Wow, sorry for the delay! I meant to get this post up sooner, but I had a whole bunch of things come up that I needed to do to get ready for my new job and my move back to Utah later this month so I had to take care of that before I could get to editing more photos and posting. But now I'm back! I finally finished editing all of my photos (I took around 1,000 during the 8 days I was there,) so I'm ready to finish sharing my trip!
Picking up where I left off... Thursday morning Emily and I got up really early so that we could go up the street to the local market that runs until around 8am. We got there around 6:30 or so - early! The sun wasn't even all the way up when we set out. I always love these kinds of markets - to see what the locals shop for. There was so much beautiful produce, and lots of flowers for the daily offerings!
The brown fruit here is salak - they also call it snake skin fruit because the outside has the texture and appearance of snake skin. But the inside is very crunchy and has a sweet, tart juice. We had them quite often at the hotel in Ubud and I really enjoyed them!
Lots of chickens everywhere we went in Bali. When the TV show airs, you'll probably here them crowing in the background in just about every scene!
And the peppers that are the foundation of the flavor profiles in Indonesian cuisine:
We got back to the hotel as one of the staff was coming out doing the rounds of daily offerings on the grounds. She let us watch and take photos - it's a short but beautiful ceremony.
Breakfast... fruit, pastries, and that morning I had Indonesian porridge. It came with a little tray of toppings - spiced chicken, mushrooms, and a hot pepper paste that I just touched my finger to in order to taste and my lips were burning for hours! I also make the mistake of touching just inside my nose at one point. Oops!
After breakfast we set out our suitcases and went to check out. As we were getting ready to leave, the staff came around and gave each of us a small, silver offering box that had two large versions of the little cookies that were in a jar in our room. (Did I mention that? They were like raisin shortbread - I really liked them, and they were a lovely touch!) It was so sweet for them to do that! They all came out to say goodbye to us - it was a great staff. They remembered our room numbers at meals, and even special dietary needs for some of the group! The friendliest hotel staff I've ever had. We even took a group photo with them, but it's on someone else's camera so I'm waiting until we trade pictures to get that one.
Our first stop that morning was at the Bali Bird Park. We had almost two hours there to just wander around and see the birds. A lot were roaming free (wings clipped) and then they had habitats from different islands in Indonesia, as well as other parts of Asia, Australia, and a few from Africa.
The cockatoos were just adorable:
This one (the one we held) loved to have his neck scratched. I just wanted to take him home with me.
A gorgeous peacock in one of the habitats - there was another one on the roof on the outside and they were calling to each other.
My favorites... we came outside and were interrupted by two of these Australian pelicans who were having a bit of a walkabout and couldn't decide which direction they wanted to go on the path. I hadn't realized how huge these birds are!
There are lots of species of Hornbills native to the area as well. And they're heavy!
(These are for my mother who was so glad I was finally on a trip where I wasn't playing with snakes or going into a cage with tigers. This was as dangerous as it got this time!)
As we were heading back out toward the restaurant for a bird show before we left, Emily spotted this guy. I would have missed him - hiding out in the shade and a bit camouflaged! He let me get fairly close to him... probably because there were no peahens in the vicinity. (It was mating season there, after all.)
Next we stopped at a silversmith where we could see how they make the jewelry - the detail work they were doing was amazing.
On the way to lunch, we passed this amazing building (in Denpasar.) Very modern, and so cool!
Then we stopped at a lovely little restaurant for lunch. With my severe mental seafood allergy, this was pretty typical of what I had every day. We also usually had some kind of fruit drink. At this place, I had an amazing raspberry coconut drink that I wanted to drink by the gallon. So good!
Next we went to the place that was a serious highlight for the quilters in our group (which was everyone but Emily and I... lol.) It was a warehouse for batik fabric where we could go through and pick out anything that wasn't already packaged for shipping, and they'd cut the lengths we wanted - we got the fabric for like $2 a meter! Insane. They even had packages of fat quarters and some jelly rolls. I tried to keep myself under control. I had been hoping for more traditional patterns and colors, so it's probably a good thing these were more modern batiks or I would have been in trouble.
Many of you saw the stack of fabrics I bought - most of which I got here - that I posted on Instagram after I got home.
From the warehouse, we went to the factory where they make the fabrics. I was prepared for something more modern. But this is what we saw:
Those are the dying vats. We also got to see them doing some silk screening which was fascinating!
All of the fabric in this "factory" is still batiked by hand! We also saw the wax stamping room where I once again drooled over all of the stamps.
And outside - this is one of the drying rooms:
It was all very cool to see, but the number of mosquitoes flying around made most of us pretty ready to go when the time came.
From here, we headed down south to Nusa Dua where we were going to check into our resort.
We were greeted at the entrance by traditional Balinese dancers.
All of us were lucky enough to have our rooms upgraded...
What's that you see right outside the doors? Oh yes. The room-side entrance to the private swimming pool that runs along the side of the building.
That was a pretty sweet perk. Emily and I both spent a lot of time in the evenings with our feet in the pool while we worked in our journals (and yes, I did get in and swim too!)
Friday morning, we got a lesson in how to put on a sarong and how to properly sit for making offerings and participating in the temple ceremonies.
Then they taught us how to make the baskets for offerings and how to fill them. There's a specific way to do it, and symbolism in each part of it. Mainly, it's about a daily offering of gratitude to God for sustenance, etc... and they're very particular about making sure that everything that goes into the offering is clean, of the best quality, and also beautiful. I thought all of it was really lovely and I think it helps explain part of why the Balinese people are so happy - you can't spend so much time being grateful for what you have and not be at least a little bit happy!
Here's mine:
Following our class, we got to go into the temple and make an offering - they gave us each some incense. Then they showed us the rest of the ceremony. I didn't get photos of that, but I think others did, so hopefully I'll get them soon!
Next we had a Balinese cooking class with the executive chef at the resort. That was pretty cool... he showed us three recipes, so we got to see how they get those amazing flavors!
One was chicken which was delicious, one was pork which I didn't taste because the pork had been sitting out for a while and I didn't see any ice (better safe than sorry!) and the third was fish. I assembled it and put it on the grill, but didn't taste that one. I heard it was delicious, though! If you like fish, of course (bleh.)
The afternoon was all filming wrap-up. We had lunch and then Emily and I went up to the concierge and found out where to find out about excursions. Since we were going to have Saturday and Sunday free, we didn't want to hang out at the resort - we wanted to get out and see more of the island! So we found Ketut - the guide / driver at the desk that day, and ended up hiring him for two full-day excursions. It was surprisingly inexpensive to hire a driver for the day, and we were able to work out some itineraries that would show us most of what we wanted to see, and even a bit more! The rest of the group was also going to be there Saturday, and we ended up adding three more people to that day and renting a bigger car. Then we just lounged on the patio chatting, enjoying the beautiful weather and ambiance, and taking turns doing final interviews on camera. I have a feeling I'm probably going to be totally embarrassed when it airs, but oh well! It was fun!
That evening was our farewell dinner on the beach:
Jim also handed out the batiked fabrics that we had made so we could all see what everyone had made. There were a lot of really beautiful finished products!
Here are mine:
We enjoyed a lovely dinner and then went around and exchanged cards and contact information, hugs and goodbyes to Jim and the crew who were all leaving the next day. We had a really fantastic TV crew working with us so there were lots of warm goodbyes. And that was it! The official part of the trip was finished!
Stay tuned for the recap of our free days :)
Oh Gwen, this is such a fabulous post. I love reading about your experiences and seeing the photos. So exciting. So happy for you.
Posted by: Denise Spillane | October 04, 2015 at 10:00 PM
Fun, I was wondering about the food while I was watching the show and spicy it could be! I also saw how much sitting on the floor or platforms ya'll did, I could not have done that! lol
Posted by: Sandsee Setliff | December 18, 2016 at 04:29 PM