Pak Suwamana’s family used to hike to this lake (Tamblingan) and offer prayers at this Hindu temple every year. About an hour drive by scooter now, the hike by foot took between 14-16 hours! Thank goodness for the trappings of modern life, like vehicular transportation! (=

We got into a short but interesting conversation which reminded me of the premise of the old Kevin Costner movie “Dances with Wolves”… Are we really any closer to happiness with all of our modern advancements? Great question. There are probably hundreds of ways to answer, which could boil down to some variant of “I don’t really know”, but at least we have the ability to answer in more depth now, rather than employing philosophy only.
I have to add, without some of these modern advancements, I wouldn’t be here. So my life is a little richer for having them. There’s my answer.

With no movie theatre within a 90 minute drive, we watched a VCD of a Balinese wayang puppet show. I understood 0% of the show, but enjoyed watching the family explode into sudden bursts of laughter every few minutes. The modern puppet shows discuss current topics with ancient characters. Tonight’s show was about Pornography.

Hmmm. What would a TV show, starring Zeus, Aphrodite, Hercules & a smattering of other Roman god characters have to say about Pornography these days?
Well at least there’s a venue to make this controvertial subject funny (=
“So what! Gitu loh” was everyone’s favorite line of the whole show. The first half of the phrase sums up the meaning well enough.