Bali
My enduring memory of Bali is of a woman emerging from her house, early in the morning, with a small tray of offerings - fruit and flowers - to arrange on a shrine in her garden. She placed them and stood in silence for a moment. The simplicity, delicacy and sheer beauty of her action reflecting the very best of life on Bali. Simplicy in life may mask relative poverty, but delicacy expresses a unique spiritual culture.
Where do you start when it comes to images of Bali? Perhaps with the rice fields near Ubud, where - as here - the newly harvested rice is spread out on sheets to dry in the sun...
Or perhaps with the people - friendly, open and utterly charming. These boys were dressed smartly ready to take part in a festival - of which the Balinese have many...
Or perhaps with the wonderful costumes and displays of dancing, as here, in Ubud, where, sadly, the number of performers on a Tuesday night almost outnumbered the audience...
Ubud is a cultural 'must' with plenty of opportunities to explore Balinese art, fascinating architecture, the monkey forest, dance shows, and the general chaos of traffic, and treacherous pavements. We found it a great place to start a trip to Bali. Walk through the town to soak up the atmosphere, or take a stroll out into the rice fields, for a sense of the Bali that pre-dated tourism.
Of course, many people come visit Bali for the surfing, as here on Paradise Beach, Belangan.
It's possible to opt for a beach holiday and stay around the south coast, with busy resorts such as Kuta - stunning beaches and surf, if that's what you're into - but it's worth venturing further north, either into the hills around Ubud, or further north to Munduk in the central mountainous part of the island.
An elaborately carved door in the art museum in Ubud, leading from shade out into the blistering heat and light of an Balinese afternoon.
Best job on Bali? This bird scarer sits in his raised hut and pulls on lines, which spread out in all directions. across the rice fields. With a sharp tug on a line, its attached flags are set in motion and its cans jangle away, sending the birds aloft. There's nothing more soporific in the afternoons than hearing the intermittant jangling of lines over the rice fields..
It can get hot on Bali, and that applies to the food too. Here chillies are spread out in a market.
Each village has its own festivals. Here worshippers have moved from the temple down onto the beach at Balangan, in the south of the island. At the end of the day, the temporary shrine is left on the beach and the sand strewn with little offerings in their palm baskets.
Offerings are prepared in small, square baskets made of palm leaves and left in the temple of shrine - as tokens of devotion, is it the intention that counts, not the value of what is offered.
During the Galungan and Kuningan festival streets are decorated and little shrines spring up outside houses.
The Balinese religion - a form of Hinduism but with local traditions added - is a way of life. Early in the morning, women - young and old - go round to place little offerings on the shrines, some in the home, others down the street.
It is a natural part of life, quite different from the more cerebral and wordy approach to religious with which Westerners are more familiar.
Break time for those working in the rice fields. It's a tough life, stooping over for hour after hour.
Rice cultivation requires plenty of water, and that's proved by the mountains of central Bali, and not just during the rainy season. Looking out over the hills beyond Munduk, I had assumed that what I saw was just unharvested forest, but was quickly disabused of that idea by an expert guide who pointed out that everything was farmed - with coffee, ginger, tumeric and many other things growing all mixed in together in the rainforest. It was certainly a very natural, environmentally sensitive way of farming, but it also accounts for the relative poverty of many of those who work on the land.
But for me, the enduring image of Bali is that of the rice terraces...
... and of those who work in them.
And now... Why not take a look at my photographs of the Monkey Forest?