The return journery

Leaving Lovina Beach we headed towards Seririt where we saw lots of grape vines growing. We had seen a few on the way up the hills but over here there were many more. Wine is certainly more readily available in Bali now so perhaps these local vineyards are where it comes from. Also we had been quite surprised at how many coffee & cocoa plants we had seen along the way, many of which looked like they were growing wild. We can only assume that someone harvested them and earned an income from them. Our drive home took us through Pupuan, Belimbing & many other villages where we stopped frequently along the road to take in the magnificent views of the sculptured rice terraces. These tiered fields are an amazing sight and such a lot of work has gone into the planting, tending and harvesting of them. We never tired of seeing them all afternoon. Another feature of these terraces are the many flags flying among them. These are makeshift scarecrows and are any sorts of bags or materials on poles. We often saw women walking along the terraces with them as well to scare off the birds & ducks who come to feast on the rice.

At one of the stops as Bill & Nolan were taking photo's of the fields they were approached by an man who said it was his rice field. He was happy to have his photo taken by the boys and did not want to take anything for it. Nolan insisted and soon after he shimmied up a cocoa tree, brought down a pod, chopped it open with a machete and encouraged the boys to taste it. They did and brought it back to Josie & I to try it too. A cocoa pod (fruit) has a rough leathery rind about 3 cm thick. It is filled with sweet, slimy pulp enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and white to pale lavender in color. While seeds are usually white, they do become violet or reddish brown during the drying process. We tasted these seeds and they have a slightly citrus taste about them. Quite nice but nothing at all like the chocolate they become once dried and processed.

Another stop along the road was when we came across a very large colourful icon, statue, idol in what would become the front yard of a new building. Not sure if it was a very large house or a small hotel but whatever it was it certainly had the most colourful decoration we had seen all day. Such intricate work and it looked so out of place in this building site. One day it might make sense.

Another surprise was a quick stop into another small hotel where the rice fields were spectacular. As we walked into the entrance we were confronted with 3 or 4 bats just hanging off a couple of very small trees. They stayed well wrapped up in their wings but did keep an eye on us just the same.

Soon after we were back into the outlying villages of Denpassar, the very heavy peak hour traffic and slow ride back to Sanur. Arriving back at Griya Santrian we decided that perhaps dinner first and then home to bed for us all. We did manage to stay awake long enough to taste the excellent mushrooms (not Bill) at one of Josie's favourite restaurants. Bill's satay was one of the nicest he had and not too long after we were in a taxi heading home to our little bungalow. Too tired even to head to the beach bar for a coffee.


It had been a great day but we were certainly looking forward to our bed that night. I think the lights were out before I had even emerged from the bathroom. Bring on tomorrow......