Taro Village
This is my second visit to Bali, the first time we stayed in Ubud, a small town at the foot of Mt. Batur that has grown a lot in the past 5 years. Now there are yoga centers and holistic healing spas filled with digital nomads. The general sense of woo in Ubud makes me glad we picked a small village thirty minutes further uphill. In those short thirty minutes, the temperature drops ten degrees, the sun retreats behind the clouds and the city sounds die away to nothing.
Taro Village is no longer than a football field, with neat brick houses on either side of the road. Freshly made penjors sway in the breeze and half the buildings are temples. Every six months, the Balinese create penjors, which are offerings to the gods, from a bamboo pole, coconut leaves and various fruits and vegetable. Each house makes their own by hand and plants it in the strip of grass next to the road. They add a special beauty to the villages.
Just off the main road, down a narrow path crowded by jungle is our house on stilts. We're staying with a farming family who smartly built an AirBnB at the edge of their property. To put it succinctly, it's paradise.
On two sides of us are rice fields that stretch into the horizon.
Just a hundred feet away is a large temple complex. On our first night we heard women singing in prayer.
Rice fields are much more peaceful than other crops for some reason. I think it has to do with the constant trickle of water and the reflection of the sky.
Now, if you were the one farming them, it may conjure a different impression. The dad is out there every morning, bent at the waist, presumably weeding between the rice sprouts. The fields couldn't have been planted more than a month ago.
The coconut trees are loaded. Haven't seen anyone climb one yet, but I am keeping a lookout.
The house comes with a small pool full of cold water, which on a really hot day may prove to be refreshing. I took a dip but found it a tad cool given it's only in the mid-70s this high up. We're probably at the 3,500 foot mark if I had to guess. Into the 60s at night - we're sleeping under a comforter and it's a really nice change.
Under the stilts is an outdoor dining room slash kitchen. Breakfast is included and each night the host asks us what we want and we always say "anything." It has ranged from freshly cut fruits to omelettes to typical Indonesian fare such as vegetable fried rice and noodles. There is always a sweet rice dessert as well - the first morning my favorite - bubur hitam, a black glutinous rice pudding with grated coconut and palm sugar.
The sounds are a major draw here. There are layers of crickets, some a constant high pitched thrum, others a rhythmic low rumble. Frogs croak all day but much more at night and there are so many birds chirping and calling and fluttering about.
You hear the lizards bark but you never see them and thankfully the snakes (there just have to be many) make no sound at all and I hope they keep it that way.
The sun sets around 6:30pm and by 7:00pm it's pitch black. One night we sat poolside staring into the sky, trying to remember which configurations were what. On this side of the planet, Orion stands on his head and it's a bit disorienting. Once the bats began to swoop overhead, we lost our nerve and headed inside.
Within an hour of our arrival Dodo took a walk to the local "store" to pick up some snacks. She came back with a bag of all kinds of things, some of which we couldn't figure out even after eating them.
It's sunny when you wake up and usually by lunch time it's cloudy and the afternoon rains fill up the rice fields. Everything here grows with little assistance, it appears.
I've been to many places in SE Asia but I think I can make the case that the Balinese have the most style. You see it in the architecture of the stone temples, in the carved wood furniture.
This is a country of artisans. They take aesthetics seriously.
This is an elaborate temple, one of many in a small village halfway up the side of a volcano. You don't see anything like this in Thailand or Myanmar, much less Cambodia. Yes, those place have temples, large ones that serve many. However, you cannot go 500 yards here in Bali without seeing once like this. There are as many temples as houses and they're all beautiful and elaborate.
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