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March 31, 2005
smile, you're on honeymon
hokay, narcissitic shot, photo taken by robert, we're at tanah lot, drinking cocktails and fruit juice, waiting for the sunset...
Posted by Yasmina at 07:56 AM
March 30, 2005
welcome home
god, we have the most thoughtful friends ever. we came home and the fridge was stocked with food, the apartment was full of balloons with attached welcome home messages from people. thank you so much!!! we were a bit sad to leave indo but now we feel at home again here... :-)
p.s. michael, thanks for not glueing the furniture to the ceiling, xoxoxo, yasmina
p.p.s. i'm having problems accessing my site, the only subdomain i can open is http://stories.bananeira.com, i can't even open http://www.bananeira.com, the visual blog and the portfolio site... is anyone else experiencing this?
Posted by Yasmina at 02:54 PM | Comments (6)
March 23, 2005
last week in indo
boo hoo, this week we got stuck in bureaucratic hell for the wedding papers so could not get away to kalimantan at all. i'm so disappointed and i also hate to disappoint tante isti and tante lita who has arranged all the trip to kalimantan, personalising the trip for us and everything :-(
we have time to go to the beach though, we'll be at the beach house for 3 days or so, since it's a long weekend this week, yay! beach beach beach.... sun sun sun... jetskiing... eating fresh seafood... we got our own beach hut by the sea :-)
robert's back is peeling from last week's bali sunburn, and you know i'm one of those people who cannot resist peeling dead skin or scabs. i was the kid who was always picking at dry skin and scabs, gross, i know, it's one of those irritating habits like biting your nails or twiddling your hair.
Posted by Yasmina at 03:15 PM | Comments (4)
March 21, 2005
surface of wooden handicraft
Posted by Yasmina at 12:53 PM
March 20, 2005
ladies at temple
Posted by Yasmina at 04:39 PM
March 19, 2005
week in bali
we spent a beautiful week in bali. robert's parents, ron and tilly, and a couple of friends, remco and gerard, came along to bali. it'd be a shame if they came all the way to indonesia and only saw jakarta, bogor and the mountain estate, so i invited them along. *although robert and i are thinking of taking another trip, either to kalimantan or flores, where we can be alone*
the villa
the villa, just outside of ubud, was amazing; private, secluded, and we had full occupancy of the property and its three staff were at our beck and call. it was decorated in true balinese style, the dragons on the edge of the roof, the high ceilings, the roof lined in wooden carvings, the doors to the bathrooms all in the wooden carved-style of balinese doors.
the chef cooked delicious meals for us on request, ranging from authentic balinese dishes such as bebek bali (smoked balinese duck) and tum ayam (spiced minced chicken steamed in banana leaves) to fresh homemade pastas. robert is now addicted to fruit juice, because freshly-squeezed fruit juice is all he'd drink.
we claimed the master bedroom upstairs, that overlooked the villa and the rice terrace on the other side. a river ran next to the property, and the sound of the water was extremely soothing. it's pitch black at night and we can hear crickets and frogs and lots of other creatures we cannot see. the sky is amazingly clear, the stars really bright in the velvety sky and i would float on my back in the swimming pool and watch the stars.
the swimming pool was cool during the day, warm during the evenings. we went for swims all the time: before breakfast, after dinner, in between trips, at night close to midnight, where we'd sit in the water and drink wine. robert and i have turned a nice shade of bronze now; actually my bule husband is quite sunburned on his back and shoulders but the rest of him is nice and brown.
the sunset
ku de ta in seminyak is famous for its sunsets; best is to reserve a table on their beach front terrace, and i intended to take the group here for a sunset but shame we did not make it. we went to tanah lot instead for sunset, and you can't go wrong with tanah lot really. the temple was cloaked in black with the horizon colored in all the imaginable shades on earth. we sat on the edge of the cliff, drinking cocktails and enjoying the spectacular view.
the first time i saw a balinese sunset, i was eight and i cried because the beautiful moment was over and i felt there would never be another moment like it. i wonder if seeing amazing sunsets at a young age made you a sunset snob? i mean, if you grew up watching sunsets in bali or greece or hawaii, you'd probably not think much of sunsets in noordwijk. remco was talking about sunsets in noordwijk and i really thought it was laughable to compare sunsets in the netherlands and sunsets in indonesia.
the culture
they say you go to lombok for its beaches, and go to bali for its culture. we saw a performance of a barong dance one morning. it was more of a play rather than a dance, and it told a little story from the mahabarata epic, the eternal fight between good and evil.
gerard sat next to me and he was literally watching the entire thing through his camera viewfinder; he was snapping photo after photo. he's an amazing photographer though and i am glad he had all these opportunities to shoot.
we also saw a kecak dance one evening. the story it told was of rama and sita, from the ramayana epic. the kecak dance has no accompanying music, the music is made by 50-60 male dancers chanting and dancing, and it can get pretty trancey.
i was thinking of laszlo and lesh and suddenly i missed them, thousands of miles away, i thought of how much they would enjoy the dances, and i wondered if the ramayana and mahabarata epics were interpreted the same way through dance in india.
this week was the week between hari raya nyepi and kuningan, which is the biggest hindu holy days in bali, so there were always things going on the temples, even more so than usual. i loved the sesajen, offerings, that were put on the temples. the women walked on the streets carrying on their heads plates piled high with stacks of fruit. they were dressed in something similar to the javanese kebaya but with a wide sash around their waist, very pretty and colorful. some of them minded having their pictures taken though and i didn't want to intrude on them whilst worshiping.
i much prefer to stay in places like ubud or candidasa, rather than the busy touristy westernized areas like kuta or seminyak. the ubud area is considered the cultural capital of bali, lots of dances, artists with their painting galleries, wood and stone carvers, jewellery makers in their workshops. it was good to have a look around and certainly some of the work displayed is really exceptional.
the balinese spa
hokay, i'm being such a girl here but you can't go to bali and not experience a balinese spa. i went for a half-day treatment and came out feeling so relaxed and pampered. i had a body massage, with frangipani oil that smelled heavenly. then i was scrubbed down with a milk scrub and body mask. i really felt like a chicken that was being marinated before getting roasted. a warm bath was prepared for me, and it was just like in all the books about the tropical spa; it was covered in flowers and i soaked in it until my skin was soft and glowing.
i also had manicure, pedicure, a facial treatment *i fell asleep during this* and a hair creambath where they massage aloe vera into your scalp and massage your head, shoulders and arms. it was so so good, even better than the usual spa places i go to when in jakarta or bogor. will definitely go for another session next time i'm here.
the husband
the excellent news is that robert has completely fallen in love with indonesia. yay!
it's really weird referring to robert as my "husband". all week i kept saying "boyfriend". i keep putting the wedding band on my left hand, as if we're still engaged, and not on my right hand. we had some private moments together though, a day trip to uluwatu, a magnificent cliff-side temple in the southern tip of the island, followed by a delicious seafood lunch on the seaside at jimbaran bay. staying in the villa and swimming in the pool when everyone else was out. taking midnight swims *but then remco and gerard jumped in the water too, aarrgghhh*
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this week we need to figure what we're going to do. whether we're going to kalimantan again (my idea, plus the da silva's gift to us was a honeymoon to kalimantan, all expenses on them), or to visit flores (again, a honeymoon gift from the regent of flores, my dad's friends are so so generous, i am so thankful) or to visit some volcanoes in java (robert's idea), or to my uncle's mountain estate (robert's idea).
i wish we had time to do all of that. i wish march 29 wasn't so close, that we didn't have to go back to NL so soon. :-(
updated the blog but not so much images as my internet connection sucks big time.
Posted by Yasmina at 10:03 PM | Comments (6)
offerings on the sidewalk
Posted by Yasmina at 04:30 PM
March 18, 2005
offerings at temple
Posted by Yasmina at 04:27 PM
March 17, 2005
pura tampaksiring
tampaksiring temple
Posted by Yasmina at 04:33 PM
March 13, 2005
wedding pictures
gerard took this photo of the back of my head. the bun was adorned with jasmine flowers which smelled so so good, and i had to change flowers several times so they would always be fresh. i also had a long sash made of jasmine flowers which was attached to the side of my head. the other stuff that was heavy were the sticks of silver stuck to the bun, omg, they were painful as they started to sag at the end of the reception.
my unmarried girlfriends kept stealing the flowers from my hair as they believe it would make them get married faster if they could get flowers from the bride's head. we shall wait and see.
Posted by Yasmina at 04:12 PM | Comments (1)
March 12, 2005
man and wife
happy happy, joy joy... :-) off to bali tomorrow, but right now, we are having dinner with the entire haryono family, then off to hit the clubs *robert's parents want to go to karaoke for a lost-in-translation moment* we had a fabulous day today, thanks to all family and friends who made the day truly special for us...
Posted by Yasmina at 06:46 PM | Comments (22)
family wedding photo
in true javanese style... gerard took this photo... :-)
Posted by Yasmina at 04:11 PM
March 10, 2005
strange fruit
tuesday we went to the family estate in the mountains. my uncle and aunt were hosting for the day. thank god for my multilingual family, my uncle's dutch is amazing, my dutch just deteriorated after a month of being here :(
we had a really great time tuesday, we spent the entire day up there, walking around the gardens, the rice paddies. it felt like a botanical lesson, as my uncle went round pointing out the different trees and the fruits. we had a barbecue lunch, grilled fish from the fish pool and fresh plants from around the garden.
then we had a fruit session where we sampled durian, mangosteen/manggis, markisa, salak/snakefruit, papaya, peanuts, cempedak (which is between a durian and a jackfruit), belimbing/starfruit; all these fruits came from our own garden. my uncle and aunt also have coffee on their land, from which they make their own roasted beans.
robert said he had never eaten 80% of the food we ate on tuesday. hihi, i'm still trying to get over the fact that robert, remco, and robert's parents ate durian! and lots of it too! omg...
oh and i was splashing around in the stream to cool down because it was so hot. actually, i like to swim in the stream better than in the swimming pool there, and i've been swimming there for years and years. except this time while i was in the water, my uncles started to jump up and down waving their arms. apparently they were giving me snake warning because there were snakes in the water now.
robert was upset that i'd gone swimming with snakes, but anyhoo i think snakes are more scared of people. i mean, when i go into the jungle, i always make lots of noise so the animals know i'm coming so they can run away. somehow that argument did not work with robert *i swear i'll sing while swimming, please please let me stay in water* and he dragged me out of the water back into dry land :(
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anyway, gerard arrived last night, picked him up at airport then dinner at pasaraya grande, blok m. today i'm going to have a spa day with robert, heheh, and everyone else is going to jakarta kota, to museum fatahillah, and the old dutch part of batavia for a historical visit.
omg, 2 more days to go...
Posted by Yasmina at 07:52 AM | Comments (5)
March 07, 2005
(very busy) countdown to wedding
omg, five more days to go. got up at the crack of dawn to pick up robert's parents and remco from airport today. took 2 hours to get to airport from bogor lakeside because of the monday morning traffic. :-S
tomorrow we are going to the mountain house to chill out, have a barbecue, have a cooling swim, and we're also going to sunbathe the bule-bule *biar ga pucat-pucat amat pas wedding* my kalimantan suntan is fading *already!* and my sunburned back is peeling *eww!*
still loads and loads to do this week, eek, but i'm looking forward to friday and saturday, when we can just enjoy the day itself, seeing friends and celebrating. sunday we are off to bali for a week, yay! :-)
Posted by Yasmina at 06:43 PM | Comments (3)
