You might love this report or hate it, depending on your tolerance for morbid. Either way, you will probably find the Tana Toraja fascinating. About 600,000 of them live in Southern Sulawesi. Their community is close-knit, agricultural, and friendly. I recently visited them because I wanted to understand their very unusual traditions involving the dead.
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Ubud feels like love. Here, daily life is full of small rituals that express gratitude and respect and caring — for the gods, for nature, for the community. Flowers, incense, celebrations, dancing, music. These are not rituals for tourists, rather the culture that brings tourists here. The Hindus of Bali believe in karma, and that we serve the universe and ourselves when we are grateful and respectful and caring.
Here are some examples of what I saw all over town in Ubud.
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Ubud is in Bali, which is a province in Indonesia. A little more background….Indonesia is about 17,000 islands with many varied cultures, traditions, and histories. Indonesia became a sovereign nation in 1945 after about 300 years of occupation by the Dutch. With all its diversity, the country’s sense of unity is a source of national pride. Still, it’s difficult to manage across 17,000 islands and, probably as a result, the capital of Jakarta and its province, Java, have a disproportionate share of the goodies. This sometimes rattles some of the people on the 17,000 other islands.
But Bali is probably not rattled. It is doing quite well thanks to the 5 million tourists who annually visit its beaches and the charming city of Ubud. I’m in Ubud this week. It’s off-season but it’s busy! I can only imagine what it must be like when 20,000 more twenty-somethings roll into town.
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Yogyakarta is just loaded with murals, some artistic, some playful, some political. Here are a few of them. They don’t need explaining. Just enjoy….
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Yogyakarta feels loved. It’s on the island of Java, about 400 miles east of Jakarta and full of spirited art, great food, music, and Javanese traditions. People are friendly and there is a strong sense of community. The roads and alleys are gritty, but full of lively murals. Walking through them, you hear birds singing, chickens squawking, and the call to prayer. And motor cycles.
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I just spent a couple of days in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, The city is huge and its downtown is hyper modern with giant boulevards, high rises, and large plazas and parks. Jakarta is full of gorgeous trees and vines. It is also sinking! Parts of the city are sinking at a rate of 11 inches a year. In response, the city is installing some innovative dams and building a new capital in Nusantara on the island of Borneo. Within the next 20 years, many of Jakarta’s 33 million people will have to relocate as well.
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Camino Milagro 