Day 4 - Bali Adventures Day Tripping!

Rachel's husband like many Balinese men seem to be has many different talents and different jobs including a bar job at Hibiscus (where Rachel met him when he was doing magic tricks - another talent!), raising/herding ducks, wood carving, export and driver/tour guide!  We booked Made to take us on a day of exploring.

Made picked us up from our hotel at 9am (well 20 past by the time we stopped messing around) and we headed off first of all to have a look at some silver smithing.  There wasn't a huge amount of demonstration to be seen, but we got to have a look at some of the raw materials and then we looked around a huge shop of some beautiful pieces.  For the equivalent of £8 I bought some lovely silver and amythyst stud earrings.  

Next stop was a beautiful waterfall - It was a few steep steps down to the waterfall and then a scramble over some rocks and then edging around a watery ledge to get right up in front.  The roar of the sound of the water was at the same time intense and crashing, but also extremely calming.  I clambed across to get a closer look whilst Anna looked at butterflies - there are so many gorgeous butterflies in Bali, just hard to get a decent shot as they have a habit of moving around!  I asked a nice couple by the waterfall to take my photo, but in actual fact my "selfie" was probably a bit better!

We clambered up the steps again - hot work! - and then it was onto our next stop - coffee and tea tasting.  A lovely chap took us through a garden of all sorts of interesting plants - I'd never seen cloves growing before and they look as you would expect, but also quite different, also he showed us chilies, cocoa, coffee, evil lemon, ginger, a strange looking different type of rhubarb and ginseng.  

We got to meet a Civet - the mongoose type creature that is used in Bali to create the famous Civet or Luwak Coffee.  Civet Coffee apparently is produced only in Bali and only 300kg per year is manufacturer so it's considered a real delicacy!  In fact whilst all the other coffee and tea we tasted were free - our Civet coffee was 50,000 rupiah (£2.50) for a cup.  Civet coffee is produced by getting the Civet to eat coffee beans, these are then fermented in the stomach and quite frankly excreted before being collected for roasting.  The shell of the bean is removed and the bean is roasted and ground as you would with a usual coffee bean.  We waited with anticipation to compare and contrast standard Bali Coffee with this delicacy of Civet coffee.  

We were fortunate enough to sample a whole host of different varieties of tea and coffee and so here are my opinions on each taste test!

Mangosteen Peel - fruity, but not overly sweet, apparently good for all sorts of ailments including preventing stress, cancer and anti aging - I decided to buy some of this to take home at the end!

Coconut Coffee - Like a syrupy latte that you might get from Starbucks, really sweet, but not too sweet.

Bali Coffee - slightly bitter, a bit like Turkish coffee, but without all the sugar added - grainy finish at the end of the coffee grounds.

Ginger Tea - sweet, much more fiery ginger taste than you usually would expect.

Ginseng Coffee - considered buying some of this - good for male virility and tasted almost similiar in sweetness to the Coconut Coffee.

Lemon Grass tea - loved this one as I love the flavour of lemon grass and it was sweet as we found out they had added sugar to everything!  

Cocoa Spices - similar to the "aztec tea" that they give you to try at Cadbury World - really fiery spice and dark chocolaty flavours.

Lemon Tea - Sweet and sour - nice lemony flavour - I would have bought this as well!

Vanilla Coffee - Again - very similar, but nicer, to a Starbucks latte with vanilla syrup.

Bali Cocoa - chocolatey and not overly sweet - not quite as spicey as the Cocoa spices, a really smooth flavour.

Red Ginger Tea - Similar to the ginger tea, but not quite as fiery.

Luwak / Civet Coffee - So this was nice, smoother and much less bitter than your usual Bali coffee, but the question of whether I would buy it specially or take any home, not for the price as the differentiator wasn't really there.  

We also got to try milk chocolate, vanilla chocolate and orange chocolate - all were lovely flavours, but slightly unusual textures - a bit too gritty and waxy compared to what we are used to in the UK.

Anna has been on the hunt for some wine glasses and with a whole host of glass shops on the route we were driving she got Made to pull over and have a look around, although nothing quite right for what she wanted to pay, but looking at the craftsmanship was really interesting in itself.  

We then reached the Elephant Cave Temple which oddly had a pan-piped version of "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion as we arrived.  I had long trousers on, but Anna had to borrow one of the stock sarongs to be "decent" enough to walk around the temple.  In the temple there was a very shallow pool with lots of huge fish that couldn't even seem to fully submerge themselves in it.  The entrance to the "Elephant Cave" was an ornate, and quite scary looking carving.  Once in the cave it was a heady smell of lots of different types of incense burning in a very enclosed space and it felt almost sophorific - would be good for all sorts of strange thoughts whilst meditating I thought.  The temple was set in quite shelving slopes of jungle, so it gave us a good opportunity for exploring and we passed a few locals including one lady who was naked and having a wash in the stream!

After a brief drive we got to the Holy Water temple - I've been here before, but it's really stunning and I was happy to have a second visit.  There are various jets of water that the idea is that you walk along and pray at each.  People make loads of colourful offerings that run into the water and make a beautiful watery scene and there are even bottles on sale so you can collect your own holy water to take home!

There is a huge fish pool with loads of Koi carp everywhere and the colours make an incredible sight.   I particularly liked the view of the garden where they were washing and drying all the tourist sarongs that you borrow to be able to enter the temple against the lovely lush green rainforesty setting.

They cleverly make you walk back past all the shops to get out of the temple and so you have people running after you offering you all sorts of good bargains and less value for money options - i.e. 1 banana 1 dollar!  I especially liked that they had a Princess Diana head to model one of the kaftans on sale!  Anna bought some carved masks after a bit of negotiation, but I managed to escape without spending any more cash as it's dangerous in Bali as there are so many lovely things you can buy that aren't even tourist tat and they aren't expensive, but I'm on a desperate mission to declutter!

By this point we were pretty hungry and so were pleased to get driven up to Kintamani for lunch!  It was a buffet style lunch, not cheap for Bali at 120,000 rupiah or £6, but it's the price you pay in tourist places and we got to eat whilst looking out over a volcano which you don't get the opportunity to do all that often!

We started the route back to Ubud and stopped off at Tegalug rice terraces - beautiful view that they used in Eat Pray Love I believe and I got a nice picture of a chap working in the rice terraces complete with a hat that was woven from banana leaves!

The last stop on our whistlestop tour - Made crammed in loads for us on the one day! - was to see some white cranes flying over at 6pm to a particular tree - there were loads of them!  They were on time and it was really strange how they all navigate to the same place each day - you can tell that this is the case based on the amount of guano on the ground beneath!

We arrived back to the hotel exhausted from our fun, but busy day and so then it was a quick meal at one of my favourite places in Ubud - Juice Ja where I tried a locally brewed beer called Stark.  I also decided to be naughty and have some ice cream and tried both Pannacotta and Tamarillo ice cream - Pannacotta was pretty much just a very vanilla flavoured ice cream, but Tamarillo definitely tasted as described!

Cooking Class and a relaxing afternoon and a dinner in a "quiet restaurant for quiet people"

My plan this morning was to fulfill a bucket list desire of running in Bali...  Rachel my friend had asked me if I would have any room in my suitcase for a few books and bits and pieces before I flew out and I said "sure!"  10kg of children's literature later I was pleased with the 30kg Malaysian air allowance!  My plan was to jog across to her house which is only 3 KM away, but with only 4 hours sleep due to jet lag and general rubbishness about going to bed at a sensible time, I ended up sleeping in and left them on the balcony for her to collect later as by 9am we needed to be at our cooking class at Bumi Bali!

I work Anna up and we rushed (a little) to get ready with a similar breakfast to yesterday - again a very garlicky omelette, Bali Coffee and fresh fruit.  We got to Bumi Bali and were greeted by our teacher and in a class with a German family of 4 with teenage children and a Dutch couple - everyone was down to earth and relaxed and we had a really nice time together.

Our first exercise on the course was a trip to the Ubud market to look at the ingredients that we would need for our cooking.  We looked at a whole range of unusual vegetables, fruits and spices in colourful and fragrant (i.e. a mixture of very "strong" smells) across the market.  We discovered that the fruit we bought yesterday with snakelike skin was indeed called "snake fruit" by many!  

After our tour of approx 45 minutes where we encountered bitter melon, different types of galangal, ginger, vanilla pods and durian fruit we walked back to the restaurant to start our class.  If I'm totally honest I'm a little disappointed that we didn't *actually* buy the ingredients we were using from the market itself, but at least they were all ready for us when we returned to the restaurant.

The first thing that we were to learn was how to make Bumbu Bali a spice base for multiple dishes.  This involved a large number of ingredients being blended and friend in coconut oil including:  fresh ginger, shallots, cloves, red chills, greater galangal, lesser galangal, fresh turmeric, coriander seeds, candlenuts, black pepper corns, white pepper corns, nutmeg, garlic, cumin, sesame seed and shrimp paste.  You blend all this together and fry - it smells amazing!

The Bumbu Bali was then mixed with some blanched vegetables to make Sayur Urab and also some fried rice for our starters - blanched veg was coordinated by Anna who had to put the carrots and long beans in first, followed by all the other cabbage and "softer" beg.

After we'd munched through our first course the Bumbu Bali was used again to season chicken legs for our Opor Ayam - chicken curry with coconut.  We also used the Bumbu Bali to make satay with minced pork and we wrapped it first around a usual satay stick and then around a stick of lemon grass which made the flavour so much fragrant - although would cost far too much to be practical in the UK.  Also it is more difficult than you would think to wrap the satay around the stick - pinching the mixture and anti-clockwise turning is the trick it would appear!  The curry bubbled away for a while and when it was finished we got to eat it with some more rice and the sauce was lovely - we slightly winced at how much coconut oil had gone it, but then again "it's natural! so that's all fine right??

Our last dish was dessert - Pisang Goreng - or fried bananas!  Fairly simple - slice bananas into slices lengthways at an angle and then mix up flour, sugar and egg and dip the bananas in and then deep fry!  We had ours with syrup served on top!

After our feasting session we were pretty full so we wondered down to the internet cafe to print out our plane tickets to Lombok - felt old school to be in an internet cafe!  Anna needed decent coffee so we went along to one of my favourite places in Bali to eat and drink - Juice Ja - Anna had a cappuchino and I had a Bali coffee.

The plan was then to come back to the hotel, I was going to sleep (but blogged instead) and Anna went tourist shopping.

After she got back we went for a wonder and walked up to the tjampuham bridge which is still stunning and I bought some Almond body spray which doesn't actually smell like almond, but reminds me of a perfume I loved from when I was 15!

Getting a little thirsty we stopped into a fun looking place called Gedong Sisi which was really nicely decorated, pretty busy and had happy hour cocktails!  We had a quick drink whilst making plans to see Rachel and her husband Made for dinner and then wandered down to Tutmak for another drink (I had a Bintang and Anna sampled Balinese Rose wine) and then Rachel arrived.  We met up with Made in the car and drove a short distance to Miro's Garden Restaurant which I'd not been to since we went after Rachel and Made got married which is the first reason that I came to Bali.  

It's a medium priced restaurant where after a starter, two 500ml beers and a beautiful main of Nasi Campur it feels a bit expensive at circa 175,00 rupiah plus tax i.e. less than £9!  The food and restaurant is beautifully presented with flowers everywhere and beautiful paintings and furniture with water features throughout.  The restaurant is fairly quiet and a little bit off the Ubud beaten track, but there were still a fair few people eating there.  We had some lovely food - loved how my Nasi Campur was presented with each individual element either in a banana leaf or palm leaf dish.  

As I've not seen Rachel for nearly 2 years and we were having fun we had a few animated discussions - in particular explained the seriousness that the foot bath ingredients were explained to us at the massage and luxury spar yesterday and so we were giggling a little.  From out of the corner of the area we were eating a chap wandered over to us to inform us that this was a "quiet restaurant for quiet people to eat" which he felt the need to state at least 4 times!  Of course by this point we now felt terrible, even though we'd done nothing wrong other than giggle a little bit - and this wasn't a staff member, just some guy that felt the need to tell us to be quiet in a slightly odd way.  It reminded me of two previous occasions where I ended up feeling terrible for enjoying the atmosphere of a Ben Folds gig at Manchester Apollo (Hardly a small and intimate venue) and chatted briefly to my friends about the gig and we were all told by a particularly grumpy young woman in a dodgy hat that she had come to "watch Ben Folds and not listen to you!" but displayed not even one iota of passion for the rest of the gig!  And then there was Nepal - after a long day of trekking the guides and sherpas were relaxing by dancing like mad to an iPhone through 2 tiny speakers and we were joining in, it was "gosh" 8.50 pm and an angry looking man - who we guessed might be Eastern European from what we could tell - was staring at us for a few minutes, he then exploded screaming at us and yanking the speakers off the table "Finish, finished, FINISHED!!!  People are trying to sleep!!!  My family are trying to sleep!!!  The lovely natured Evan from our group - an ex professional ballet dancer from Australia said "people want to dance!" and the chap nearly hit him!  Incidentally his "children" were in their late teens early 20s!  So these things make me wonder a bit - I'm often highly irritated by what I perceive to be deliberately antisocial behaviour of other people at restaurants and other places, but I've not once (apart from perhaps shushing some teenagers when I was watching the first Harry Potter film in the cinema) ever passed comment and certainly haven't felt the need to make anyone feel too awkward - so I'm thinking I'm either:

a. too nice

b. too noisy and inconsiderate until it's pointed out

c. or both!

Answers on a postcard!

A busy, lazy Balinese day

Just like a kid at Christmas, I didn't end up being able to sleep until about 2am last night as I was very excited to be here.  

This is the gorgeous view from my room window.

Breakfast was served between 7am and 10am so I set the alarm for 8am and made my way down to the dining area.  Breakfast was simple - pineapple, papaya, watermelon and orange (with a green skin) and an egg sandwich, but it was all very tasty and served in lovely surroundings.  

The guy cleaning my room came over and returned my key asking me 

"How long are you staying?" 
"12 days"
"12 days here?  That is too long"

Certainly customer service honesty there - either that or he was trying to sell me a tour!

Rachel then messaged to say that she was coming over and arrived with Made and the kids.  Maya was very excited about her belated birthday presents including Hello Kitty balloons and a Hello Kitty book and Kiran was happy to just try and bite the balloons.  Maya was very keen to go swimming so we wandered down to the pool and Maya was very happy and confident in the water and trying hard to get Rachel to go towards the deep end!  

We went back to the room and got changed (Maya into the green dress my Mum bought her which definitely fits and will do for a while!) to head out for lunch and Rachel put Kiran in the sling which looked very comfortable.  I can definitely see why these are favoured from walking along Ubud streets that are uneven with holes - Maya found some of them pretty tricky to navigate with her little feet.

We went to Three Monkeys Cafe and I had a Nasi Goreng which was beautifully served and very tasty and Rachel took the advantage to have some western food and had a Greek Platter.  It was all very tasty and there were some lovely patient waiting staff who brought out some fish food so that a mischievous Maya who had been carefully throwing decorative stones into the pond could feed the fish instead!  

Maya and Kiran were both pretty sleepy at this point and so I carried a sleeping Kiran back to the room and Maya went in the sling with Rachel.  They didn't do a great deal of sleeping, but we sat outside my room on the porch playing with toys and drinking Balinese coffee and persuading Maya that she didn't want to go running off down the steps as there was a big snake down there (she doesn't actually appear to be afraid of anything, so this was not as successful a deterrent as you would imagine).  I am in much admiration for Rachel being able to look after a very spirited 2 year old who is not afraid of anything (real or imaginary) and a very happy baby boy who launches himself towards perilous drops off the side of the steps given half a chance, I would be totally exhausted, but Rachel seems to be taking it in her stride and Maya and Kiran are both happy and lively children.  (Kiran has the most amazing shy grin that he does when you smile at him - it's gorgeous!

Made came and picked Rachel and the kids up and I went for a snooze and watched the end of Eat Pray Love and then headed out for dinner at about 8.30pm.  I went to Bumi Bali which was totally empty which worried me a little, but the food was lovely - I had a special for 130000 rupiah (about £8) which was a starter of cramcam - spicy chicken soup, duck with rice, vegetables and satay sauce and then for dessert - Godoh - banana fritters.  They weren't massive portions, but I was totally stuffed - the hot weather must be a good appetite suppressant!  I had a glass of Balinese rice wine too which was nice, but did taste a bit like the tea and raisin wine I attempted to make under my bed when I was 14.  I went into Bumi Bali as they seem to have Yoga classes, cookery classes and also some very good deals on  spa packages - traditional Massage, facial, hair cream bath (!), manicure and pedicure with polish for 4.5 hours in total and only 320000 rupiah plus 15% tax - about £22!

I then went to buy some more provisions in the form of drinks including grape juice and a couple of cans of Bintang (avoided the Tebz - tea & soda which does actually look like something I should make myself try!).  I popped into the restaurant attached to my hotel for a coffee (was contemplating venturing solo into a bar, but they were either full to the brim and very loud with live music or completely empty - neither of which appealed to me in my still sleepy and jet lagged state of mind.  Will do something more exciting tomorrow, I have promised myself)  

Sorry there are no pictures on this blog post, after a very successful first night of internet, it's been much more intermittent and temperamental today and also I forgot to transer my photos onto the netbook (the lead is back in the room, I'm in the breakfast area sat next to the wifi router!)  I'll update the post when I have better wifi connectivity!

Update - pics are all on now!