In The Ubud ‘Hood
This morning, our amazing chefs crept in, while we were all still snoozing (except Amanda), with ninja like stealth, so that when we awoke, our dining table was laden with an abundance of fruits and breakfast delights. Amongst these delights lay a plate of strange fruit – one we’d never seen. The chef with the least English told us smilingly that it was “black fruit” though the other chef, with better English, told us this tropical delicacy was mangosteen. Feeling like we were on a Tucker Trial from “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!” we each faced the fear of the unknown and bit into its soft, white flesh for a sample, giving the unanimous vote that it was really delicious!
As I mentioned earlier, Amanda (a.k.a. Miss Indonesia) was up before the sun, swotting up on her mapping skills so that she could steer us through the week, living up to her title and ensuring the avoidance of any more unnecessary incidents such as the one we endured last night. Over breakfast she then dazzled us with what she’d learnt and, pointing with outstretched arm in every direction from the dining table, showed us where exactly we were in relation to the rest of Bali, Indonesia as a whole and the world in general. There’s no doubt she’s good at what she does. With Miss Indonesia out front, we remain in good hands.
After seeing Claire’s “pensive pool shot” (featuring in yesterday’s blog post) Keryn commented that Claire might easily be snapped up as the poster girl for our villa. Amanda told her “if they approach you, charge LOTS”, to which Claire replied “oh don’t worry, I don’t even get out of bed for less than 5000 rupiah a day”. Stay tuned because that’s only 50 cents!
Libby, my friend from work, had given me the number of a driver she’d used while she’d been here on holidays late last year. While our villa does have its own driver, he is almost impossible to understand, having extremely limited English. Miss Indonesia would have literally been interpreting ALL day! Libby’s driver, Wayan, apparently had great English so we’d decided to spare Amanda the exhaustion and give him a call. He was more than happy to take us up the winding road to deliver us into the mountain area of Ubud and, more importantly, he was available.
Wayan arrived promptly at 10am and we guiltily skulked past the villa’s driver into the comfort of his air-conditioned van to embark on our mountain adventure. Ann-Maree sat in the front and got to chatting with Wayan. She asked him about his family and he told us he had one son, who was 18…oh and four wives. We all stopped talking and said a collective: “FOUR WIVES!?” to which he roared with laughter, peering at us in the rear-view mirror through his laughing eyes to see our reactions. Gotcha!
The road to Ubud was busy. As we left the cluttered tourist areas of Bali behind, the rural scenery was really beautiful and jungle-like in some areas. Bumping through deep potholes and passing rice fields, roadside bamboo food stalls, lush green foliage and hundreds of mopeds, we were amazed at the many locals we saw, carrying incredibly big and heavy loads atop their heads; backs rod-straight and seemingly with ease. We all enjoyed exploring this beautiful part of the island, Suzanne particularly impressed with the scenery. Pointing at one place, she declared “isn’t it beautiful!” right before realising it was a tattoo parlour! Her next exclamation of beauty was directed at some big rock carvings she discerningly spotted. We’re sure she was already mentally calculating the shipping fee to get it back to her garden in Cronulla until it was revealed that they were actually grave stones! Oh well.
Wayan suggested a quick pit stop at a batik place, where we were able to see batik fabric being woven, painted and sewn. It’s an amazingly intricate process and we enjoyed watching the expert craftsmen and women at work. The batik shop was good for a few trinkets to take home too.
Ascending further along the meandering road we passed through villages that were home to the ancient craftsmen, skilled in gold and silver jewellery making. These villages boasted a myriad of gold and silver stalls and shops. Before we knew it though, we were in Ubud. We had such a fun time weaving in and out of the craft and fashion shops lining the Main Street of this little country town, trying on dresses, picking up souvenirs and mingling with the locals. As I was negotiating the cobbled pathway something out of the ordinary caught my eye. A mother was cradling her young daughter, in a squatting position, with her legs forward, RIGHT in the middle of the footpath. On closer inspection I noticed her pants were down and realised what they were up to. They were near a drain but weren’t positioned over it. “Uh-oh” I thought, “the little girl is about to wee all over the footpath!” I did a double take when I looked again to see that in actual fact, this little girl wasn’t weeing, she was dropping a number two right there in the thoroughfare! Seriously! There’s something you don’t see every day! Apart from the few of us who were still goggle-eyed and trying to comprehend witnessing this unfortunate event, no-one else on the street seemed to bat an eyelid! Needless to say, we made our return journey firmly planted along the other side of the road.
The markets in Ubud were a buzzing hive of activity. It did take a while for us to warm up in the haggling department. Keryn’s first encounter with one elderly local merchant had him reassuring her that the price she’d seemed to have accepted with no qualms was actually negotiable. “Aren’t you going to bargain; you know you can bargain?” This hesitation on Keryn’s part was short-lived, however, and as the morning wore on, she was haggling like a boss, even giving her experienced sister-in-law Claire, a run for her rupiah! She and I were playing hard to get with a funny lady trying to sell us some shirts. Keryn boldly told her she’d pay $100,000 rupiah for both and true to her word, despite the woman’s back-turning shenanigans, wouldn’t budge. You should have seen Keryn go! She was on fire! An Aussie couple saw the transaction in progress and bustled in for a front row seat, shouting: “this is great, we gotta watch this!” Sure enough, her canny bargaining paid off and we were both beneficiaries of her newfound haggling prowess.
Claire and Suzanne were also a force to be reckoned with in this market arena, bagging bargains left, right and centre and forging a strong team-haggling-bond that I’m sure will last a lifetime. While it may be daunting at first, there’s something incredibly empowering about haggling. It’s fun for both parties and everyone was adrenaline charged as we set out to meet Wayan. None more so than Ann-Maree, who had inadvertently strayed from the group in her quest for bargains and was now not with us! Luckily we were able to call her and talk her back to the van. Phew!
Lunch in Ubud was absolutely delicious and I was over the moon to be able to order my “Brutus Burger” freely from the kids’ menu. No discrimination for over 12-year-olds in this country. Australian restaurants take note. Suzie also said her tandoori wrap was the best she’d ever tasted. Our waiter was very funny and kept us entertained with his repertoire of facial expressions, not quite knowing what to make of us.
Our next tourist destination was to visit the Luwak Coffee plantation which we’d heard so much about. This world-renowned coffee is known as Kopi Luwak, or Civet Coffee, which comes to your cup having undergone quite a process indeed. As the webpage states, the coffee is made from “the seeds of the coffee berries once they have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet” (a member of the cute little mongoose family). Did you get that? DEFECATED!! This furry little guy eats the coffee beans, poops the coffee beans and they are then collected from the steaming load, washed (hopefully very well!), roasted, ground and…voilà! Coffee is ready to consume. It sounds bizarre doesn’t it? Who in their right mind would initially have thought it a great idea to collect pre-digested, pre-pooped coffee beans from the excrement of an animal and try to eat them?
Well, the critics had acclaimed it and who were we to judge until we’d tasted for ourselves?
We met our young Balinese tour guide, Putri – who incidentally was dressed in jumper, jeans and socks with thongs because she wanted “white skin”- and she showed us around her lush green spice garden, pointing out all the different plants and their properties, smelling and tasting as we went. We were then given an introduction to the “pooper” himself and taken through the step-by-step process of this unique coffee-making enterprise. Amanda, Suzie and I were the only ones entertaining the idea of a taste but I was particularly fixated on the WASHING process. Having been reassured the beans were washed throughly, three times, I was hesitant but satisfied to take the plunge – the 2nd leg of the Tucker Trial was about to take place.
Putri brought us a trayful of flavoured teas and coffees to try, which we we were to work our way through systematically, culminating in the “poop coffee” taste test. The teas were all met with a favourable response and the coffee was surprisingly good. You heard me, it was good. Yes, drunk with no conscious thought whatsoever of where it came from, it was good. We spent some time in the tea shop, meeting the family who owned it, Keryn stealing a cuddle from baby Juna.
The last stop on our tour today was Tegenungan, where we walked down a steep set of stairs, trekked across some slippery rocks, clinging precariously to a fraying rope that had been bolted to the rock face, to a spectacular waterfall (well worth the harrowing trek!) and had a refreshing swim in the pool below. It was so invigorating and the sheer velocity of the waterfall was incredible! None of us stood under it for fear of brain injury! It was awesome!
Ascending the almost vertical staircase to the top, in the soaring, oppressively humid conditions, left us all puffing and parched, drenched in perspiration so the old bloke almost gliding stresslessly with a full 40 litre bottle of water balancing on his head like it was not a big deal, barely breaking a sweat, didn’t make us look good! We were starting to get bitten by pesky mozzies but the ever well organised Ann-Maree had it covered, offering us all a liberal spray of her All Natural repellant. Aside from the overpowering smell, the repellant had the slow release affect of making our arms feel like they were going to spontaneously combust so that half an our after the application, we were overcome with searing heat!
After a yummy meal in Ubud, we bundled back in the air conditioned car and began our descent to Seminyak. Chatty as usual, our conversation turned to Wayan’s car horn usage and the way the cars and mopeds continually toot one another on the road. He explained that he tooted to let people know he was approaching – a kind of “man-on” strategy and that tooting the horn in Bali was never done as an act of road rage. I spouted that I wished I had a “happier horn” as my car horn sounds quite aggressive even if I’m just giving a G’Day toot. Wayan’s horn, however was quite a happy horn. The conversation climaxed with me pronouncing emphatically to Wayan: “I really like your horn!” As soon as it left my mouth I realised what I’d said but it was too late! Poor Wayan remained politely stony-faced while we all rolled around the car in raucous laughter. Oh dear!
