Wholesale Scary, spooky, sad & happy in Bali - Ancient Wisdom

Greetings from Ubud, Bali

Words cannot describe how thrilled I am to be back here. I have been here for one week, last week I was telling you about my (Squid Games) quarantine in Jakarta, which panned out differently than expected.. You can read about it here.

The flight from Jakarta to Denpasar, Bali was a Lion air flight. It's always a bit disconcerting because the way they pronounce Lion air over the tannoy.. sounds just like Ryanair.. and the flight was crammed and very cramped I had my knees crushed up against the seat. The customers were mostly Java people going on holiday to Bali. These days Bali survives on domestic tourists. However there was a scattering of europeans on the flight, mostly instagram influencers and I think one businessman like me.

Boarding Lionair to Bali.

On arrival we were soon through the terminal, not really busy - ours was the only flight at that time. I had to queue up with the cool, trendy and tattooed influences to have my vaccine and PCR and proof of quarantine papers checked and stamped and then could grab my luggage and head outside..

Ringo is there, waving and jumping up and down waiting for me of course. Hugging like long lost friends..OMG Ringo it's so nice to see you!

It's been 433 days since I had to leave under dramatic circumstances. Our warehouse in Sheffield burned down.. regular readers will know the story. It's 1 year, 3 months, 6 days since I last hugged Ringo.

Sometimes numbers are significant.. Do you find that? Like from the day our warehouse burned down to the day we got the keys to Affinity Park.. was highly significant.

I felt compelled to use timeanddate.com and check the time and date since last seeing Ringo. And the result makes the hairs on my neck stand on end...

40,000,020 seconds
666,667 minutes
11,111 hours
463 days
66 weeks and 1 day

In that time (the last 40 million seconds) so much has changed, so much happened, Ancient Wisdom has been through a massive period of change and renewal..

When the bubonic plague gripped Europe during the Middle Ages, ships would be isolated in harbours for 40 days before passengers could go ashore. The word quarantine originates from the Venetian dialect form of the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning “40 days”.

In the bible 40 is shorthand for "a long time" - eg 40 days fasting etc.

OK calm down everyone.. this is Bali, land of spirits and everything has meaning.

Ringo takes me to the warehouse and offices.. "Happy" our adopted dog remembers me tail wagging maddly happy as always to see me. As of course are all our team. It seems we also have acquired a new pet. It's a pretty bird that sings to us as we work.

I ask where it came from? A little concerned that we are keeping caged animals.. Ringo explained that this bird had adopted us, rather like Happy did. She (I think it's a she) started tapping on the office window.. and for a few weeks would always be there.. tap tap.. then if it could get inside the office would come and sit - and sing and poop.. which is not ideal. Regular readers will remember we had the same issue with a big black Raven at our old warehouse, when we moved into Affinity.. weirdly it happened again.

So Ringo bought a cage, and Putra jumped right in and seemed happy there. In the evenings she likes to fly around for a while. We think maybe she belonged to someone who had to leave Bali and had set her free.. Then in the wild wasn't comfortable so she looked for a new home. She chose Ancient Wisdom.

Putra, our new pet.

Happy, the AW guard dog.

The AW Bali Team..

So this week has been mad busy.. the office was stuffed full of sample products that we had initiated from Europe.. so I had a programme to go and see as many regular suppliers as possible and perfect and progress the products.

Meeting with the bead ladies in Sukawati.

The family that makes display stands and furniture. They were delighted to see me, almost crying.

We have seen so many people and kick-started projects everywhere that my head is spinning.. I could bore you for hours but I won't.

But Ringo wanted to take me to the bone carving village.. I told him our customers wouldn't really buy animal products. But we went anyway.. It turns out that near the bone carving village is a coconut oil factory, the discarded shells are available for crafting into new products such as candleholders and hanging plant holders.. the carving skills repurposed to carve coconut shells rather than (unpopular) bones.

I have tried to buy these things before but always felt that the end price in your shops would be too high to get volume sales..

We met with the boss of one showroom on the main street with a large family compound behind with his extended family all employed in cleaning and carving the shells..

It's hot in Bali.. and as is common in the more remote villages he didn't really like to wear clothes too much :)

I'm so happy to be back in Bali.. and I think we have a world of opportunities but still some obstacles to overcome. Shipping costs are high and shipping times are horrible as ships have to queue at major transit ports.

My first night in Bali - I abruptly awake at 4.20am.. heart beating.

Bali welcomes me with an earthquake..the room is rocking around.. 4.8 I later learned. That's not huge, but the epicentre was nearby. Close to Ringo's home town in Bangli. Sadly three people died.

So I have been staying at the Mansion Hotel in Ubud.. as a regular customer they were delighted to see me and gave me a grand suite room for 700,000 Indonesian rupee including breakfast. That's about £35 a night.. the normal list price for my room is $450 / night. Check out the hotel website for an idea of what Ubud is like.

It's a little sad.. all the same staff are there, they know my name - the manager personally welcomed me. Breakfast is served in the room (the restaurant is closed).. by a team of six staff - because they want to say hello.

I'm the only customer, do they have any bookings? Not yet they tell me sadly..

More tales from Bali next week.

Take care and don't forget to be kind to someone today.

David