《美食祈祷和恋爱》Chapter 74 (160):穿行巴厘岛

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.

不过，想要穿行于巴厘岛，倒是颇为简单。不像降落于非洲的苏丹，完全不清楚接下来如何是好。巴厘岛与美国德拉华州（Delaware）面积相当，是受人欢迎的观光胜地。整个地方都为了协助你而安排有序，让携带信用卡的西方人来去自如。此地广说英语。（这令我感到内疚，却也深感解脱。我的脑神经在过去几个月因努力学习现代意大利语和古梵语而负荷过重，实在没法子再学习印尼语，或难度更高的巴厘语——此语言之复杂尤甚于火星文。）在此地生活，毫不麻烦。你能在机场换钱，找到友善的计程车司机推荐优美的旅社——这一切都不难安排。由于旅游业在两年前爆炸案过后大幅衰退（爆炸案发生在我首次离开巴厘岛的数星期后），于是如今在此地旅游更为容易；人人都急于协助你，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.

于是我搭计程车前往似乎适合作为旅程起始地的乌布镇。我入住一家漂亮的小旅社，位于名称美妙的猴林路（MonkeyForestRoad）上。旅社有个可爱的泳池，种满热带花卉的花园，花开得比排球还大（由一群高度有组织的蜂鸟和蝴蝶照料）。工作人员是巴厘人，也就是说，他们在你一进门时，自动开始爱慕你，称赞你的美。在房间可以眺望热带树林，包含每天早晨的新鲜热带水果早餐。简而言之，这是我待过的最美好的地方之一，而且每天花我不到十块钱。回来真好。

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.

乌布位于巴厘岛的中心，坐落于山区，四周是梯形稻田和数不清的印度寺庙，河流跨越丛林深谷，看得见地平线上的火山。乌布向来被视为巴厘岛的文化中心，传统的巴厘岛绘画、舞蹈、雕刻和宗教仪式茁壮成长之处。乌布不靠海，因此前来此地的游客是一群自我选择、颇有格调的人；他们宁可看一场古庙盛典，而不愿在海边冲浪、喝凤椰汁。无论药师预言什么，这可是适合待一阵子的好地方。此镇有点像是小型、太平洋版的圣菲镇（SantaFe），只不过这儿到处是趴趴走的猴子，还有身穿传统服饰的巴厘人家。这儿有好餐厅和不错的小书店。我在乌布的整段时间，可以从事美国良好离婚妇女打从基督教女青年会（YWCA）发明以来消磨时间的事情——报名上一堂一堂蜡染、击鼓、珠宝制作、陶艺、印尼传统舞蹈与烹饪课……就在我住的旅社对街，甚至有个叫"禅坐店"的地方，是个每天晚间六至七点开禅坐课程的小店面。告示牌上写着，"和平永驻"。我完全同意。