The role of Bintang in Australian Literature.
October 11th, 2009
Sadly, I’m at the end of my stay in Ubud, but I have had a wonderful time at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. All my ‘events’ went well – people turned up, no one fell asleep and I didn’t mumble too much. It really is the most fun writer’s festival I’ve attended. As well as the great sessions there were amazingly lavish writer’s dinners every night and one party that was straight out of Hollywood. The party took place in a ridiculously flash four storey mansion. I arrived late and there were folk lounging around on giant cushions around the pool, people swimming in their underwear in the pool, couples making out by the pool and normally conservative writers going crazy on the dance floor. Unfortunately I had to leave early because I was leading a three-hour walk through the rice fields at 7.30 the next morning (the pic is of me walking back from my walk). The event was sold out, soI had 35 folk trailing behind me as I told tales of travelling through Bali (and the rest of South East Asia) with the original1975 Lonely Planet South East Asia on a Shoestring. We ended up at this gorgeous villa overlooking the rice fields for a breakfast of smoked salmon and crusty bread, croissants and apple danishes.
I then had my final session called ‘Meet the Australians’ where the 16 Australian authors and poets almost outnumbered the audience. I didn’t say a word during the session (besides my witty introduction). The topic was ‘What is Australian literature and what role does it play in the socio-economic state of man’s struggle to find himself’ (or something like that). Most of the time I had no idea what they were all talking about, so I just sat there looking like I did.
I had my last afternoon free, so I went for a massage (as you do). I’d hired a scooter for my time in Ubud and had found out about this massage place out in the countryside. I’d been there twice already, so I was looking forward to winding down with a final relaxing massage. The massage takes place in this open sided ’shack’ and the only sounds are the wind, laughing children in the distance and tweeting birds. Not this time, though. First there was the barking dog (why do Balinese dogs bark ALL day!), then the rooster with a sore throat, then the badly played bongos, then the arguing couple, then the incessant hammering and, to top it off. right next door was some sort of power saw.At least the SCREAMING power saw blocked out all the other noise. So I ended up more tense than when I started the massage.
I’ve got lots of photos from the festival, but it took ten minutes just to load the one photo, so I’ll load a pile on when I get home to grey, cold, miserable Melbourne.
On October 11th, 2009 Carolyn Foster said: