In Bali now - weaving has begun

On the plane, Fiona was worried. I had 2 newspapers and magazine to read and I hadn't even started on the reading list. Here's Fiona getting some advance reading in at the airport before we even left. I think that is cheating really. Meanwhile I was mucking around with computers.



In the immigration queue at Denpasar we met two ugly Australians both of whom were upset with waiting in line. We were determined to out-Zen them and treat waiting in line as a beautiful experience. This meant sitting on the floor and reading our books ... for two hours.
But that was a moment. We arrived to meet our travelling companions for the next two weeks just in time to sit down to dinner, which was excellent as all we had eaten was a sandwich on the plane. And my favourite food item, tempeh was on the menu! So I was very happy. Where we are staying for the next week is truly lovely and in Balinese style, has excellent gardens and a beautiful aesthetic. And then we had sticky rice and Balinese pancakes for breakfast. Double happiness!

Here is the balcony to our room.



This morning we went to Threads of Life to hear about their work supporting traditional weaving. What was best for me was that so much of it is about community development and social enterprise and very familiar to things I think about at work. Threads of Life started working with weavers and then realised that they had to find a way to support them obtain natural dyes because this was the thing holding weavers back. And dyes are hard to come by because many of the plants that are used in the dying process are becoming rare through logging, development and over-use.


A few large funerals unexpectedly occurred today and we went to one in a village outside Ubud. 27 people were being cremated, some of them had been dead for around 5 years and it’s common practice to do them all together. It’s a highly elaborate business, with much ritual and lots of waiting but well worth seeing. In the end, we didn’t manage to make it to the actual cremation but learned alot along the way. It was great being with local guides who made sure we were in the right spot to see and that we didn’t overstep any cultural boundaries.

Tomorrow we are off for an early rice paddy walk and to do some weaving ourselves.

Neither of us are going to complain about hard work again after seeing what some women have to do on the job.