Indonesia....1000 warungs: March 2011

Thursday, 24 March 2011

March 8

Ex president Sukarno (Bung)

Going-home-Tuesday....

Ah, sad indeed. I will have to say goodbye to this lovely chain of emerald islands.
It has been a lovely experience, an experience that has taught me much more that I ever dreamed it would.
An experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life, an experience that will live in me and continue to grow … as I grow old.

March 7

March 7

Monday

Ahh, second last day here in Bali Indonesia.
We had a solid rain again last night, but our room was great and the airco kept it cool and dry.
I had a great rest, even better than the last place we stayed in. I think bed quality has a lot to do with my sleep pattern.

Writing the last blog

I am here in the dining area, looking for an Internet connection only to find out that the Internet modem is not turned on until 7 am. First I ever heard of modems getting shut off at night....anyway, 7 is fine too, I just wanted to send off my next set of blogs.

As it turned out, the manager had forgotten to turn the Internet on, all together so I waited for nothing. I did send my stuff off but I do not know if it sent, or not. Tomorrow, I will send march 6 and 7 again, just in case.

We started with an American breakfast of bacon and eggs, that was nice for a change. I asked for the bacon to be crispy, so they threw it into the deep fryer and crispy, it was.... Remind me to shut up already next time, okay?

We took our bikes and drove north, along the coast, but so far in that we never even saw the sea, until well into the second hour of driving. The road was busy as he'll and the drivers were dangerous, on more than 1 occasion, either Menno or I were forced off the road by trucks.
We pulled of the road and decided to head back, but to look for a smaller road, one that would perhaps run parallel to the sea.
We drove into some kampong areas, and it was then when we really were enjoying the ride. It was as if time was turned back 50 years and we entered a Balinese version of the twilight zone…

Black deserted beach

As we got deeper into the kampongs and sawas we saw a very old lady , sitting naked in a stream, cooling and bathing herself and she threw us a wave, as if to say....”I am enjoying life to the fullest”... she was such a peaceful and beautiful sight.
We drove on to the beach, of black volcanic sand, it was the kind of beach that one would equate with Bali of many moons ago. In the distance we spotted some fishermen throwing their nets into the boiling surf, but we were too far away to be able to tell whether they had any success.
Because we had the bikes, we were able to weave in and out of sawas and beaches that were never discovered by the suffers and other tourists, it was just great. At the end of one of the sawa roads, we spotted a shack on the beach, where we drank a Bintang beer and shot the breeze with some local folk, who got a kick out of seeing some Blandas (Dutch). They talked a mile a minute and neither of us, knew for sure what the other was saying, I do not speak Balinese, and they did not speak behasa. Amazing how it really doesn't matter and equally amazing how communication comes in so many more forms than just language.

Rempeyek

In the little shack I found some rempeyek, the way I know it. Full of peanuts, crisp, thick and with the flavor of ketumbar and djintan and clearly the cook used coconut milk to thin the batter....I was thrilled.
Before getting back to the hotel we stopped to get Tine some jasmine tea this time, as Menno re-read his honey-do-list..... And I got my magosteens, for a snack, later with Menno.

When we got back to the hotel, we found that there was no electricity and that meant no water either. The lady at the front desk, did offer to come and bring us a bucket of water, so we could flush the toilet.....geee thanks a lot, lady!!
The electricity would not be turned back on until 5, because down the road they were working on a “proyek” that caused them to disconnect the electricity to this part of town.
This meant, no air, no water, no internet, not much of nothing....

Roast corn vendor

So we headed to back to the beach, because yesterday we spotted a couple of vendors, who sold tahu, spring rolls (lumpia) and covered these in cabeh rawit and peanut sauce. Both Menno and I had a powerful hankering for this dish.
We found the lady, sitting in the sand, with her tahu and peanut sauce tray in front of her and we each had a portion.
She first formed a cone shaped piece of paper, that she stapled to hold the cone shape in place. In the old days, it would have been a banana leaf pinned with a lidih, a thin skewer made from the palm leafs.

Tahu Goreng vendor

Then in each of the cones, she cut with a scissors, some fried tahu and some fried spring rolls, then she cut with the same scissors, 3 birds beak chills (Rawit), the very hot ones, and then covered all this in a lovely peanut sauce and kecap manis….. She offers us each a lidi to eat the tahu with.....I thought I had died and gone to heaven...

I can honestly say, that off all the things we ate and tasted, this simple dish was my favorite, so much so, that I opted for a second portion. (40 cents)

My hero....she is everything I remember...

it was as good as the first....you see, you need not go to a fine restaurant to find food that has been well prepared, all you need is someone who cares about their cooking skill and is proud to feed it to the guest. We were so satisfied and happy with this discovery, that we celebrated with a cold, fresh lemon aid at one of the fish restaurants, on the beach. We decided to have a nice ikan kakap (red snapper) later that evening.

Fried red snapper

We returned to the hotel, for a swim, we were dusty and hot from the drive and the beach, so we soaked in the pool for an hour. We each mandied and got ready to head out to the fish restaurant on the beach.

We arrived at the restaurant, amidst thunder and lightning and we knew that before long, it would rain, hard!!
We ordered the fish that I picked out, with some kentang goreng, (FF's....)

We chose the fish to be "goreng", fried and the skin crispened with some sambal.
Just then the skies opened up and it came down by buckets, good thing we had anticipated this and were seated on the middle of the restaurant, under only a minor leaky roof....
A bit of rain panic ensued ad people started snuffling about, trying to stay dry. We had 3 elderly ex-pats join us, who were interesting to talk to. The ladies were all well into their 70's and own houses in Spain.
Soon our dinner arrived and it was delightful, the fish was crisp tender and tasted of the sea, where it swam, just hours before, they brought us 2 dishes of sambal, 1 red and 1 green, the green is called sambal mentah, it means fresh sambal, made of chillis, garlic, oil, lemon juice and salt. It is delicious... The red one was a type of sambal ulek, also delicious.
As good and fresh as this fish was, the tahu was the culinary high light of the day, actually....the entire trip!!

March 6

March 6

Gunung Batur-Lake Batur

Sunday.

This is the second blog I am writing for this day. Somehow, when writing my list of questions, for Tante Riet, I must have dumped the entire "march 6" blog....
Dumb and dumber...... Me !!

We had our standard breakfast of pineapple pancakes and sliced fresh fruit in the dining area.
At about 8.15 we were met by Khuman, her husband and 3 kids, who came to bid us farewell. What lovely people they are. They were on their way to visit some relatives who live a 2 hour motor cycle ride away. One of the kid's uncles was there as well, because he was needed to ride two of the daughters since the oldest son, Madeh decided not to go and preferred to stay home with HIS motorcycle and eating his potato chips.
His poor parents, in keeping with ancient Balinese tradition, have devoted most of their means to this oldest boy, even although their daughters show much more potential. For example, Madeh goes to the best school they can barely afford, but because his other (Madeh) friends, go there, he feels he should as well. He threatened that he would drop out of school if his parents would not allow him to go to this private institution. He had several years of English and claims to speak it rather fluently....he does not. His little sister Tini is the one with the smarts, as far as I am concerned, Madeh is a sloth.
As it happens here, probably Tini will get married at age 16 and move to the village of her husband and be integrated into his family, too bad, she is the one with all the brain potential and the most likely to make something of herself, if she was given the opportunity.
Enough about this..... I needed to vent....

Foot hills of Gunung Batur

The feeble ride, creaking and whining awaited us, on time in the parking lot. The driver was a youngish fellow, who's behasa Indonesia was as bad as his English.
We decided on a route that would take us, through the mountain passes of east Bali, opposite to the way we came up here to Lovina.
The mountain passes were gorgeous, the vistas were incredible, so much so, that I did not take too many pictures, because I knew that my lens would never record what I really saw.
We stopped at the summit of one of the higher ranges, and looked out at Gunung Batur and lake Batur. What I immediately noticed was the rivers of solidified lava, that had streamed down this volcano
during the last eruption. Solidified rivers of lava, miles and miles wide, had cut a path though the jungle on it's way down seeking an equilibrium with gravity. Sterilizing everything in it's path, this sunami of 10000 degree of molted rock had left it's mark of destruction.
Immediately adjacent to the rock-rivers the jungle had recovered, and in time, the lava will prove to have it own fertile quality, but for now it is just as sterile as surgeons scalpel.
To our left we saw the tips of Gunung Agung, the highest volcano of Bali in all it's smoking glory.....one day, this mountain too, will blow it's top again...that is Bali. People live here daily with that possibility, we just hope that modern science will give them a bit of warning that will be heeded. The past has shown that each time there is an eruption, there are many who refuse to leave their meager abodes and choose to stay, with horrible consequences.

Lake Batur

Just across the lake Batur there are a couple of isolated villages, inhabited by people who prefer to stay on their own and are not much interested in "the outside world".
These folks have the curious tradition of hanging their dead in trees. The trees are usually ever flowering with a very heavy sweet scent
(I can imagine why...)
A visit to this village and it's folk we missed, because it needed advanced reservations.

We arrived in Sanur, a city that is much more "Western" than it's Balinese. Everywhere the signs are in English and some even in French.
It seems that the accepted currency here is in US dollars.
Even our hotel charges in US dollars ($50 a night for 2, including breakfast)

Balinese dancers

We rented some motor cycles, because we are quite a ways out of town, and set out to discover the sights.
First we stopped by a kind of supermarket, where we bought some green tea, for Tine, and I found tons of mangistans for 30.000 rupia per kilo. Tomorrow we will eat mangosteens, after all the price is only about $2.70 per kilo.

March 5

March 5

March 4

March 4

Ogoh ogoh

March 3

March 3

Friday...

Having learned our lesson from yesterday, we decided on pancake for breakfast and maybe tomorrow we may try the nasi goreng with the telor mata sapi on top.

Nasi Goreng

Today we need to bring the motorcycles back, so we wanted to one more day of exploration and headed towards the mountains, as we had already covered all the other wind-directions, except for south, into the mountains or north, into the sea.

We turned into a kampong road and headed up the mountain. The ride was just fantastic and the higher we got, the cooler it felt. It seems like we were into the clouds and we were in a less inhabited area.
We saw beautiful vistas of the jungle mountains and deep valleys below and in the far distance, the Sea of Bali....
Stopping on the way to look Round, we reached what we felt was a good place for a short rest and to take in the view. It was beautiful...I decided not to take any photos from his spot, because I knew that there was no way that my lens could show the beauty we saw, looking all around us.

Great view.

When you see this and other vistas, like our house in Bolulla, Spain, you'd wonder why anyone would what to live on a busy beach, especially "Hassle Beach" as this stretch of beach in Lovina is internationally known....

We reluctantly headed back down the mountain, which was a lot trickier than ascending the mountain, because we had automatic transmissions on our bikes. So, the first miles or so, we used our brakes to the point of over heating, until we discovered that if we would give a bit of throttle (very counter intuitive, ascending a 40 degree angle) that the tranny would actually break the speed.....clear sailing after that, all the way down.
We stopped by one of the cleaner warongs for a delightful Mie Ajam Bakso. A soup with chicken, noodles, meatballs and vegetables. It was quite nice...

March 2

March 2

Dutch Club, Singapore.

Wednesday.... (happy birthday daddy....)

This morning started kinda lazy....we got up at about 7.30 and had some breakfast; scrambled egg on toast. Big mistake,....back to pancake tomorrow. There is something about the butter they use that gives the toast a funny taste. Even the scrambled egg was nothing to write home about. The fruit, papaya, ananas and banana were great and so were the kopi Bali. Upon closer inspection, the butter-cups contained only 5% butter and that would leave 95% of some bad tasting "other stuff"...Read more »

March 1

March 1

Tuesday.

I feel like it's count down time, perhaps today we will see if we can find some Balinese masks that I would like to get Alex and Christina.

I scored a couple of masks from a local carver, they should make a nice souvenir for my kids, plus the add-on value that the masks will keep mean spirits out of their homes.

We had a nice noodle soup at one of the local warungs, however, I find much of the same standardization here , concerning food, as I found most anywhere in the world.

Bakso soup (Meatball soup)

It used to be that we had our own vendors, who would make the bakso soup, just the way we liked it, and "our" sate vendor we would visit exclusively, amongst a whole row of 30+ sate vendors, because he had the best kacang sauce, or best lontong or most flavorful sate.
In Holland, we knew exactly who had the most delicious croquettes, the most crispy French fries, the best nierbroodjes..... (deep-fried, breaded, slice of bread, topped with a ragout of kidney...yum!)
Now the choice of croquettes is either the run of the mill variety, or the better "van Dobbe" or "Kwekkeboom" brands, and now I understand that one bought out the other, although the new owner pledged to keep both original recipes available.....here is hoping....

When I was in Utrecht a couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to see that there a still a few places that sell hand cut, fresh French Fries.
I bought a bag at the train station (met mayo....) but noticed that they had gone over to using the poly-unsaturated oil,.....healthier, but not as tasty as I remember them, back in the days that they were cooked twice, in two temperatures of beef suet. When I get back, I will go the famous "Manneke Pis" chain in Utrecht in the hopes that they did not jump on the "healthy patat" band wagon. I will be happy to make report about my findings....

At least HEMA has managed to maintain the quality of their excellent smoked sausage, it is that exact one, that I measure all others against..... Hands-down...the best.

Hema sausage

Now here, in Indonesia, unless you go to a small warung, it seems that all the noodles for mie-soup come from the same standard instant noodle package, exactly the same as we buy in the Chinese grocery stores in Canada. Flavor package is included.....and all they need to do is add some chopped veggies and sliced chicken.
I am not saying that it is not tasty, or filling, because it surely is. It does take the guess work out of "where to eat today"...

Soto Ayam

It seems that the only difference in flavors and styles are amongst the Soto Ajam vendors.
I think that the main difference lies in the homemade bumbu, that each vendor uses, they have not yet "packaged" that exotic flavor, or perhaps it is a source of pride, for each hawker...

We were also disappointed not to find the sweets that Java has, the klepon, the puhtu, the kue lapis, the gula Jawa filled treats....
On one morning we did see some sweets being sold in the pasar, but we did not dare to buy any. The conditions that they were sold in and manhandled was such, that we decided to let our intelligence prevail and to pass on the treats.

I also noticed that there are very few, if any, Chinese food venders around any more. The very vast majority of food stalls are all run by Indonesians.
When I travel back in time, I recall going on family outings to Glodok, the Chinese section of Jakarta, where we would eat the most delicious dishes, almost all run by Chinese food venders. Even the bubur ayam hawker that came door to door a couple of mornings a week, was Chinese....where have they all gone??
It was a riddle to me, especially since I associate them with the foods of my past, the years when we would go out and eat together, the days that we were all together, the days when parents and kids lived in one house....

February 28

February 28

This is the day of the Babi Pangang Guling...named after the roll- cushion shape....

the pasar

I was up early, this morning; knowing that Putuh, his wife Kuman and their little son would be waiting at the hotel gate to take us to the pasar( market ).
They were there on time, and we departed on our motor cycles for the pasar. The pasar was like all the pasars in Indonesia, you can smell them a mile away. The scent of tjenkeh (cloves) fresh pala, (nutmeg), kunjit (fresh turmeric), duren (durian), djahe (ginger), fresh fish...so fresh, some of them still moved....many types of bawang.....and many types of dried fishes, great fried with white rice and sambal, onions....all those scents mixed with a little diesel fumes and the smell of carbide lights will take anyone back to the days when indonesia was, as we Indos remember it.

a vendor at the pasar

The easy going attitude of the vendors, the interesting way the customers take turns buying stuff....when you need 6 things, it is customary that the vendor gets you the first thing you need, then goes onto the second client and helps her to her first thing, and so, back and forth. Perhaps to make sure the client doesn't impatiently walk away, perhaps it's being polite, in any case, it is lovely. It also makes for great socializing.

Temple at Putu's house

We bought lots of lomboks, a shopping bag full....the sweat broke out on my brow, just thinking of all this sambal, terassi (fermented shrimp paste, stinks like heck, but tastes great), djahe, kunjit, katjang panjang (long string beans), bawang putih, bawang merah, a type of ginger that I know as laos. Daun Salam, daun perut, and several other leaf-type herbs.
Loaded to the ears with bags we drove 15 minutes down the road to their kampung. We left the road and entered a narrow dirt road, a few lefts and rights and we were at the house of Kuman and Putuh. This was a basic brick and stucco house but clean and we were welcomed like if we were long lost kin.

The neneh, Putu's mom..

I was introduced to the neneh an elderly lady, the mother of Putuh, who is used to live in the Bali of old; the days before the puritan Dutch forbade the local women to walk around bare breasted. The lovely old woman, perhaps in her 70's, or so it seems, is a gem..when I wished her a selamat pagi, she thought that my behasa was excellent and she would continually try to speak with me(in Balinese….nothing like Behasa)
Now...here in Indonesia, if you observe the speaker carefully and watch the hand gestures, absorb the look in the eye, you should get a long way towards understanding what is being said.
So as not to waste to much time, we went for a short stroll to collect the Babi, a pig of about 70 lbs. It was hog-tied and carried skewered on a pole to the house oh Putuh and Kuman.

on the way to Khuman's house

Here some water was brought to the boil and once it did, the pig was slaughtered, the blood collected to be made into Lawar, a dish of blood, coconut and bumbu. I made sure that they understood that I am not a lover of anything containing blood, luckily, Kumar doesn't like it either, so that made it so much easier and less insulting, when it gets offered and refused.

Once the piglet was in lala-land, it was poured over with boiling water and the hair and, first black layer of skin was scraped off. This was all done on a piece of plastic tarp.

Pig-Roast

Once the pig was deemed cleaned and ready, it was eviscerated and washed. It is then filled with the bumbuh and the mystery leafs and the cavity is skewered shut. The final treatment is a hand rubbing of kunjit mixed with a bit of water, and the piglet was a pretty yellow....

The biggest issue proved to be the lighting of the fire, which took almost an hour, but finally it started and once the fire was deemed ready for the pig, it was covered with a large piece of corrugated metal. Then the pig was put on the bamboo spit and cooked over indirect heat, shielded by that corrugated metal.
We figured that it was going to take about 3 hours for it to cook, so we decided to come back at 3.30 to see the progress.

Khuman deviding the pig up

We had about 5 men working on this pig roast, with their wives, and I hope they stay around to help us eat it, because there will be lots of food. I noticed that my capacity for eating rice is not what it used to be, a little fills me up quite quickly, whereas the locals here, eta rice at least 3x a day.
The bumbuh that was made to fill the pigs cavity was made of finely chopped, ginger, turmeric, shallots, garlic, lomboks, salt, daun Salam and daun jeruk perut, as ell as laos and terasi bakar.
This was all gorenged and mixed with the mystery leaf. I since found out that is called daun cin kong. ( pronounce chin kong), it grows wild just about anywhere
As we were stuffing the piglet, I'm noticed the youngest son of Putuh and Kuman chewing on a piece of roasted pork liver on a stick....better he, than I....

Young son, chomping on liver

As well, some of the helpers were chomping on some intestines, that were cleaned and roasted on a stick.....

As for me, …I'll wait for the crispy pork skin, yah....?
It seems that the helpers are fond of the liver, intestines, kidneys, spleen and other odds and ends...again....call me spoiled, but I'll hang around patiently for the "main course"....
I found out that the mystery leaf grows on a tree that looks a bit like a papaya leaf and has the flavor of spinach with a bit more body. It is called daun kan-kon.
Well, the pig was quite tasteless (please use a bit of salt, next time?) although it was very tender. The skin was crispy at some spots and the meat was quite well done and juicy and slightly fatty.

Glenn--Khuman--her sister in law

Side dishes included a sayur, a sambal bawang putih, lavar of chicken, which is classically made by mixing pigs blood with grated coconut and bumbu, to the best of my knowledge, is this dish not cooked. There were also crisp fried intestines and blood cake and of course their staple, nasi putih, white steamed rice...
Of course, there was a sambal mentah, which means fresh(ly-made sambal). This is made by chopping several varieties of lombok, including the rawit and the regular tjabeh ...this is mixed with chopped shallots, garlic, salt, jeruk and a bit of oil, so it is quite intense and flavorful, if you like sambal
We enjoyed the food in general, but in general, I prefer the Chinese roasted pork, it seems more flavorful and he skin is in general crispier.

February 27

February 27

Lover or fighter?

5 am.....
The day began, just like every other day here, with the crowing of the roosters, competing for the attention of that scrawny ajam kampung.....she must know something more than meets the eye....

I think I may have found a "hot-spot" in the big garden here, where I maybe have a bit of connection. So far, I have spent most of the Wifi rupias on waiting for the Google main screen to load. Thanks goodness we have a tower in the middle of the property that supplies wifi to the whole complex......I think it's a mobile telephone relay tower myself, but hey....who knows?
This new hot spot is next to the pool, adjacent to the pathway....yes, in and amongst the plants (and the mosquitoes)....

Hot-Spot

We had a lovely breakfast of pancake with pine apple. Nice and crunchy on both sides and definitely tasty, served with a bit of wild honey. As well, of course, the aromatic kopie Bali, aka tubruk, aka Java, aka Lombok etc.
I have made this style of coffee many times in Canada, even in Holland, but it never seems to taste quite the same. The aroma of this coffee, seems to "fit-in" with all that goes on here, all that makes Indonesia, the lovely country it is....
After breakfast we walked over to the local travel warung and booked our ride back south to Sanur, and while we were there, we booked a couple of motor bikes as well. We will spend our last 2 days here in Bali, in Sanur, not far from the airport of Den Pasar....from there to Jakarta and via Garuda back to Amsterdam.

Ogoh-Ogoh

We spoke to the hotel manager about the coming Hindu new year, on the 4th and 5th of March.
On the 4th there will be a huge parade where larger than life effigies of bad spirits, will be paraded down to the beach. On the way, people will bring their bad feelings of the past year and pass them into the large effigies (through mental telepathy), and the Ogoh-Ogoh will then head for the beach. Then, once at the beach or at a local graveyard, these huge statues and their bad spirits will be burned and the evil spirits and bad omens will be released to the clouds above......
On the 5th. Is the day that total silence and reflection is observed all over Bali. There will be no one in the streets, no cars, no bikes, no trains, no Internet, no nothing.....a person caught moving about, will be subject to a large fine, so Menno and I will be under house arrest.

All flights, all rail traffic, in short, everything stands still and all will be eerily quiet that day.
Here at the hotel, we may move about, sit in the pool, as long as we don't not make a peep.....

By 6 pm, all the lights go out, airco is shut off and it will be pitch dark until 6am. Everyone will reflect of the year past, ponder the bad things that happened during the past year and pray (silently) for a better year.
This must happen in total pitch dark and total silence, (hence it is called the quiet day).... because the bad spirits that were released by burning the effigies are still floating in the skies above Bali and are looking down, to land anywhere they hear a ruckus or see even the faintest light.....
Bali will not broadcast any TV that night, but Java still does, because they are Muslim and do not subscribe to the traditions of the Hindu.

Menno and I are excited to be part of this celebration and day of reflection. The very next day we will leave, via private car to Sanur......

Ikan teri and bawang merah

Anyway..... After the explanation of the coming festivities went to get our motor cycles and decided to go for a ride. Unfortunately, after about 10 meters my bike stalled, because the tank was bone dry.....I went back to the toko that arranged for the bikes and spoke to the manager, who doubles in the evening as a Soto Ajam hawker. His initial reaction was.....ahduh, sayang....it's okay, when you bring the bike back, is okay...no benzin...is okay....
What can you say to such a naive and innocent and disarming explanation.....that coupled with their perma-smile and I was ready to drill for oil right there and then and distill it into "bensin" ....gasoline, myself....Oh by the way, here they pay 50 cents for a 1 liter bottle.... And every drop of gas is owned by the Republic, but most bikers (and there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions), buy their gas by the 1 or 2 liter bottles from roadside stands.

Ganesh

February 26

I am quite excited to be heading north today, Ubud was a lovely place and we did some intense motor biking around the area and in Ubud itself. The city with it's many temples and many artists, is surely a special place.

It was also very exciting to be back on a motor cycle and it is even more exciting that I can still write this blog, considering the traffic that I had to dodge. My karma must have been okay and the God Ganesh looked out for me.
I think he is the one that looks like an elephant, and I have always been nice to elephants, so, if indeed, the have great memories, I should be okay for another week or so of bike riding.

Lovina beach

We left around 9am for the north, the original driver could not drive us because he had diarrhea, at least that is what I though he "signed"......

Turns out, his daughter in law, had a baby, the night before.....now you can imagine what type of hand signals caused me to misunderstand the man.

Anyway....his replacement was fine albeit a slightly careless driver, and on more than 1 occasion did I fear for the lives of motorcyclists, now that I had rejoined their ranks....

February 25

February 25

Lovina is on the North coast

Friday....can you believe it...now that we are in Bali, there is not a sound from a single mosque.....wow ... bliss, peace and quiet....
That thunderstorm, that caught us on the way home from the beautiful sawas, stayed with us all night. Menno and I discussed moving to another hotel, because both of us were disappointed with the humidity in the room and the large areas of mold and musty smell.

We talked until about 10pm, on our patio and we watched the lightening do it's magic in the pitch-black heavens. The storm was bad enough to knock out the Internet and even this morning we cannot log in to check for messages, leave alone send any.
Oh well, that is par for the course.

Lovina hotel

Soon Menno and I will decide where to ride to, the sky still looks scary, and unless we don't mind getting soaked, we will need to stay relatively close by....
We are back home and it is 7pm. This morning, Menno and I managed to spend a few moments in a WarNet, which stands for Warung Internet. Because half the city had no internet, including many of the WarNet, the remainder raised their prices. What do they say....Make hay when the sun shines?....
After we netted for a little bit we had a bite to eat at the most famous Babi Guling restaurant in the entire region. Abu Babi ….across from the main temple in Ubud.
These ladies sell this delicious roasts suckling pig, we watched them cutting the piglets up unto bite sized pieces, too bad Harry Campeau was not here to see it....

February 24

February 24

Balinese rice sawas....

After an uneventful trip by turbo prop, we waved goodbye to Lombok. We can truly say that Lombok is a wonderful island with enough to see. The only negative thing is the continuous hassle by people that cannot understand "No-terima kasih"---
No, thank you !!

Somewhere along the road, they have learned that as long as they keep bugging you, you'll buckle and buy something just to be rid of them.
Menno said that I “ain't seen nothing yet and that Bali is a lot worse”....yummy....

The ride from the airport at Dan Pasar to Ubut, which is the artistic hub of Bali revealed a part of Indonesia I have never experienced. Everywhere you look you see evidence of the predominantly Hindu religion and lifestyle. Pagodas, temples ornate gates and wonderful decorations everywhere.

Teba house guest room "Eksekutif"

Balinese temple

We arrived at our hotel , Teba House.
It is a group of small and rather basic "bungalows" around a central courtyard, governed by a Beo bird who greets us whenever he gets a glimpse of us.
The quarters are moldy and the paint is peeling, the beds looks kinda clean though. And there is an airco on the wall, later we will find out if we can get it to work. Thanks goodness we chose the "executive" cottage. (see pix)

I tried to send the last blog out, but it seems that the Internet is down as well.....maybe tomorrow, Menno and I will look for alternate accommodations.
As soon as we washed the mornings sweat of our bodies, we rented a couple of motorcycles and toured the immediate areas surrounding Ubud. It was great fun driving a bike again, after all these years. In the beginning it was a bit odd driving at the left side of the road, and to have to negotiate all that traffic, coming from all directions....

traffic's crazy

Menno took me up the mountain, to see what could be the nicest view of sawas yet...they were stunning. No picture I can take, will do justice, I am sure.
Just as we reached the top, where the sawas were at their grandest, it started to pour... Like really hard, tropical monsoon but, typically, in a half an hour it quit as quick as it started.

light show

Even now as I type this, it is thundering like mad and we are watching a nice "light show" in the sky.
This evening we stopped at a tukan sate and had the first pork sate in a long time, here in Bali, pork is a priced meat.
After this appetizer worth less than $1.00 for 10 sticks, we stopped at a restaurant that Menno had read about in the "lonely Planet" this restaurant was a bit "alternative" serving shots of wheat grass juice....I should have ran away, right there....

We ordered some appetizers,

1) lumpers…. a roll of sticky rice, filled with spiced chicken, rolled in banana leaf and steamed.....these were very good.

2) we also ordered some orak-orak, which are steamed fish cakes in banana leaf and finally

3) some cumi-cumi, battered and fried calamari. These were delicious.

I personally, found the orak-orak to be tasteless and if it was not for the sauce, they would be a waste of time.
By the way, this toko is called "Batan Waru" maybe named after the infamous Bataan Death March of WW2.

Anyway, lesson learned, when you spot signage that suggests that you should try squeezed wheat grass juice.....run and don't stop until you find a warung that sells soto ajam, bubur ajam or at least sate....

We had a super time driving round, tomorrow we may go either east or west.

*If we go eastwards on our bikes, we will see Padang Bai a nice little harbor town, where we would have disembarked at, had we taken the boat from Lombok. As well there is some very nice coastal towns and fish markets to see.
*If we go west, we should see Tanahlot, home of the main temples of all of Bali, built into the ocean and accessible only when the tide is out, just like Monte St. Michel in France.