It all needs to be prepared, so cutting boards and mortars and pestles are brought out. Everyone prepares one or two items for the class. They asked if I wanted an easy job or a hard one... and guess what I said? I cut mushrooms.

We're then called to the courtyard to see how the yellow curry paste is traditionally made. It's mushed in a huge mortar and pestle, and we all take turns churning... except for one guy. This guy was enormous and red-faced with boogers visible for the entirety of class. His wife points at him and says, "He hasn't gone yet!" He refuses. They were SO going to have a discussion about this later...

We go back to the prep tables and see that stoves had been hiding under the wood table tops. You pair up (I choose Ian!) and start "cooking". 

"Starrrtttt yourrrr heennnggiiinneesss!!"

The kitchen helpers have already plated individual portions of ingredients for us. The partner behind the stove stirs as the other partner dumps ingredients in when told. Bowls of sauces and spices are placed at one end of the table, and we're told to add "a spoonful of salt" a "pinch of pepper" and so on, before passing the additions down. It's an assembly line.

                

Once our food is deemed ready, we combine what we cooked with everyone else. 

EW. I side-glare at a sniveling Boogers McGee. Big-man next to us is sweating profusely and leaning over his skillet. I hear a girl say "Oops, I thought it was a tablespoon, not a pinch!"Hmph. I don't want to share!

Needless to say, I did not like this aspect of class. There was no way of customizing your portion to your liking, and it's disheartening to know your feast is in the hands of someone who wouldn't even help mash the curry paste!

We make chicken sate and tuna in banana leaves. They also get combined.  Boo. I'm annoyed because ours were perfect and others' were not. I wanted to yell "YOU'RE BEING CARELESS, GRANDMA!" and if you're a millennial you'll get this reference.

So we chop one or two ingredients, heat some things in pans, wrap some meat on sticks and roll some fish in leaves. The helpers do the real cooking while we take a relaxing break. I want to wander around the house but I'm afraid I'll step on a placenta.

The meal is set up buffet-style. I try to find the things I made and I can't. I should have brought wine charms.

The food turned out pretty good- I definitely didn't leave hungry. We both tried everything, and we were surprised to have enjoyed things we wouldn't have normally ordered.

After our main meal, we gathered around Puspa as she cooked dessert: boiled banana in palm-sugar syrup. We didn't have a hand in this at all, but it didn't matter, it was soooo delicious. 

Strategically BEFORE we could help ourselves to dessert, Puspa ends class by asking "Did everyone have a good time?" Genius move. "THE BEST TIME EVER!" I scream-blurt, the equivalent of a guy saying "I love you" to get in your pants. Anything for dessert. 

"If you had a good time please give us five stars on Trip Advisor. If you didn't, please keep your mouth shut." 

And with that, we're given a recipe book of the day's meals and Wayan takes us home. 

(Suggested for families or couples who want a relaxing day learning how to cook traditional Balinese dishes with minimal effort. The cost was 350,000RP ($27) each as of March 2015. http://www.paon-bali.com)