So it shouldn't surprise us that everywhere we stop a big deal is made of the fleet's being here, and it shouldn't surprise us that the Balinese do a particularly good job. Following the week's displays, tours and evening performances, we had last night the Farewell ceremony and dinner hosted by the Buleleng Regency.
The evening began with alternating performances on the stage by two Joged-style bamboo gamelan troupes, as the cruisers assembled and we all awaited the arrival of the regency officials. After these important people arrived and filled the front rows there followed some speeches. It was touching that the chief official, after his speech in Balinese, did his very best to do his own translation to English. Peter Benziger of Peregrina who has become the cruisers' de facto spokesman, then delivered a suitably flowery and gracious speech of thanks, and this time Raymond Lesmata, the Indonesian liaison for the Rally translated his comments back.
After the speeches came two Joged performances with the dancers seeking partners from the audience, just as they did in Ubud. The hit of the evening was an older cruiser from the catamaran Starfire who did a impressive job mirroring the dancers flirting moves.
From there we moved to a farewell buffet hosted by the Regency at the Sea Breeze Restaurant, a pleasant beach restaurant to the west of the dolphin monument. Lining the approach to the restaurant were individual styrofoam posters from each of the local sponsors welcoming the Sail Indonesia Rally to Lovina. Up close, we realized that each of these posters were carved styrofoam with raised and colored graphics, probably hand done, each unique to this event! Being as they were in Indonesian, this effort may well have been overlooked by the cruisers!
The buffet was the best yet, the tables needed to host the crews of the 74 boats in the anchorage plus all the invited officials and sponsors spilling over onto the beach. It was capped by an impressive fireworks display (including one series of Vegas-like fountains of sparks that we had never seen anywhere before) bursting right over our heads! Then this was followed by dancing and Karaoke, and no one was terribly surprised when our Starfire dancing star turned out to be pretty darn good at the microphone as well!
I do wish the organizers of the rally would give us a little more guidance on expected behaviors for such events. With the details of Balinese life fresh in my mind from reading Fragrant Rice, I realize that we Western cruisers are a rather self-centered lot, dressing too casually (some of us), overlooking details (like the personalized posters), taking orchestrated events too casually (forgoing a scheduled performance for another beer at the bar), or pushing to the head of the buffet line like cattle that haven't been fed in a week. And what does a culture where couples do not touch in public think of our style of whirling and twirling and slow dance embrace? Granted, they did provide the music!
As I type we are mostly moved off of Dedalus and onto Ivory Street. We should be underway to Kalimantan, but the Ivory Street passports have not come back yet with our visa extensions. It's Friday, and if they don't make it back today, can we imagine they'll be here before Monday? Unfortunately, the delay is likely to cancel plans to visit the orangutans in Kalimantan.... which ironically would mean we probably don't need the extensions in the first place!
PS! Got our passports....but New Zealand is playing in the World Cup Rugby tomorrow, so....??? Who knows?
Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad
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