Today we learned about Balinese life and cooking. When I told my father the night before I was taking a cooking class his response was, "it's about bloody time!" We laughed and acknowledged something my family and Anna already know, that my skills in the kitchen are at best quite laughable. I've focused so much of my culinary career on achieving a professional level proficiency at eating and appreciating the food (mostly eating, my stomach does the appreciating) that I've never really taken the time to actually make any real food. Cereal with raisins I guess doesn't count. We  thought this class would help us learn more about cooking and give us an insight into how people truly live in Bali. The tour can be found here: www.greenkitchenbali.com.

We spent almost an hour at the market seeing how the locals shop for their basic goods in a village called Klungkung. From there we were taken to the village of "Sideman" (pronounced Seed-eh-man. Not like your apprentice or anything or sidekick on an adventure). This is a beautiful little village located more on the west side of Bali. It's in the hills with rice fields and mountains all around. It hosts family has a traditional family compound there. We got to meet the family! The compound sits on a good amount of land. I'd say at least an acre in size. It's really cool when walking in. You walk into a courtyard area and are surrounded by a number of different buildings. Many buildings here aren't exactly fully enclosed, which makes sense due to the weather here. We learned that the family temple sits in the NE part of the compound. By comparison, the bathroom is in the SW so it's to be in the opposite. Coming from Calgary we've taken the complete opposite approach on that one. We put all our richest residences in the bathroom. The Occupy Protesters would love that little twist. The kitchen is on the North side and dwellings east and south.

From the compound we had to start working. Say what? I pay for the chance to work? What's this?! A bad internship?! It's okay. Turns out we get fed the fruits of our spoils later. Yum! We all got our rice hats and had to venture out into the fields. Walking through the rice fields was very interesting and fun. The paths are very thin and there's water everywhere, so slipping would've resulted in water, uckiness, and mosquitos planning a new field trip to your exposed body parts for a feast. Turns out we had to pick our spices and ingredients for much of what were going to eat. We picked tapioca, peanuts, magical leaves that heal bug bites, leaves that smelled like lemons, but weren't. As you can see I forgot a lot of the names. I can say I've never eaten fresh peanuts from the ground before, man were they good!  It was like  walking in a painting being in the fields. The cows are kept in little luxury dwellings where they are all grass fed. These are nice cows, easily beauty pageant material.

From the field we hiked  up to the large kitchen. It was setup on top of a hill surrounded by trees with really nice views. The family helped us prepare all the food. Tis is where we learned all the recipes for the food we made. It was vey educational! Not only did it show us how to make Balinese food, but it also showed us a lot about how they prepare and cook food. This is as living off the land as you can get. From what we were told. The coffee came from his sister, the fish came from either  neighbor or friend, they have their own chickens and cows, and the veggies and rice they grow themselves in the fields we were in. We prepared the food the old fashioned way with their home made cooking tools. The pots, bowls, and all the implements are home made from wood or coconut. The stove is a real brick and wood fired stove. The food we made was the best we've had since we arrived in Bali.

I tried to help him pick some lychee fruit from the tree. We got there and I realizes there are two obstacles.

1. The fruits don't grow on the lower part of the tree. They're high up. Either you hire a professional monkey from the monkey forest and pay him in bananas  or you do it yourself. Our guide lived and grew up on this land, so he climbed to retrieve the fruits. I wasn't looking when he passed them to me so I got a bushel on the head thrown at me from 5 meters up.
2. The other challenge was the amount of spider webs on the way up. I guess bugs love being around these fruits, so the spiders jumped all over it and have a little commune to themselves. The higher up he climbed, the bigger the spiders got.

We had G.I. Joe & Transformers as kids, they had large spiders & lizards. We decided to ask the guide "Are today's Balinese children growing up with the same knowledge of living off the land as his generation? "No" he answered. "All they want is PS3". I guess this is the sort of thing that won't be around forever. If you're interested now's the time to get into it.

Now we will be going to Singapore for 4 days. The opposite of Bali in almost every way. Back to the concrete jungle vs. the forest.

Monkeys? Massages? Roosters? Oh my! Tis is our second week of our stay here in Ubud. We have a lot more activity this week compared to last week. We've done a few more activities this week that will  are up blog more interesting. Now that we're settled into Ubud we've had a chance to sample more the local restaurants, learn more about where we're staying, and see some more of the local wild life. Lets get into it.

Relaxation with Bugs

We've been taking it pretty easy, as we planned and expected. Having activities every day gets very weary after a while and expensive. Since we like our resort a lot we decided to negotiate a better rate for a longer stay, and we got it, so here we are with all the insects, frogs, and birds I mentioned last week, as well as a few new guests we met this week. One of them is the insect that chirps every morning for us nice and loud in the trees. We thought they're some type of cricket until we did a little research, after having a chance meeting with one of them. Let me say after hearing him yell and seeing him, I preferred them in the trees instead of the restaurant. It's called a Cicada and its about the size of your thumb with a wingspan that is about as wide as a small hand. Here's a link to learn all about it.


They're generally very benign. When chirping together as a group, it's nice. When one chirps all alone, it's not too different from nails on the chalk board. It can be startling if you're not used to it. Another guest who checked in was a spider. He made his way into our room. They're not to be feared, after all, we had a gecko named Fred stay with us for a bit. He was a squatter, but took care of the small bugs so at least he earned his keep. This spider probably could've eaten Fred. It was about as big as Anna's hand. When the hotel caught him he looked like a bad kid being dragged by his ear to the principal's the way he tried to explain himself. He didn't take it well and now spidey's older brother (he never gave his name) is watching our room from cross the courtyard. He's about the size of MY hand and is staking us out. I think he's watching us waiting to make his move.

Farmer's Market

We did spend some time at the farmers market this week. We had a few items we wanted to get from here before leaving and now that we've scoped out the layout of the market went in prepared. The market is densely packed. People are always nice, even when pushing you to buy their stuff, and push they do! Everything is negotiable and watching Anna negotiate is plainly a scary experience. Rule  #1, never say a word when Anna is negotiating. It will result in as she says "raising her prices". When she looks at me during a negotiation I just stare back and start to sweat. What surprises me is it works! We ended up paying less than half the vendors asking price most of the time. 

Monkeys!!

We visited the monkey forest! It! Was! AWESOME! I now LOVE monkeys and hope to have one some day. I know I never really can, but I'd love to think its possible. These monkeys are in their natural habitat in the monkey forest and sanctuary. They're used to humans, but are unpredictable, so never let them bite you, or it's off to the hospital. Other than that, they're ADORABLE! Once inside, they're also everywhere. If you have a banana in your pocket, they will know it and never leave you alone. One lady was playing dumb when some monkeys were tailing her (get it? tailing her? never mind). When asked by staff she copped to having a banana in her pocket. They're furry, fluffy, and very family oriented. They will walk around you and let you take their photo. They have the most adorable little mustaches and definitely take care of one another. They also have a very open and undiscriminating sex drive. Basically the big male (I named him Mr. Wrinkles Butt) lifts the tail, inspects the "anus", if it passes a cursory circular finger motion, he's in. Witnesses are not an issue, and maybe they're welcome, I really don't know, but he took rejection so well he only took seconds to recover and try again.

Cultural Dance

We attended the Legong & Barong cultural dance recital. This is a form of dance and theater that dates back over 1000 years based in Hindu Culture. This is a must see and something we've never experienced before. We arrived a little early to get a nice seat. Naturally, there's little old ladies who try very hard to sell you beer and snacks. Say no all you want, she will eventually get you to say yes. The orchestral is setup with all Asian instruments that I've never seen before. This is a story from ancient Hindu mythology regarding a princess, chasing away birds, two brothers who want to invade Heaven, Nymphs, magical creatures, and of course…MONKEYS! The dancers started and their movements were very striking. They make hand movements that makes them look double jointed and very much like marionettes. It's pretty cool, but the weird factor gets upped substantially when you factor their eyes into it. They move their eyes to the music and the movements are quite mechanical looking. Anna and I'm sure many others found it kind of creepy looking. It was very cool to watch and it takes incredible skill to perform. I didn't know people could move that way. The instruments are mostly brass based and will be ringing in your head long after the performance finishes. Well worth it thought. You will not see this kind of this anywhere else. It gave us a really good look at Balinese folklore. 

Rainy Season

The rain has been heavy the past few days. When it rains, it pours. We learnt that rainy season isn't just a monicker they use. It rains like crazy around here at this time of year. The gutters and sidewalks aren't exactly low. Some of them are almost 15cm  deep and they flooded over. It looked like there were waterfalls on the sides of the roads in some places. Rainy season is taken seriously here. I will admit that in the setting of the greenery here it is quite beautiful and peaceful to watch.





Getting into the groove of Bali is proving to be relaxing and good for the soul. Next week we will be getting into it even further. We will be learning about traditional Balinese cooking and visiting a village and organic farm. Happy travels!

Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali. Tis is where all the artisans reside. The painters, the wood carvers, the metal sculptures. If you're looking to really experience the local culture and get closer to the people of Bali without totally leaving your western roots behind, than Ubud is the perfect place to be. If you're looking for arts and crafts and souvenirs for home, than this is the place to go. Prices are much cheaper than Nusa Dua and Kuta for both food and accommodations. We decided this is where we're going to spend some serious time here in Bali. It's much more relaxing with a great diversity of all kinds of people if all ages from many different countries. I don't think the singles scene here is very strong, but I haven't been paying too much attention.  

We checked in at the Beji hotel in and basically got a room that has a view of the ravine into the jungle. The hotel has 5 Infiniti pools and one is right by our door. Our view is all trees, lizards, birds, and really big bugs! Our first night here we were a little nervous when they (the bugs) threw a huge dance party right on our patio that night. Swirling around the bulb over our patio like it was a disco ball in a drunken stupor of light and heat. The big beetle who was literally 10 times their size was the bouncer of course. They even invited about half a dozen geckos as well. Naturally, army ants outnumbered all the other bugs, but are so serious all the time. Even the beetle was having fun swirling and all. The hotel is on the side of a ravine and has little villa apartments and lots of steps to get anything from anywhere. Imagine a split level home times a hundred. We're basically living along side of nature in a very unintrusive way. The whole hotel is very green and full of trees and incredible jungle life.  At night they have beautiful lamps lit up in different colours and lights on all the trees as well. It's very cool both day and night. The difference is that at night, the bugs come out a lot more to go partying. The good news is that they're very polite bugs. If you wear tropical strength bug repellant its just like putting up a  DO NOT DISTURB sign on you. Oh! And frogs. They come out at night too. They croak and sit on the side of the swimming pool by the diving board. For families there are these incredible looking villas that are small two story homes. They look like small cabins. They're in a courtyard (one of my dreams) with fountains and pools and one of them has.....suspense....,,wait for it......a mote! I've always wanted mote and was told it wasn't possible and too expensive, blah blah blah. I found one! I'm NOT taking no for an answer anymore!!

Walking around we found a bunch of little places that are both very charming serve very good food. A lot of them have full main course plates for roughly $2-$3. Fruit is definitely something you should drink here, it's fresh! Our first day we decided to get massages at the local spa. I'd say definitely get massages in Bali. One thing the balanese take very seriously is there tolerance of other faiths and beliefs, their love of nature, their art, and their massages and spas. There's a spa in EVERY BLOCK! The hotel spa was a little pricey, but at $15 for a 60 minute massage, we couldn't say no. Anna and I signed up for that right on day one! I added a spice bath and almost fell asleep in the spa. I know, worse  things could happen. I got hair cut and at the end they gave me a small neck and scalp massage, at the barber shop!

Walking around Ubud we noticed a lot of farm activity and locals hanging out around here. It's not uncommon to see chickens and roosters on the side of the road walking the side walk with you. Roosters are beautiful, but bloody aggressive! Ubud is like the Kung fu capital for fighting roosters. The roosters here all have black belts and ninja weapons for their cock fights. I just give them a wide berth. If there's ever a dispute, they'll side with the rooster. 

Ubud market is a huge and densely packed farmers market with many arts and crafts to choose from. You can get anything you can imagine. Decided to walk around and get a feel for the town before committing to any vendor or activity. I'm glad we did, there is so much to choose from. The painters here are very talented. It was also somewhere in the mid thirties for temperature that day and we walked under for about six hours and I think got heat stroke. We had red faces and head aches. Rain was a welcome site after that.  We decided that this is the place to settle and do almost nothing. We're doing just that and with style! 

We have plans to visit the monkey forest and delving into other activities, but for now, sleeeeep.