Today we thought we would venture into Ubud, which is a town away from the coast but known for its temples, yoga retreats, arts and culture. It sounds laid back and peaceful in theory, but it was really busy and the roads full of traffic. It is one of the destinations for tourists - but with so much to do there, I am not surprised.
For our first day in Ubud we thought we would get hands on. We enrolled in a Silversmithing workshop, followed by an Indonesian Gamelan music workshop. There are many options to choose from for these sorts of classes in Ubud, however with a bit of research (and a desire to at least try not to be too touristy) we opted for the classes at the local Ubud library.
The silver smith instructor was a lady from a family of silver smiths. Parents, siblings and husband, all jewellery makers. She was really chatty and showed us some of her pieces (but at no point tried to sell them to us). Kirstie made a ring and I made a pendant for Kirstie as a birthday gift, which had 'Reggie' on it. We cut the silver, hammered patterns on it, stamped the lettering, sanded it down, helped her solder the various pieces together, sanded again and then polished them. For the next round, Kirstie made another pendant and I made a key tag for my band's studio keys. It was good to sit in an old library chatting to the lady and doing some craft! She was telling us all about the various ceremonies and festivals in Bali and what she herself needs to do to prepare for them.
Once our time was up, we could see the music teacher loitering getting ready to go. In the library hall, there was a performance space which had lots of musical instruments so we moved onto the stage. Despite booking onto a group class, we were actually the only people. He took us through the 'Gamsa' which is a 'metallaphone' - sort of like a glockenspiel but played with a mallet. He taught us a traditional melody and then got me to play the harmony part. It pretty complicated at times, but it sounded pretty good. Then, he got us to play the gongs in time with the melody and harmony. Kirstie then let slip that I was a drummer, so he got some 'Kendhang' out which are sort of bongos with two ends with different pitches. The rhythm he was trying to get us to play was pretty complicated, but I think I/we got the hang of it in the end. He then jumped back on the Gamsa to play along to the rhythm we were beating. It was really good fun and he was very patient!
After the workshop we grabbed a late lunch and then mooch around Ubud. We wandered around some of the shopping streets and into one part of its famous 'Art Market' - which is a lot of touristy gifts but they were mostly handmade in Bali items. Some of the stall owners were making things while inviting us to have a look at their wares. At some points groups of kids would wander through the market in a precession dressed in traditional Balinese clothes playing gongs and Kendhang, with one or two of them in a lion costume dancing along. It certainly livened the place up!
After wandering through the art market for a while, we thought it was time to head back to the villa. We grabbed a Gojek cab and called it a day.

The Ubud Library, where we are doing our classes.

Me hammering the silver to spell out Reggie.

The final products. I won’t give up the day job, but they’re shiny as hell!

Our weapons for our music class, these are Gamsa.

Here’s me playing the Gamsa. My look of disgust is most likely the awful sound I was making at the beginning.

Time from for a drum off on Kendhang. He won.

Art market.

The lads!

A doorway decorated with coconuts carved into Monkeys.
Comments