very fancy party in laplapan

Posted on | August 25, 2007 | 1 Comment

my friend, made lelo, asked us to a party he was organising at his villa, last night.
we thought he was cooking dinner for a handful of people.
we got all dressed up and took a parcel of soap for him and grabbed a bottle of pear-flavoured absolut vodka on the way out the door. a bottle we had opened and from which we had enjoyed a few nips. we thought we’d just throw it on the table and offer it around as it was what we have been drinking this week.

we had previously arranged a driver, and made our way out to the little village of laplapan, on a road which has certainly deteriorated since february, with some truly alarming potholes and washed-away areas.
the villa is next to a large area of terraced rice fields and in the dusk, we could see that many lanterns and torches had been lit and there were security staff everywhere in beautiful sarongs, who ushered our car in and opened doors and welcomed us out.

we crossed the little bridge over a stone pool filled with fat goldfish, through the gates and into the property and we were met with an absolutely gorgeous vision of dozens of little banana-fibre-wrapped candles, frangipani blossoms carpeting the stone pathways and wooden decks, floating floral and candle arrangements in the swimming pool and marigold leis on the huge sculptured cows who are the pool guardians.
it was just breathtakingly lovely.

we had caiparinhas with fresh lime and lemongrass pressed upon us and we were offered leis made from pink and wite frangipani blossoms.
there were loads more people than we were expecting, i think about forty altogether.
it appears that it was someone’s early birthday party and as we gave the unwrapped, well-sampled vodka to our host, he carefully placed it to one side with the birthday gifts!
i started to explain, but he was trying to get music organised and had gone all very balinese with the staff.
so, maurice and i spent the rest of the evening picturing the birthday boy’s face as he got to the opened bottle of vodka and the hilarity and astonishment that such a gift would provoke.
we cannot stop laughing about it either. it’s terrible, but very funny.

the other guests were a very interesting bunch.
mainly people working in various US embassies around the world.
we met germans who live in tokyo, and japanese who live in bali, and an american woman on her way to afghanistan, and an economist from india who works in jakarta and a hotelier from bangkok (who was wearing a silk sarong of such beauty that i had to stop myself from touching it too much…..we talked asian textiles for a little while).
we were definitely the only soapmakers at this gig.

made lelo had organised a spectacular buffet of indonesian food, from a handful of famous ubud restaurants.
we had balinese smoked duck, spiced duck, beef rendang, tuna sate on sugarcane sticks, lawar, chicken sate, pork sate, and avocado salad, all with plenty of lovely balinese steamed rice.

a troupe of dancers arrived and they were wonderful!
they dancing took place in front of the pool, in the candlelight.
four tiny little girls started the dancing….all in perfect unison, with their gold headdresses shimmering, gracefully flicking flower petals out of their offering baskets.
then there was an older couple who did a dance of courtship…..just fabulous.
balinese dancing is all very graceful and there isn’t much movement……everything is expressed with the eyes and the hands and the arch of the feet.
close up, you can see how much work it is to keep those fingers all bent backwards and moving independently; and the eyes wide open; and the neck making very small and exquisitely controlled movements.
we finished with hanuman, the monkey king, who had a very sumptuous costume and a terrifying mask and really long creepy fingernails.
he stormed about the decking, stamping his feet and waving his hands and whirling his cape around, but finished by blowing kisses to us all.

after all that, we sat around under the frangipani trees, listening to ABBA, and gazed out into the warm night through coconut palms, while they fed us chocolate cake and moet.
really, a delightful evening and we still weren’t sure whose birthday it was……

but i hope he loves pear vodka!

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hi, i'm patti flynn

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