Meandering thoughts on outdoor living

Modern urban environments like Singapore have their charms, but I prefer a rural setting most of the time. When we take a holiday we usually try to strike a balance between time spent in the countryside and time spent in the big cities. There's usually a tug of war being city and rural time, since Catheleen and now John usually prefer what the cities have to offer.

When we're home and weather permits, I really like to spend time at the cottage, closer to nature than life in the city. Even when at home in the city, when the lawnmowers aren't mowing, it's nice to sit quietly in the backyard on the deck, with a view of the surrounding trees and garden, listening to the cardinals come and go while the squirrels scurry by across the canopy of trees.

I'm not a huge nature lover on its own. I do like to go for a nature walk or a hike on occasion, but I'm not a camper. I avoid the odd suggestion from Catheleen that we give it a go. I've never tried glamping (camping with beds and tablecloths) or flash packing (backpacking with nice hotels at the end of the day), but I see the appeal. One thing on my list is to build more decking and stairs from the cottage to the lake so I don't have to walk on the grass or rough paths so much. In other words, I like to be around nature, but not on nature.

So what does my meandering preference for decks and backyard gardens in Canada have to do with our visit to Bali and Java? Well in Bali, the building styles of upscale houses, museums, temples, and resorts usually combine gardens and nature with open air buildings. If you believe everything you read, the Balinese have cultivated an aesthetic appreciation that keeps society, architecture and nature in harmony, in line with their Hindu and animist influences. Westerners have been waxing on about Bali harmony and beauty since the 1930's, when some Western artists started coming here and mixing and matching styles with the local Balinese artists.

I certainly admire and appreciate the places and grounds we've visited in Bali and Java. We visited one striking place in Ubud Bali called the Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA) along with an adjacent resort. It was truly breathtaking in its beauty. Perhaps tourist dollars helped make the place possible, but the building architecture, gardens, and landscape of the museum and resort were stunning, both by day and when lit at night. The place combined outdoor pavilions, lily pad ponds, bridges over streams, rice paddies, and unique buildings blended into the landscape. There was a massive retaining wall over a rice paddy that was really beautiful - the wall included evenly spaced statues of ladies carrying pots, where water flowed out of each of the pots. We followed the meandering paths, leading to creative statues throughout in the surrounding gardens and bushes. I could go on.

But Bali doesn't have a monopoly on aesthetic beauty. I should think most places and cultures in this world try to combine architecture with natural settings and gardens in some way that is intended to be pleasing. Which styles and cultures you might like the best are a matter of taste and opinion; I think they all must have their appeal.

Being just a few degrees south of the equator, Bali benefits greatly from a climate that doesn't vary much throughout the year other than a wet season from January to March. So for most or all the year the Balinese can enjoy their outdoors and fine tune their harmony. Good for them. I think I'm just a little jealous because the winters in Canada are a bit too long, and so I don't get to spend as much time outdoors on a deck as I would like.

Here's John on a country road in Java today. We greeted most of the people we passed on the road and small villages on our long walk, who I don't think see many tourists in these parts.