《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 74 (160):穿行巴厘島

But Bali is a fairly simple place to navigate. It's not like I've landed in the middle of the Su-dan with no idea of what to do next. This is an island approximately the size of Delaware and it's a popular tourist destination. The whole place has arranged itself to help you, the West-erner with the credit cards, get around with ease. English is spoken here widely and hap-pily.(Which makes me feel guiltily relieved. My brain synapses are so overloaded by my ef-forts to learn modern Italian and ancient Sanskrit during these last few months that I just can't take on the task of trying to learn Indonesian or, even more difficult, Balinese—a language more complex than Martian.) It's really no trouble being here. You can change your money at the airport, find a taxi with a nice driver who will suggest to you a lovely hotel—none of this is hard to arrange. And since the tourism industry collapsed in the wake of the terrorist bombing here two years ago (which happened a few weeks after I'd left Bali the first time), it's even easier to get around now; everyone is desperate to help you, desperate for work.

不過，想要穿行於巴厘島，倒是頗爲簡單。不像降落於非洲的蘇丹，完全不清楚接下來如何是好。巴厘島與美國德拉華州（Delaware）面積相當，是受人歡迎的觀光勝地。整個地方都爲了協助你而安排有序，讓攜帶信用卡的西方人來去自如。此地廣說英語。（這令我感到內疚，卻也深感解脫。我的腦神經在過去幾個月因努力學習現代意大利語和古梵語而負荷過重，實在沒法子再學習印尼語，或難度更高的巴釐語——此語言之複雜尤甚於火星文。）在此地生活，毫不麻煩。你能在機場換錢，找到友善的計程車司機推薦優美的旅社——這一切都不難安排。由於旅遊業在兩年前爆炸案過後大幅衰退（爆炸案發生在我首次離開巴厘島的數星期後），於是如今在此地旅遊更爲容易；人人都急於協助你，迫切找份差事做。

So I take a taxi to the town of Ubud, which seems like a good place to start my journey. I check into a small and pretty hotel there on the fabulously named Monkey Forest Road. The hotel has a sweet swimming pool and a garden crammed with tropical flowers with blossoms bigger than volleyballs (tended to by a highly organized team of hummingbirds and but-ter-flies). The staff is Balinese, which means they automatically start adoring you and compli-menting you on your beauty as soon as you walk in. The room has a view of the tropical tree-tops and there's a breakfast included every morning with piles of fresh tropical fruit. In short, it's one of the nicest places I've ever stayed and it's costing me less than ten dollars a day. It's good to be back.

於是我搭計程車前往似乎適合作爲旅程起始地的烏布鎮。我入住一家漂亮的小旅社，位於名稱美妙的猴林路（MonkeyForestRoad）上。旅社有個可愛的泳池，種滿熱帶花卉的花園，花開得比排球還大（由一羣高度有組織的蜂鳥和蝴蝶照料）。工作人員是巴釐人，也就是說，他們在你一進門時，自動開始愛慕你，稱讚你的美。在房間可以眺望熱帶樹林，包含每天早晨的新鮮熱帶水果早餐。簡而言之，這是我待過的最美好的地方之一，而且每天花我不到十塊錢。回來真好。

Ubud is in the center of Bali, located in the mountains, surrounded by terraced rice pad-dies and innumerable Hindu temples, with rivers that cut fast through deep canyons of jungle and volcanoes visible on the horizon. Ubud has long been considered the cultural hub of the island, the place where traditional Balinese painting, dance, carving, and religious ceremonies thrive. It isn't near any beaches, so the tourists who come to Ubud are a self-selecting and rather classy crowd; they would prefer to see an ancient temple ceremony than to drink piña coladas in the surf. Regardless of what happens with my medicine man prophecy, this could be a lovely place to live for a while. The town is sort of like a small Pacific version of Santa Fe, only with monkeys walking around and Balinese families in traditional dress all over the place. There are good restaurants and nice little bookstores. I could feasibly spend my whole time here in Ubud doing what nice divorced American women have been doing with their time ever since the invention of the YWCA—signing up for one class after another: batik, drumming, jewelry-making, pottery, traditional Indonesian dance and cooking . . . Right across the road from my hotel there's even something called "The Meditation Shop"—a small storefront with a sign advertising open meditation sessions every night from 6:00 to 7:00. May peace prevail on earth, reads the sign. I'm all for it.

烏布位於巴厘島的中心，坐落於山區，四周是梯形稻田和數不清的印度寺廟，河流跨越叢林深谷，看得見地平線上的火山。烏布向來被視爲巴厘島的文化中心，傳統的巴厘島繪畫、舞蹈、雕刻和宗教儀式茁壯成長之處。烏布不靠海，因此前來此地的遊客是一羣自我選擇、頗有格調的人；他們寧可看一場古廟盛典，而不願在海邊衝浪、喝鳳椰汁。無論藥師預言什麼，這可是適合待一陣子的好地方。此鎮有點像是小型、太平洋版的聖菲鎮（SantaFe），只不過這兒到處是趴趴走的猴子，還有身穿傳統服飾的巴釐人家。這兒有好餐廳和不錯的小書店。我在烏布的整段時間，可以從事美國良好離婚婦女打從基督教女青年會（YWCA）發明以來消磨時間的事情——報名上一堂一堂蠟染、擊鼓、珠寶製作、陶藝、印尼傳統舞蹈與烹飪課……就在我住的旅社對街，甚至有個叫"禪坐店"的地方，是個每天晚間六至七點開禪坐課程的小店面。告示牌上寫着，"和平永駐"。我完全同意。