April 20th: Communing with Hippies in Ubud
Day 189
At our friend Topi’s advice, we decided to move into an extremely cheap hostel 10km away. In a shared bedroom with 10 bunk beds, a bed only costs 50,000 IDR. Two of us could share a bed since the bed is big enough. It’s even cheaper if you stay long term.
This place is perfect if you are a young traveler in your early twenties or younger. The location is great. It’s off the beaten path, with easy access to cheap local food and groceries. On either side of the building is a local village and behind it is just jungle. Inside the building there is a communal kitchen and several spaces dedicated to making art. They do offer programs and work with the local children making chocolate or crafts, so there are many positives.
However, it’s not exactly filthy but it’s not really clean by any standard. I’m not exactly a clean freak, and just 2 years ago I used a “communal towel” – a random towel that some one left in a mountain hut in France. But there are places where I have to draw the line. Our sheets were clean, but our comforter smelled like sweaty clothes left in a locker, and the same with my pillow and mattress. It was bad enough that we decided to skip the comforter even the night was cold. Although we really couldn’t complain when they only charge 50,000 IDR per bed.
Cher is generally not keen on hippies. A sign in the common room next to a bottle of antibacterial shampoo and body wash reads, “who is using this shit! It not only kills bad bacteria but good bacteria too. It is forbidden in this house!” This sign coming from someone that smokes cigarettes, drinks beers, and not really cares about logic. The last straw for her was a slogan painted in the shared bedroom which reads “Imagination is better than knowledge.” It annoys me too.
The owners are extremely gentle people. We met the 9-year old son of the owner, and I said that his uniform for school looked comfy, not realizing it was his gym uniform. He casually informed me that he had to wear it because his regular uniform was still in the laundry pile, and that sometimes he had to takes “holidays” from school because he didn’t have a clean uniform. It reminds me of a quote from The Dot and the Line. The dot falls out of love with the squiggle, “And suddenly she realized that what she thought was freedom and joy was nothing but anarchy and sloth.” We may be too much line and not enough squiggle.
Cher and I discussed the great potential that place has. They have a lot of nice space and the house is very well built. With very little money they could hire a local cleaning crew, or offer residents a discounted rate in exchange for cleaning duty. That’s all they would need. Then again that might be too capitalistic and not jibe with the communal free spirit. We decided to leave it for the free spirited twenty somethings and moved on.
