Hello ,
Greetings from Ubud, Bali.
Last week I was in Kathmandu, learning first hand about the earthquake there in 2015, you can read about it here.
Since then I have been back to India, checked on our new ranges of cotton and jute bags, flown on to Malaysia and then down to Bali.
It's high season in Bali, school holidays means that all of Australia is here on holiday. Not to meant several million Chinese and and lots of Indian couples on honeymoon.
Ringo (our man in Indonesia) was waiting for me at arrivals as always. I asked him about the recent earthquakes in Lombok, and he assured me that in Bali it's not a problem, but Lombok has been badly hit. I wanted to know if AW could help in anyway.
Anyway, we was soon down to business, and first stop as usual is to check out the central market in Ubud. It's no good for buying wholesale, but it's great to see the latest designs, and see what's trending. If you have ever seen that film; Eat, Love, Pray with Julia Roberts, then you will have seen this market, is always busy with lots of colour and characters.
Off the market is a little alleyway that cuts down a slope to Monkey Forrest Road, lots of cool shops and arty places.. we walk down this road and go in one shop to check some beautiful macrame plant holders. It's 1.23pm local time.
I'm feeling a bit jet lagged and bedraggled, after India-Nepal-India-Malaysia-Bali whirlwind.. so i thought at first it was just me feeling a bit shaky, then I noticed everyone dive out of the shop, Ringo is dragging me by the arm. In the narrow alley everything is shaking and people are looking up fearful of things falling. Then it stopped, we all looked nervously at each other most people holding on to someone else. After a couple of minutes we relax, and life and shopping just carries on as normal.
Except it's not normal because in Lombok, where this originated (I learn later this 6.3 earthquake has claimed more lives) things are much worse.. and that thought is a dark one.
That's my EARTHQUAKE experience.. I hope it's my last.
Moving on..
Last time I was here, in March, we was working on a range of Molten Glass Bowls, they have been in Bali forever originally the glass was blown over a piece of driftwood, and only available when driftwood could be found so quite expensive. But I always loved them, it's nature blended to beautiful form. Then you hear rumours of big orders coming (particularly Dutch orders), you see more shops stocking them. Someone has found a tree root by-product, that looks like driftwood and is in plentiful supply. One or two smart guys get organised with a decent set-up that can produce a little volume and at a reasonable price. The final piece of the jigsaw is packaging, back in March Ringo and I worked on good solid - double wall - boxes and tested different ways of packing, until the product could pass the drop test.
