En Route to Amed

The rice paddy viewing on the way from Ubud to Amed is pretty amazing:

The foot of the volcano in the background:

Martha <3s paddies:

Awesome terracing:

Rice Paddies of Ubud

After our cooking lesson and market tour, Martha and spent some time just bopping around Ubud, checking out some of the intricate Balinese art at the Museum Puri Lukisan, eating, and doing some shopping and admiring the scenery off the main drags.

Our jumping off point was a cute hotel on Monkey Forest Road, Pondok Pundi Village Inn.  The rooms are on the edge of a pretty little valley and to get to them you walk through the compound and temple of the owner's family, which is quite pretty:

But also a bit funny, because you saw stuff like this below.  So similar to home with the Lay-Z-Boy on the front porch... and yet such a different porch:

 

We did some eating, including my favorite, Ibu Oka's babi guling... oh, how I love babi guling.  Delicious tender pork that has been spiced-stuffed, spit-roasted, and caramelized.  So good:

 

We did some (an understatement, to say the least) shopping at my favorite ikat store:

Then we took a walk through the rice paddies in order to obtain some sunset drinks at Sari Organik restaurant, which is set right in the middle of the paddies.  Why is it that rice paddies are so much more romantic than, say, a field of soybeans or corn?

Martha drank coconut water straight from the source for the first time:

We watched this guy undertaking the back-breaking task of planting the little rice seedlings into neat rows:

And the sun beginning to set, reflected in the paddies:

And then we walked back to town, onto the next adventure:

Rice Harvesting and Ducks Herding

After checking out the beautiful rice terraces at Tegalalang, we drove by these farmers hand-harvesting rice, which was pretty cool.  I hadn't seen it up close yet, and I don't think the girls had either. 

 

Apparently harvesting occurs when the rice plants are a meter tall and turning yellow (check out this link for a brief description of the steps in growing rice on Bali and this link for a more in-depth description):

 

Women traditionally do the harvesting on Bali, cutting down the stalks with a small hand knife, thrashing the stalks in a bag to shake loose the grains of rice, and then tossing the rice in woven palm baskets to shake out rocks and bugs (I think... unless they're dehusking the rice on site?): 

Here's a little slideshow of the women tossing the rice grains in the baskets:

 

Afterwards, the rice is carried out of the field for dehusking:

I just liked these palm trees all in a row:

 

A few meters down the road in another rice paddy we caught sight of this gaggle of ducks (geese?) being herded along the barrier walls separating the wet paddies:

Bali: Accomodations in Ubud

In the wake of our brush with the paparazzi as well as Liz and Meghan's adoring fans at Tanah Lot, we headed to the next stop on our Balinese adventure: Ubud. 

Whilst in Ubud (did ya see what I did there?) with the droves of Aussie and French tourists, we were residing at the lovely Alam Jiwa villas in the southern village of Nyuhkuning, Ubud, away from the crowds on the far side of the Monkey Forest.  Alam Jiwa is a destination in and of itself, where even the shower has a view of the verdant rice paddies and the canopy of your bed has elaborate Balinese artwork:

 

Our suite was quite lovely- built in the traditional high-ceilinged, open style, covered in beautiful, intricate wooden carvings, full of artwork and traditional furniture, with multiple balconies overlooking lush vegetation and the aforementioned verdant rice paddies, statues and flowers everywhere...

The style of the suite was so open, however, that we shared it with lots of other creatures.  About a million geckos (I've heard them called cicak [pronounded "chee-chak," based on the sound they make]... they're good luck!) scampering around, but also a wayward bird who sought shelter from the storm in the rafters one of the nights, keeping poor Liz awake.  We were also surrounded by all sorts of chirping and whistling things we couldn't identify.

As an aside, Tim and I have one or two resident cicak in our apartment.  Mostly I don't see them, but probably about once a month one makes a mad dash across the kitchen backsplash, scaring the shit out of me and getting the cats all hyped up.

While at Alam Jiwa we had our breakfast delivered to the room each morning so we could eat it while enjoying the views (read: so we could eat it while sitting around in our PJs being extremely lazy).  Breakfast was great, especially the jaffles.  In case, like us, you don't know what a jaffle is, it's a sandwich pressed in one of those old school as-seen-on-tv sandwich maker thingies.  Who knew?  We expected something with waffles, although I suppose the sandwich press is a second cousin of the waffle maker.  Liz was so impressed that christened the jaffle with her own personal name for it: jambon.  

Don't ask.

 Meghan + jaffle = k-i-s-s-i-n-g.  But no hand holding, because that would be gross.

Like I said above, the area surrounding Alam Jiwa was beautiful... rice paddies galore, views of the two volcanoes in the distance, palm trees...

In the photo below you can just see one of the volcanoes poking out above the palms but below the post-storm clouds.  In the last photo, if you look to the far left and far right, you can just make out 2 volcanoes on the horizon.