Sandra, Jonathan and I, like three musketeers, boarded a shuttle bus to take us to the misty mountain village of Munduk. It is a relatively isolated village, as isolated as you can get on such a small island, set in the lush green mountains overlooking jungle valleys and gleaming rice terraces. The roads were
narrow and winding, so the shuttle bus would only take us so far, and we would have to find private transport from there. We were dropped unceremoniously in the centre of a large, colourful local market in a village marked by a massive painted statue of a cob of corn. I guess corn is their thing. We entertained ourselves for a short while bartering for fresh strawberries, peanuts and dried banana and treats equivalent to Indonesian potato chips, made without potatoes. When our backpacks got the best of us we started our mission for a taxi. Where were all our Ubud taxi touts when you need them? This is the only problem of going off the beaten track without your own motorbike, which we hadn't quite worked up the courage to do. We finally, after multiple exhausting
broken English 'conversations' with the same guy who kept driving along beside us and blocking our path with his shiny 'transport' as we walked away. We gave up and agreed to pay him the 100,000 Rp he wanted for the 40 min trip. (About $10Cdn). He promised us he was the perfect choice and showed off his guest book where other Westerners had written his praises. He stopped along the side of the 'road' at view points and broke off a piece of bark from a cinnamon tree for us to sniff. Of course his services also included a stop 
in at his friend's overpriced, inconveniently located hotel once we arrived in Munduk. When we declined this offer, as we told him we would, he came through and brought us to the perfect place, with reasonably priced rooms and open air patios complete with sweeping views of the mountains, valley and rice terraces.
We arranged a private guide for trekking to the rice terraces and waterfalls the next day for 50,000rp an hour. When the morning rain had subsided and the veil of mist began to part, our friendly, knowledgeable, 'middle English' guide came to
collect us. It was refreshingly cool (er) in the mountains. Our guide pointed out various plants, insects (mostly terrifyingly massive spiders) and fruit and told us much about Balinese culture, tradition and his personal life. The region is known for it's coca beans, jack fruit, snake fruit (its skin looks like brown snake skin), banana and coconuts. After an hour or so of trekking through the lush jungle forest on a slippery, narrow path that would have been indecipherable to anyone other than a local, we arrived the supremely photogenic rice terraces. Locals were there, lounging in their tiny huts and working the muddy paddies the traditional way using a 
contraption pulled behind muscular cows, rode on by a skinny man, knee deep in swampy muck. How is rice so cheap when it looks like it is so much work? 'Do you want a coconut?' asked the guide, motioning to one of the many sky-high trees looming behind us. We nodded enthusiastically as he commissioned a local kid to scale the tree and collect a couple for us. He scampered up the thin, swaying trunk without tools, expertly, like he had been doing it since birth, which I suppose he perhaps had been. He returned with two of the most massive green coconuts I had ever seen. "Big ones, 
small ones, some as big as your head!" Jon sang. 'Bigger than your head!' I exclaimed. 'My dad would LOVE this,' said Jonathan. The kid used a hatchet to create a deep v-shaped opening into the centre of the nut allowing the clear milk to flow out of the spout he fashioned from the outer husk, and into our awaiting mouths. So much milk! So tasty! So heavy. We drank and drank, and spilled and slurped until we couldn't take in anymore liquid. Our guide then expertly cracked each coconut in half and showed us how to use sharp pieces of husk to dig out the fresh, white flesh. It was more jiggly in parts, like thick coconut jello, and other pieces were crunchier, the way you would expect. It was so
delicious and so filling. I felt super cool and Robinson Crusoe, eating a fresh coconut with my bare hands...even though I did absolutely nothing to obtain this treat, besides watching in awe. Like our guide could read my mind, he plucked a yellow cocoa bean from a tree and cracked it in half. Inside, the seeds were piled on top of each other perfectly in a circle crowding around the inner core. Each seed was coated in a white jelly like substance. 'Eat it,' our guide instructed. We popped a seed in our mouths and were delighted at the super sweet, natural candy like coating. We sucked all the sweetness off every
seed and spit out the bitter inside, which is actually the part that would be roasted to make chocolate. Crazy! It seemed so unfathomable to me, that nature could produce something so sweet, and that people somehow figured out that the bitter seed inside of the sweet would make something sweet as well! Wow. And, now I wonder what they do with all this sweet coating where they harvest cocoa beans on mass. And, more importantly, do they need an official taster? Sandra, Jonathan and I had such a good time together hiking, chatting and relaxing on our patio that we decide to venture onwards and upwards together, to North Bali.
The friendly hotel staff arranged for the local public transport, called 'Bemo' to wait for us at the doorstep. Its hard to say how long they waited, because no one mentioned they were there until after we had eaten breakfast and paid for the rooms.
Its all about that rubber Bali time. Public transport here does not run on schedules, have fixed rates, or pre-arranged stops. If you are a local, you just know. This makes public transport an extremely painful experience, in general, for travellers. Mostly people will tell you to go outside in the early morning and just 'wait.' And that's as detailed as a schedule you'll get. Don't worry though, if you are thinking about traveling to Bali. There are super-convenient tourist shuttles that can also take you anywhere you want to go for a reasonable price. Only, you'll miss the experience of chickens crawling all over you and small children hiding behind their mothers when you smile at them.....
ps. This entry is dedicated to Finky, who has been up all night protecting the 'True North, Strong and Free.' Someone's gotta do it... and Fink's cuter than me....
narrow and winding, so the shuttle bus would only take us so far, and we would have to find private transport from there. We were dropped unceremoniously in the centre of a large, colourful local market in a village marked by a massive painted statue of a cob of corn. I guess corn is their thing. We entertained ourselves for a short while bartering for fresh strawberries, peanuts and dried banana and treats equivalent to Indonesian potato chips, made without potatoes. When our backpacks got the best of us we started our mission for a taxi. Where were all our Ubud taxi touts when you need them? This is the only problem of going off the beaten track without your own motorbike, which we hadn't quite worked up the courage to do. We finally, after multiple exhausting broken English 'conversations' with the same guy who kept driving along beside us and blocking our path with his shiny 'transport' as we walked away. We gave up and agreed to pay him the 100,000 Rp he wanted for the 40 min trip. (About $10Cdn). He promised us he was the perfect choice and showed off his guest book where other Westerners had written his praises. He stopped along the side of the 'road' at view points and broke off a piece of bark from a cinnamon tree for us to sniff. Of course his services also included a stop in at his friend's overpriced, inconveniently located hotel once we arrived in Munduk. When we declined this offer, as we told him we would, he came through and brought us to the perfect place, with reasonably priced rooms and open air patios complete with sweeping views of the mountains, valley and rice terraces.We arranged a private guide for trekking to the rice terraces and waterfalls the next day for 50,000rp an hour. When the morning rain had subsided and the veil of mist began to part, our friendly, knowledgeable, 'middle English' guide came to
collect us. It was refreshingly cool (er) in the mountains. Our guide pointed out various plants, insects (mostly terrifyingly massive spiders) and fruit and told us much about Balinese culture, tradition and his personal life. The region is known for it's coca beans, jack fruit, snake fruit (its skin looks like brown snake skin), banana and coconuts. After an hour or so of trekking through the lush jungle forest on a slippery, narrow path that would have been indecipherable to anyone other than a local, we arrived the supremely photogenic rice terraces. Locals were there, lounging in their tiny huts and working the muddy paddies the traditional way using a contraption pulled behind muscular cows, rode on by a skinny man, knee deep in swampy muck. How is rice so cheap when it looks like it is so much work? 'Do you want a coconut?' asked the guide, motioning to one of the many sky-high trees looming behind us. We nodded enthusiastically as he commissioned a local kid to scale the tree and collect a couple for us. He scampered up the thin, swaying trunk without tools, expertly, like he had been doing it since birth, which I suppose he perhaps had been. He returned with two of the most massive green coconuts I had ever seen. "Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!" Jon sang. 'Bigger than your head!' I exclaimed. 'My dad would LOVE this,' said Jonathan. The kid used a hatchet to create a deep v-shaped opening into the centre of the nut allowing the clear milk to flow out of the spout he fashioned from the outer husk, and into our awaiting mouths. So much milk! So tasty! So heavy. We drank and drank, and spilled and slurped until we couldn't take in anymore liquid. Our guide then expertly cracked each coconut in half and showed us how to use sharp pieces of husk to dig out the fresh, white flesh. It was more jiggly in parts, like thick coconut jello, and other pieces were crunchier, the way you would expect. It was so delicious and so filling. I felt super cool and Robinson Crusoe, eating a fresh coconut with my bare hands...even though I did absolutely nothing to obtain this treat, besides watching in awe. Like our guide could read my mind, he plucked a yellow cocoa bean from a tree and cracked it in half. Inside, the seeds were piled on top of each other perfectly in a circle crowding around the inner core. Each seed was coated in a white jelly like substance. 'Eat it,' our guide instructed. We popped a seed in our mouths and were delighted at the super sweet, natural candy like coating. We sucked all the sweetness off every seed and spit out the bitter inside, which is actually the part that would be roasted to make chocolate. Crazy! It seemed so unfathomable to me, that nature could produce something so sweet, and that people somehow figured out that the bitter seed inside of the sweet would make something sweet as well! Wow. And, now I wonder what they do with all this sweet coating where they harvest cocoa beans on mass. And, more importantly, do they need an official taster? Sandra, Jonathan and I had such a good time together hiking, chatting and relaxing on our patio that we decide to venture onwards and upwards together, to North Bali.The friendly hotel staff arranged for the local public transport, called 'Bemo' to wait for us at the doorstep. Its hard to say how long they waited, because no one mentioned they were there until after we had eaten breakfast and paid for the rooms.
Its all about that rubber Bali time. Public transport here does not run on schedules, have fixed rates, or pre-arranged stops. If you are a local, you just know. This makes public transport an extremely painful experience, in general, for travellers. Mostly people will tell you to go outside in the early morning and just 'wait.' And that's as detailed as a schedule you'll get. Don't worry though, if you are thinking about traveling to Bali. There are super-convenient tourist shuttles that can also take you anywhere you want to go for a reasonable price. Only, you'll miss the experience of chickens crawling all over you and small children hiding behind their mothers when you smile at them.....ps. This entry is dedicated to Finky, who has been up all night protecting the 'True North, Strong and Free.' Someone's gotta do it... and Fink's cuter than me....
2 comments:
Woah, those coconuts ARE huge!
*sigh* amazing
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