1/11/99: Enjoyed a very nice breakfast on the patio of our room… Ubud is up in the hills of Bali, and incredibly lush with jungle foliage… There are no buildings more than 3 or 4 floors tall, and we have an incredible view all around us, as our room is on a second floor, and the building is on a small rise above the surrounding neighborhood… The colors. The smells. The sounds. Wow! … This evening we went to a Balinese concert and dance performance… There was a full gamelan orchestra and the musicians were as balletic as the actual dancers… With one hand the percussionists would strike their gongs, drums, chimes or xylophones with ornately shaped mallets and hammers, while the other hand was alternately used to dampen the sound after each strike or waved about with various hand gestures whenever not in use. It was like their hands were dancing along with the dance performers… Beautiful…
NOTE: The photo above shows a Balinese ballet dancer with the gamelan orchestra musicians in the background.
