Toward the end of my annual Bali From Within trip, I always plan for two days of rest and relaxation at a beautiful place. Participants have a little break after eight days of spiritual and artistic immersion in Ubud, and hiking and village life in Munduk, and they can use it in any way they wish. This year, for the first time, we went to Sidemen, in the eastern part of the island. Sidemen is not far from Bali's sacred mountains and is known for its emerald rice fields and weavers of the beautiful, ceremonial songket cloth.

 

For my own free day in Sidemen I set off on what the hand-drawn map provided by our guesthouse indicated was a long loop trek around a couple of villages, over a river, and through rice paddies. But the contours and contents of a place change all the time, and that is especially true when that place has a moist, tropical climate prone to energetic vegetation and where people are also trying to accommodate tourism. Suffice it to say that the map was difficult to follow and that a path that was supposed to lead past the bungalows of a small a hotel and then through rice fields disappeared within the grounds of the hotel, no longer in operation and sagging under broken bamboo beams and trees growing through walls. I climbed up to where the acres and acres of rice fields spread, to see if I could spot the path and saw no way forward.

   

Piqued by righteous annoyance I turned around and began to retrace the route I'd already been on for more than two hours. I hadn't walked more than a minute when I met a young man heading toward me. In my beginner's Indonesian, I showed him the map and asked him if he could direct me to the path through the rice fields.

 

Yes, he said. He was on his way to feed his chickens and would be glad to point the way.

 

So began our sail through the rice fields. This young man, Gusti Targi, vaulted up onto the expanse of paddies and began walking swiftly over the grass-covered, hard-packed levees that demarcate them. The paths are never more than a foot wide, but Gusti skittered over them as lightly as a cat balancing on an eave. We tripped ahead, to the left, then down to a small hut, where he introduced his chickens and gave them some food. He told me then that he was the youngest rice farmer in Sidemen. Most of the young people wanted to go to the towns and earn more money, but he chose to carry on the family tradition and grow rice. We said goodbye to the chickens and our journey resumed.

 

The experience of following Gusti through the rice fields feels, in retrospect, like a dream. I recall not walking, but dancing on an emerald tightrope. And I think that, if I had tried to find the way myself, I would have been clumsy and hesitant. I would probably have walked slowly, so as to keep my balance on the narrow paths. Trailing this young rice farmer, who is intimate with the way, however, I, too moved with just the lightest touch between feet and ground, like a pianist's fingers on the keys. We swung around a ninety-degree turn by holding onto a small, supportive tree; leapt over runnels where water runs from paddy to paddy as they're being flooded; moved toward a destination he could imagine and I followed in faith.

 

How fortunate, I think now, that I got lost at that very moment, just in time to encounter the one guide who could lead me in a dance through the emerald rice fields of Sidemen.

 

Photo of Sidemen rice fields from The World Effect blog.  

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