Bali Fruit

Coconut has been mentioned a number of times as a lifesaving drink and food. I consider it a fruit or, at least, close enough in form and function to be considered one. The best ones have a tremendous amount of sweet liquid and a semi-solid gelatinous flesh lining of 1/8 to 1/4 inch which yields easily to a spoon.

A cold coconut at Tuki's Cafe on Jalan Raya, the main street of Ubud. This has become our regular lifesaving stop.

After you drink the coconut water they will split it open for you.

And then comes the soft meat

 On the recent trip to the north of Bali, in the mountains, we discovered a different variety of passion fruit. It's sweeter and more cohesive than the variety which Emma knows and loves. By more cohesive I mean that the entire fruit body inside (edible seeds and surrounding "gel") stays together as one unit. It doesn't have the separate liquid and solid which requires the other one to be eaten with a spoon.

Ordinary passion fruit has a lot of liquid and is tart

"Mountain" Passion fruit. Sweet and airily gelatinous.

We call it the Custard Apple. A sweet, creamy custard surrounds the many inedible seeds inside a scaly, easily opened, exterior

Rambutan

Pops open under pressure to reveal a lychee-like fruit with a large, inedible, central seed.

Small lime next to a Slnake fruit. The limes are small but amazingly juicy. Snake fruit has crispy segments.

Duku fruit on the lower right. Thin-shelled, grape-sized - pops open to yield soft, segmented white meat.

Before Breakfast

After Breakfast

Emma has learned the Balinese method of opening some of these fruits without tools. It works for Passion fruit, Rambutan, Duku and Mangosteeen.

Step One: Squeeze the fruit in a controlled manner until a crack opens in its skin. Depending on the size of the fruit you either use your fingers or cupped hands.

Step Two: Enlarge the crack.

Step Three: Expose the fruit interior.

Step Four: Eat it.

I apologize for the absence of photos of our mangosteen. We've eaten a lot but apparently neglected to photograph it. Here's one from Google images :

This one has obviously been cut to open it. We have learned that it is easier to squeeze it with two hands and it opens in a nice circle.

There are many more fruits in Bali. But some have not been ripe and some we have not yet tried. All in all, the fruits are quite satisfying, even to someone like myself, who prefers chocolate and candy and is a lifelong anti-fruitite.

Bali Break

Finally, a three-day escape from Ubud - being spent at a resort in a national park on Bali's northwest coast. http://www.themenjangan.com/ Nothing except a few bungalows and snorkeling. At least for us. There is also horseback riding, birdwatching and scuba diving. The resort is named after a species of wild deer, one of which ran past Emma, as she was reading on the beach today. Also, we saw a dog-sized variety of deer called the "barking deer." Yes, it barks like a dog. Pretty good house reef and superb snorkeling on the  boat trip we took today to a nearby island also named Menjangan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menjangan_Island The food is acceptable but not as good as it should be.

Deer of the type after which the resort and Island are named. The one that ran past Emma did not have horns.

The beach

Our room

Self-portrait

Beachside view of room

Those mountains are in Java, across the Bali Straits from us.

On the way to great snorkeling at Menjangan Island

Clownfish, an example of what we saw (Multiply by a million)

View of resort on the way back from snorkeling

Bali Miscellany

Lifesaving cold coconut. If I had to pick a single thing which I loved in Bali, nay, in all Asia, it would be this. Yes, even over cool Buddha.

Ducks are among our neighbors in Ubud

This is a 1/25 portion of one of the highly detailed paintings in the Deka Museum in Ubud. I believe it shows a political bus moving through a Bali town. This and other paintings like it deserved close examination. If only the museums were not so hot and airless.

A Woman Who Lost Her Head

Auto amulet

The 13-year-old son of our preferred driver is a champion dancer since he was 3, specializing in a traditional warrior dance. We saw him win his 41st straight youth competition.

Here he is afterwards with his proud father.

This is a 20 foot tall platform being prepared for a cremation ceremony. The body will rest on it at the temple before being taken elsewhere to be cremated.

Another temple sign

This boat reminded me of the insect which walks on water

It's called a water strider

Rambutan on the back of a motorcycle - with view of driver in mirror. Fruits will be dealt with more thoroughly in a future post.

A perfect symbol for the decline of Bali. First, under economic pressure, the island tries to shift its rice-growing agriculture to coffee. Then, a coffee representative of International Capitalism comes to foreclose that line of development. Incidentally, from what I've tasted of the local coffee, it isn't that good. I would recommend trying to create an upscale market for Bali rice. Call it Bali Temple Rice and give it an expensive legend. Maybe get the priests involved to give it a certification like Kosher.

Some Bali Temples and Mountain Lakes

Taman Ayun Temple in Mengwi built in 1634 by the Raja of Mengwi. Well done Raja! The open spaces and the tiered, thatched, multi-roofed towers, surrounded by a moat, are very enjoyable.

I think the multiple roofs represent the multiple heavens of Balinese mythology, an early precursor of modern Physic's "multiple universes" theory. In any event, it makes for a cute structure. Thatching is visually touchy-feely and an interesting material. See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatching

Another view

Internal detail

Temple Ulun Danu, beautifully positioned on Lake Berdian. In addition to other towers, it has paddle boats shaped like ducks.

Yet another view. Lake Berdian is in back, in front of the mountains.

Imagine yourself standing on a high point in the mountains, up in the clouds, with a panorama of one big lake on the right  (Lake Buyan) and another on the left (Lake Berdian).

Lake Berdian

 

Lake Buyan

Blissed-out tourist, seen in rear-view mirror of car

Bali Rice

Like the disappearing potato fields of East Hampton (another earthly Paradise), the rice fields of Bali near Ubud are giving way to houses, B&Bs, resorts, spas, yoga centers and restaurants. And, overcrowded as we think it is, our driver told us this is the low season. In high season (July and August) he said it can take a car two hours to go from our street to the Monkey Forest, a distance of about a mile (which we walked in 15 - 20 minutes.)

Further away, in the Northwest, a village known for its traditional terraced rice paddies now charges admission to enter the village and see the fields. It was still beautiful but the change weighed on our minds. However, it must be said that the drive north from Ubud, through the mountains to the northwest coast gave us more of the scenic beauty of Bali (more on that later) and more of a sense of the true paradise it must once have been before it was discovered by tourists.

Near our B&B rice fields can still be seen but the encroachment of new building construction is everywhere.

Our neighborhood

A 4 or 5 kilometer walk takes us into fairly pure rice fields.

Nice, but not when shared with motorcycles.

A sheen of sweat covers the faces of the courageous trekkers as they rest in precious shade.

Paintings in the museum show the fields of Bali as they used to be.

By the way, the museums are hot, airless and poorly lighted. Some of the work is worth seeing.

Here's a view of the fields in a rice village which has started charging admission.

Here's the hand of a tourist decorated with Rambutan peels. The fruits of Bali are outstanding and I hope to devote a special post to them.