Adventures in natural dye, ikat weaving, and silk painting
Friday, May 12
Transfer to Ubud, Ikat Weaving
After breakfast, we were picked up in two vans, and then picked up a local guide, Weti, who would accompany us throughout the day. The drivers transported us first to a textile market in the village of Klungkung. There we were able to learn more about single and double ikat weaving. Then we rode out through the countryside to visit a weaving cooperative. We saw how the fibers are dyed to incorporate the ikat pattern, then strung onto the looms. We watched local young women weaving the single ikat fabric. Most interesting to me was the young woman repairing a broken weft thread, tying it off to be able to continue her weaving without damaging the fabric or disrupting the pattern.
Barb had procured Balinese box lunches from Threads of Life for us to eat while we were out almost in the middle of nowhere. The box lunch, totally recyclable, arrives packed in a banana leaf. I can’t tell you what was in the lunch, as there was very little of it that my migraine triggers allowed me to eat. But my colleagues all said how delicious it was, so I’m happy for them. After lunch, we shopped in the store associated with the weaving studio, and picked up some lovely ikat and pashmina pieces.
After lunch, we were driven farther out into the countryside of East Bali to visit a home where three women were weaving. They were part of the Threads of Life cooperative. We were fortunate in having Weti with us to translate our questions and the weavers’ answers. What a rare opportunity to look inside this ancient way of life. Next we went to the compound of a high priest and his family. His daughter is a master natural dyer and weaver, and is considered an expert in her field. The cloths she showed us were breathtaking, especially considering the complexity of the design and amount of time it takes to weave a meter or two of that fabric. I considered myself very lucky to be able to see this ancient art form.
It had been a long day, and we started our return into the center of Bali to Ubud, but not before stopping at the seaside to meet a sea salt farmer. I got the full explanation of how he takes buckets of sea water and transforms them into sea salt, and I still don’t understand how he does it.
< For your education—choose how much you want to know about sea salt farming >
The Sea Salt Farmers of Bali
Sea Salt Farming in Bali, Indonesia
The Spirit Behind Bali’s Natural Sea Salt
Video: How to make traditional salt in Bali, Indonesia
<For your education—off>
An hour later we arrived in Ubud and checked into the Rama Phala Resort & Spa, found our rooms, and unpacked, always concerned about integrating the day’s acquisitions into our belongings. Dinner that evening was in the hotel’s open-air dining room.
Saturday, May 12
Temple Day, Silver Jewelry, Masks and Puppets
About 80% of the population of Bali practices Hinduism. Depending on where you search for information, you’ll read that Hinduism has existed in Bali since the first or eleventh or thirteenth century. There are also varying reports of how Hinduism arrived there. But it is an omnipresent force in the culture in Bali. The followers of the religion consult their priests for advice on when to plant, when to marry, when to make business decisions—auspicious days.
Everywhere you look as you ride around the area, you’ll see temples and idols and offerings to the idols. While the Hindus believe in a supreme being, all their gods are manifestations of that god. It is said that there are 33 million gods. The offerings to these gods are placed three times a day. You’ll see them in front of idols, on the sidewalk, on the grass near the idol. One must be constantly aware of avoiding the offerings when walking around town.
We met am elderly woman in the temple we visited whose job was to make offerings. She might make 1500 offerings in a day. She is known as ibu manis or Sweet Mother. You might like this short article about offerings in Saveur magazine.
We had to dress appropriately for the temple. Barb had given us each a sarong which we tied over our skirts or slacks before entering the temple. We had been instructed to bring a sash and to wear a top that covered our shoulders and our elbows. The sash was tied around our waist over the sarong. Women who are menstruating are not allowed to enter the temple.
The Temple we visited was the Batuan temple, near Ubud. There was a young man who took us through the temple and explained the purpose of each building. I will not attempt to explain any of it to you, beyond what I’ve already said-that’s beyond my knowledge. If comparative religions is a topic of interest to you, I’ve given you some links in the next paragraph, where you can learn more.
< For your education—choose how much you want to know about Hinduism in Bali >
You might enjoy reading through “Hinduism Today” to learn more.
Here’s a seven-minute video showing the highlights of a 10-day ceremony commemorating the rebuilding and reopening of the Pura Puseh temple in Ubud.
Balinese Hinduism
Daily Spiritual Practices in Bali
And there’s always Wikipedia.
< For your education—off >
After the visit to the temple, we removed our sashes and our sarongs and went back to our regular fiber-seeking selves. The vans took us to two silver jewelry showrooms. Barb has formed relationships with these artisans through the years, and they offered us selections of their beautiful jewelry at nice discounts. I enjoyed speaking with the owner of the first shop, who has attended the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show several times. The pieces of jewelry that I especially was drawn to are the ones with elements of the ocean in them—earrings with bits of shells and mother of pearl.
After jewelry came lunch at Warung Dewa Malen, situated alongside a rice paddy. Wonderful food, beautiful environment—delightful lunch. Nearby, still in the village of Mas, we visited the Setia Darma House of Masks. From the “Bali Now!” website: “Featuring masks used in shamanistic practices, communal rituals, and theatrical performances, this Sukawati gem speaks of the human impulse to transform one’s identity.” Think about centuries of passing an island’s oral history from generation to generation, where [in the beginning] there is minimal reading and writing. Puppets are ideal for capturing a listener’s interest and setting the knowledge into place. The exhibits and histories in the museum are thought-provoking and very well preserved. And the small gift shop is filled with beautiful treasures—scarves, masks, jewelry.
Our biggest challenge was twofold—keeping track of our spending for U.S. Customs and Border Protection reporting, and figuring out how to pack so no suitcase would weigh over 70 pounds. After returning to the hotel, Tina and I walked up the street to the Coco Supermarket to shop for suitcases. I found a hardsided bright red (“find me!” on the luggage belt) suitcase for about $45. Problem solved.
While our tourmates headed to Siam Sally’s for dinner, Tina and I had a quiet dinner at the hotel restaurant, then early to bed.
Sunday, May 13
Indigo Day
This morning we road out to Blahbatuh, in the Gianyar province, to learn about natural dyeing. (If you want to know more of the ins-and-outs of natural dyeing, read Tracy Majka’s “An Introduction to Natural Dyeing.” The owner of the company showed us the materials—trees, leaves, berries, flowers—that are used to achieve various natural colors. We toured their facilities and saw the sewers and weavers at work. We each chose the pattern we wanted our finished product to have, prepared our fabric, and took the fabric through two or three dye baths, depending on the strength of the color, to the final product. While our lengths of fabric were drying on the clothesline, we went upstairs to their shop, where we were able to buy finished dyed fabric from their studios. Such a tough choice; so much beautiful fabric. Once our fabrics were dry, we packed up our dyed fabrics and headed out.
Lunch that Sunday on our own: Tina and I walked down the street from the hotel to Mamma Mia Pizza for great thin-crust pies, then back to the room to relax.
At 4:00 in the afternoon, the vans picked us up to visit the atelier of polymer clay master Jon Stuart Anderson. While Jon’s assistant kneaded and stretched and sliced clay to show us how the canes are created, Jon gave us a presentation on his work and how he achieved the level of mastery he has today. Jon has taken the medium to lengths no one ever dreamed possible until he perfected the techniques. Here’s a short YouTube video showing Jon’s process. After about 45 minutes, we were set loose to touch and examine Jon’s works and, of course, to invest in a few pieces. I got a tree frog and a heart-shaped pin which I converted to a refrigerator magnet for my fridge travel gallery.
And then we were off to d’Ata’s Café for ribs and other local specialties. You know Southern girls don’t like to get their hands messy when eating, but those ribs were wonderful.
And, again, a day to be remembered.
Monday, May 14
Double-ikat Weaving
Monday was technically a free day, but we all chose to take advantage of the opportunity to see a very rare textile—double ikat. Where with [single] ikat weaving, the warp threads (vertical or north-south) are a single color and the weft threads (horizontal or east-west) are dyed in a pattern, with double ikat both weft and warp are dyed to create the pattern in the finished woven fabric. The dying of the threads can take up to three years to achieve the desired colors and pattern. To learn about double ikat, we needed to ride about an hour-and-a-half in two vans to east Bali and visit the village of Tenganen, about a thousand years old. The head of one of the families living in this village met us at the gate and walked us through the village, telling us the history of the village and describing the day-to-day operation.
Then our guide invited us into his home, where we were able to watch his wife weaving on a floor-standing loom and his sister-in-law weaving on a backstrap loom. He showed us the traditional double ikat patterns and shared pictures from “Balinese Textiles,” written by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin, Marie Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff, and Urs Ramseyer.
He showed us the textiles his family members had created. We could shop from this precious collection for wall hangings, sarongs, or piece goods to take home with us. I bought a double ikat wall hanging and a shibori wall hanging, along with a hanger to support the precious cloth.
After leaving the village, we wound our way back down the mountain to Dewata Agung Warung Santih for lunch. I enjoyed a delicious curry, and especially liked the spacious grounds. After lunch, we visited the Taman Tirta Gangga, the former royal palace of the late raja of Karangasem. Its extensive water gardens gives you a sense of the lavish lifestyle of the former rulers of Bali.
Tuesday, May 15
Cooking School
This was a class-cutting day for me. I don’t enjoy cooking; many of the ingredients used in Indonesian cooking are migraine triggers for me. Put those two facts together, and even getting to see a beautiful family compound was not enough to entice me to cooking school!
I enjoyed spending my day reading, receiving a massage at Jelatik Esthetik, shopping at Ikat Batik and Bali Zen, and lunching at Three Monkeys. The photo for this section is the sweet little pond next to my table at Three Monkeys. Loved it!
After a relaxing afternoon, about eight of us went across the street from the hotel to Pundi Pundi for dinner.
Wednesday, May 16
Silk Painting
Today we would go to Agus’s studio to learn silk painting with batik. The batik process comes into the picture with the outlining of the design. A fairly simple drawing is laid on a table or the floor. A piece of thin white silk (thin enough to be able to see the design through the fabric) is placed on top of the design and taped into place. With a pencil, the design is traced onto the silk. The silk is then stretched over and attached to a frame. A combination of beeswax and paraffin is melted in a pan over direct heat. Then a tjanting tool is dipped into the melted wax and the lines of the design are drawn over with the melted wax. When the wax is dry, silk dyes are used to paint the design. The wax lines hold the colors inside the lines. When the design is completely painted with the dye, a background color is chosen and applied to the silk. The silk is removed from the stretcher, dipped and coated in methocel or “water glass” to cause the dye to bond with the silk so it won’t bleed or fade. Then the finished painting is steamed to fix the dye with heat, hung to dry, ironed, folded and packaged for delivery to the student painters. Some of us will use our work of art as a scarf, others as a wall hanging.
When I was finished with mine, before the dipping and steaming, I was concerned that one little background spot in the middle wasn’t as dark as the rest of the background. But when it was all done, I could not see a difference between the outside background and my boo-boo in the middle. Happy painter.
Dinner was on our own that evening. Tina and I went to Taco Casa, just down the street from the hotel. Per their marketing, “Delicious. Fresh. Simple.” This is a healthy Mexican restaurant. It is said that the chef-owner moved to Mexico City for five years to learn the cuisine. And, boy, did he learn! This was a meal I could eat without worrying how my head might react. If you’re ever in Ubud, put Taco Casa on your itinerary.
Thursday, May 17
Rice Paddy Walk
Probably the most “what is this all about” activity of the entire tour was the rice paddy walk. I envisioned wading through the rice paddies, ankle deep in water and at the mercy of the mosquitoes. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
People live and work in and beside the rice paddies. They’ve got to have some way to get to work. So there are paths for walkers and hikers and bikers and motor scooter riders. And taking tourists for a walk or a bike ride along the rice paddy path has become an income stream for guides in the area.
The rice paddy walk that Cheryl takes Bali Fiber Tour travelers on has a lot of artists’ studios along the several-mile stretch. We stopped at most of them and admired the work, mostly images of rice paddies or fanciful images of animals. At one jeweler’s studio, I bought a bracelet, silver and turquoise. The daughter of the family was using her day off from the hotel where she works to learn the family trade.
I want to say again here how wonderful the people of Bali were. Friendly, kind, always asking where we lived, happy to share their love of art or love of their homeland or, simply, love of life with us.
After the completion of our walk, the driver dropped us at a street that was too narrow for him to traverse, and we walked down to visit the Threads of Life educational and retail space. (Lovely pictures in this account of a visit to Threads of Life.) (Threads of Life’s website) Of course, I had to buy a little bag and found an indigo cotton napkin—both for me. Threads of Life does such wonderful work in Bali, supporting local artisans and keeping the art forms of centuries alive.
The driver found us again and dropped us at Sagitarius Restaurant for lunch, then Tina and I took a walk along Monkey Forest Road to visit Periplus bookstore, Ashitaba for a little reed basket to hold my silver earrings without their tarnishing, Rock Art for a couple of t-shirts for the Jazzman, BaliZen for what was probably my favorite purchase of the entire trip—beautiful rayon pajamas and a matching robe for me, and one final peek into IkatBatik to see if any more scarves needed to come home with me. They didn’t.
Our evening meal was also a highlight of the trip. We met up with a family friend of Tina’s who had been living in Ubud for seven years or so. She was a delightful dinner companion, telling us anecdotes of her life in Bali. And she suggested a restaurant we fell in love with—Dumbo. If you are even in Ubud, Dumbo is a must-eat experience. (Dumbo’s website) (Dumbo’s Facebook page)
Friday, May 18
Tying Up Loose Ends
View of the gardens from Moksa outdoor dining room.
Now let’s be clear: I am not vegan. I was raised vegetarian and happily eat meat. Probably in protest. But Moksa was wonderful. The decor was delightful, and the view off the patio at their garden was stunning. I loved the coconut shells used as borders to the gardens.
After lunch, we walked ten minutes up the alley to the main road and visited Gaya Ceramics, whose work I follow on Instagram. There were many beautiful objects in their showroom. An unusual mug and trivet came home with me.
For our farewell dinner that evening, we went to Siam Sally. The decor was delightful. The band, The Red House, was terrific, if somewhat loud for the small space. And we finished the meal singing “Happy Birthday” to Barb. A great end to a wonderful learning experience.
Ubud Photo Gallery
