banana leaves

banana leaves

weaving through the Mount Agung area in East Bali....

these panoramic views unfold around bends like some killer award winning shot out of Jurassic park....
so green, so lush, so unreal and yet the realeast real there is.

these old graceful women- their thin frail looking frames wrapped in colorful sarongs... their dark  sun-aged skin seems to hang off their bones as they glide like swans walking up and down the mountain roads carrying huge bundles on the crown of their heads.



they seem so unaffected.

it's the youth who carry plastic frito lay bags of artificially colored chips and crank their heads to see my face when they catch a glimpse of blonde hair out the corner of their eyes.

even the little warungs that I imagine once sold papaya and durian (smelly but buttery fruit that is covered in spikes like a porcupine)...now there are plastic bags of bright orange air food... indo equivalent of cheese puffs.

but it's the garbage that either gets burned or thrown into the rivers and by the side of the road that breaks my heart.

the trash is such a problem here.
and I fear it will just get worse...
the indos seem to love their plastic.

and it just gets tossed aside the way they have always done with their rubbish. the difference is that once upon a time they ate out of banana leaves not plastic bags - bags that end up swirling in the tides and wind up wrapped around our feet as we sit in the lineup waiting for a set of plastic-infused waves to break.
I feel responsible as a westerner
we brought this here
and then we have the audacity to complain that it's dumped in the sea where we want to surf and play.



earlier today I ate the best meal i've had on bali as we were driving up here to the Karangasem regiency.
yuko instructed our driver, Kadek to pull over at this tiny warung by the side of the road just before karamis...
(a surf spt i came to last year with my number one home skillet Dino to watch him surf...)

i wish i would have known about Moni Warung back then!

this place is a hole in the hut.
I would call it a hole in the wall but there are no walls...
or chairs...
or forks...
or napkins...
or plates...

just floor, hands, water bowls and banana leaves.



I wasn't even planning on eating so I ordered a coconut to drink.
it's insane how good coconut with ice and lime is.
I'm pretty sure I could survive on coconuts alone for quite a long time if I tried. 
I just need to learn how to safely climb a palm tree holding a machete.
my mind had meandered off to thoughts about coconut survival as I absently slurped the sweet nectar down and stared into space swatting flies out from the line of sight of my crazy looking fixed stare

all of a sudden meals were being served to both of us...
there had been no menu... we just sat on the floor and the lady stood up from behind the little indo BBQ she had bern fanning with a palm leaf and brought a giant platter full of food, setting in front of both of us.

one leaf had rice cooked with onions and potatoes or something...
one leaf had steamed greens, cabe (spicy stuff), and peanuts
one leaf had fish sate skewers... little pieces of blackened BBQ fish pieces that had undoubtedly been caught that morning out front in the sea.
about 6 skewers with some other spicy sauce and another piece of steamed fish wrapped in a banana leaf like a tamale...
and then finally a bowl of fish soup.

I decided to say screw it and taste the fish skewer. (my second time ever eating fish in a restaurant)
it blew my mind.
I couldn't believe I could not only stomach it... not only like it... but totally full on love it.

both meals together with the coconuts were 20,000 rupiah...
(10,000rp - about one US dollar)

wait wait wait -- that's cheaper then Venice beach Papusas! and this was an entire meal.

man....
THIS is Indonesia!

I don't know what that kuta chaos bullshit is but I don't like it and again, I blame us westerners for the state of things there.

it's a shame so many people go to kuta and think that's Bali and say they hate it.
(even I am guilty of that a little... kuta makes my skin crawl)
oh I just realized you can't spell  KUlit gaTAl without KUTA
kulit gatal = itchy skin
why am I so obsessed with word play? I seriously sit around an think of amazing word amalgamations all day. 
anyways.. kuta is itchy
but Mount Agung is so magical.
they say it's the sacred mountain of power & transformation.

I want to climb to the top next time I am in bali.

this magical mountain road I am winding down as I write this is not very far from the gandhi ashram I stayed at last week in Candidasa... I can feel that same heavy, centered vibration here as I did there.

there was a shirt at the ashram that said
"bumi bikin cukup untuk semua orang perlu....
tapi tidak pernu cukup untuk setiep orang serakah"

I think it's an Einstein quote
"the earth makes enough for everybody's need...
but never enough for anybody's greed"

I love the gandhian principal of

"let us live simply so that others may simply live"

I am trying.

it's crazy how conditioned we are as consumers though. marketing is no joke. I drive past this giant orange and brown A&W sign in seminyak and every single time I think cccchhhk ahhhh... (the sound of opening a can) and how much I would love a rootbeer.
ummm really?
would I?
wouldn't I much rather have a coconut with some lime squeezed in it? I will feel hydrated and fulfilled and energized versus burpy and all buzzed out on sugar and artificial ingredients.

something in me still wants it.

when we were down in the bukit at pantai balangan last week we got to talking about mcdonalds and how their recipes are a total science... same with subway.... no matter where you go in the world, that smell is unmistakeable. it's identical and identifiable....
because they want it to be that way. they have chemical composition recipes that are exactly created... it's something that gets triggered in our brains and tells us we recognize it and want it.
I don't know exactly about all this so I can't really speak to it without researching - and i dont even really want to, so look it up yourself and tell me if I'm an idiot.
one thing I have seen with my own blue-green eyes is world mcdonaldization...

I remember about 7 or 8 years ago my ex, jamie and I were in greece. it wa beautiful and romantic and magical and I will never forget that trip.
but I will also never remember the plastic crocodile.

we had taken a day trip off the island of santorini and sailed to a  tiny little island village called thirisia... it had no running water or electricity. no cars... the island was typical Greek rock cliff and so they would get up and down by donkey.
it actually isn't all too different in energy from the little Mentawai villages... only these people were much closer to civilization- just off the coat of a major tourist island.
Jamie and I found ourselves sitting on a beach alone being all young and in love when two little Greek boys from the village came running over to us with a dead lizard.
I of course was a tender palisades girl at that time- not yet the hard core rugged chick I am today ;)
so I screamed bloody murder and went running up the beach.
Jamie having the sense of humor he does thought it was hilarious (just like the little boys) so they all chased me up and down the hills wiggling the dead lizard in my face.
finally when I had started actually crying begging him to stop we made friends with the kids and gave them our little battery powered radio we had bought at heathrow airport. I remember how amazed and in awe they were. like we were straight up santa and mrs clause
in exchange they ran off and came back holding a gift for us.
it was this total hot green plastic crocodile toy that look like it came out of a happy meal.
turning it over we saw the embossed stamp of mcdonalds on te back.
HOW did they get this toy?
they haven't seen a radio but have a happy meal toy.
it was insane.

i dont know man... it all just seems so far away from rice and fish in a banana leaf.
dive throughs? chemical recipes? deforestation of rainforest to raise cattle that totally know they are going to get slaughtered. it's not rocket science.
the cows in indo seem so at peace... so happy.
it's such a beautiful image to me when I see the balanese tilling their gardens next to a beautiful pet cow.



another gandhian principal to marinate on is this;

"he who does not labor and eats, eats stolen food."

whoosh, right?

who the f are we to go through a drive through mcdonalds and buy this processed chemical brainwash bullshit food for so super cheap- dump the plastic containers in the trash (as if it will then magically disappear off the earth) and think that we are participating in the food chain... to think that we are participating in life!?

it's a sad state of affairs if you ask me.
thank god for people like my little sister hero tia who is working to make a difference in America at least... helping to create campaigns that raise awareness and promote environmental change and consciousness.

if nothing else, let us lead by example as unfortunately we already have.

let's show the world how to come back to the earth... return to simplicity and true Eco living.

think about what would happen if everyone chose to make zero trash for one day.

the results would be mind-blowing.