But there are other places you can head to on your next Bali holidays – and all are, currently, much less subscribed than the ’Bud and the West Coast.

Sidemen

Beyond Ubud, the artist Walter Spies made his home in the rice fields around Sidemen, and, with the volcano framed by blue skies and stepped green terraces, the beauty of the area still stands today. It’s a sleepy place, with little to do but walk in the rice fields or the forest or the valleys, watch Mount Agung for action, or join a silversmithing, weaving or cooking class. And for that very reason it feels like the Bali time forgot.
We like to stay at: Kubu Tani, a triad of petite villas with opulent views across the greenery. If you prefer a hotel (and a pool), Teras Bali makes an excellent choice.

Nusa Penida

I’ve sung the praises of this still relatively unspoiled island here before, and whether your tastes run to swimming with mantas, spectacular, cliff-framed beaches or cave temples, you’re unlikely to be disappointed once you get to Penida – although it’s worth noticing the Instagram crowd are all over some of the island’s signature attractions. When it comes to where to stay, Ped offers a great dive centre (Blue Corner), a sustainable café-store (The Gallery), excellent grilled fish at De-Ku Bistro (order in advance), surprisingly decent cocktails at Penida Colada, a solid Padang joint for budget travellers, and the island’s most spiritually powerful temple.
We like to stay at: Ring Sameton While Penida’s hotel offer has yet to catch up with its delights, this is a solid choice with spacious, classic rooms, a big pool, and friendly staff.

Bingin Beach

Set in the general strip of the Bukit Peninsula that the world knows as Uluwatu for its surf breaks and cliff-top temple, Bingin Beach has a character that’s all its own. Surfers flock here for two great (and challenging!) waves: the aptly named Impossibles and Bingin. But if the swell’s not too big, swimmers can thrive in the waters (with a wary eye for potential rips), rock pools beckon little kids, and the beachfront warungs make for leisured lounging. Come sunset, the barbecues open up: grilled fish on the sands makes an excellent end to the day, while the catch seems fresh and varied compared to what’s on offer at Jimbaran.
We like to stay at: Deeksha Warung. A ramshackle, cool, three-bedroom, eight-person beach house, this sits up 50-odd steps from the beach with gorgeous views through the bougainvillea: if monkey invasions aren’t your thing, there’s oodles of accommodation up top (see Travelfish’s overview).

Bedugul

Not only does it get cold enough up in Bali’s central highlands for strawberries – and rabbits! – to flourish, it can actually get chilly enough come morning for places to need fires at some times of year. The star attraction in Bedugul is the enormous botanic garden, home to Bali Treetop Adventure Park, a zipline forest adventure that’s a must for anyone with kids, but there’s a beautiful lakeside temple, too, while the views just don’t get old.
We like to stay at: Strawberry Hill With tubs in the standalone bungalows and strawberries growing in the garden, it’s by far the nicest place to stay in Bedugul.

Lipah

The main attraction of the Amed-Tulamben strip is, of course, the wreck of the USAT Liberty, and it’s well worth staying locally just to dive it (EuroDive are an excellent outfit and can get you there before the site gets too ridiculously crowded). But you don’t have to scuba, however, to appreciate the turtles, lively coral and smaller wrecks, to stroll among the jukung fishing boats and to feast on fresh fish, and Lipah is the strip in which to do it. Stop by for fish soup at Warung Ketut while you’re there.
We like to stay at: Coral View Villas. One of the first properties into Lipah, and still one of the best, bungalows feature enormous indoor-outdoor bathrooms and the beachfront grounds are to die for. Families will find their two-storey sea-view affairs excellent value.

East Bali National Park

I am going to write about the Menjangan in some detail but, for the meantime, let me just say that it’s well worth heading up to East Bali National Park. You can’t stay on Menjangan Island, the white sand island with the extra-special snorkelling, but you can stay just inside the park boundaries at a cluster of resorts. None are cheap: but you’ll be rewarded with deer (and monkeys) strolling right in front of you, unusually dry jungle, and delights such as dining among the mangroves.
We like to stay at: The Menjangan. Between the tower with its sunset views to Java and beyond, breakfast in the mangroves, and the double-decker safari carts that escort you around the property, this really is super-special. If funds permit, a splurge on the 3-bedroom Residence, with its private pool, is a must for families.

The post Six of the Best Places to Beat the Crowds on Bali appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

Provided you follow official guidance, getting a good view of an active volcano in action should not be dangerous. For Agung, Bali’s volcano, as of December 2017, there are two key elements. You should stay out of the danger/evacuation zone, which is clearly marked from the main roads, and you should stay well away from rivers. That’s because, besides ash and steam, the mountain is currently emitting fast-moving mud flows known as lahars or “cold lava”. When they get going, these things can carry boulders that take out bridges, and come in as fast as a flash flood. You have been warned.

If you want to keep an eye on what Agung is up to, not to mention whether it’s even visible, you can visit a webcam here (and check whether it’s safe to travel to Bali here). In the meantime, here’s a few places to get the best views of Mount Agung, Bali’s very own and most sacred volcano:

Pura Lempuyang

The picture above is one of the best shots of Agung from Pura Lempuyang I’ve seen (thanks to Brian Crawford for the image: follow him on Insta at @briancrawfordphotography ). The temple is perfectly positioned for the gate to frame the volcano. It’s an easy day trip from Amed, and doable from Ubud and South Bali, but I’m not aware of any nice places to stay in the immediate vicinity.

Ubud

Now is a lovely time to visit Ubud, with the streets devoid of traffic and coach parties, even if the transport touts are getting rather desperate: so why not use the volcano as your excuse? There are all sorts of good positions to view Agung from around town, but both Indus Restaurant and the vegetarian Elephant Café offer lovely views across the gorge, not to mention stylish spaces and good food. If you wanted to stay over, Taman Indrakila has spectacular volcano views and very pretty bungalows, although the bathrooms let the side down: or check my post on where to stay in Ubud.
Check for discounts at Taman Indrakila on Agoda (or visit their website)

Sidemen

Sidemen is one of my absolute favourite places on Bali: exactly how the island is supposed to be, and Ubud used to be. Tiers of rice terraces pour down into a sweeping valley, with Agung dominating the skyline: patches of jungle stop it all looking too tame. The pic above is the view from one of the terraces at Kubutani, a trio of great value, quirky and characterful little villas, just before the eruption of November 2017. If you prefer the comfort of a hotel, Teras Bali is an excellent choice, with classically Balinese rooms, a gorgeous little pool and a solid Western-Indonesian menu.
Visit Kubutani’s website
Book Teras Bali at a discount on Agoda.com (or visit their website)

Senggigi

I’m far from a fan of mainland Lombok’s tourist capital, Senggigi: think Sanur, with less charisma. However, if you’re exploring the more interesting parts of Lombok and fancy some beachfront cocktails with sunset views of an erupting volcano across the ocean, then swing by Qunci Villas. The cocktails are excellent; the rooms are stylish and solid value; and I’ve heard good reports of the food as well.
Check for discounts on Qunci Villas at Agoda (or visit their website)

Rendang

The unremarkable little town of Rendang is where the volcanologists who monitor Agung are based, and it’s command central for a whole range of volcano activities. The view from Mahagiri is absolutely spectacular, with a patchwork of rice terraces that are beautiful even on a cloudy day. When Agung appears behind them, they’re jaw-on-the-floor stuff: even if it’s not erupting. You can stay here, come for their (pretty average) buffet lunch, or simply enjoy a drink with an amazing view.
Check for discounts at Mahagiri on Agoda.com (or visit their website)

Amed

While Agung is at level 4, I would not recommend staying in Tulamben. The Amed-Lipah strip of this diving area is safe, however, although there is the potential for road blockages in the event of an explosive eruption. If you stay here, you can enjoy spectacular volcano views and, sadly for the local dive industry, have dive sites including the world-class USAT Liberty wreck pretty much to yourself: now is a great time to learn to dive in Amed. Bali Villa Coral has two lovely, two-storey bungalows right on a shallow beach in Jemeluk; Coral View Villas has very stylish bungalows, many with freestanding baths, in Lipah, close to the excellent EuroDive.
Check for discounts at Coral View Villas on Agoda (or visit their website)
Check for discounts at Bali Villa Coral on Agoda (or visit their website)

The post Where to Get the Best Views of Bali’s Volcano appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

In mid-September, Agung, Bali’s sacred volcano, which has effectively been sleeping for the last half century or so, woke up. On 22 September, authorities raised its status to the highest alert level, red (or level 4), and began evacuating tens of thousands of locals who lived within 7 to 12 kilometres of the volcano. A range of governments issued travel advisories advising caution and implying that it was not safe to travel to Bali. And everyone on Bali began the process of adapting to life with a volcano that’s a lot more active than we’d thought.

Over the succeeding two months, the mountain rumbled and juddered, emitting all sorts of sinister signals to the volcanologists monitoring it, yet, perhaps intimidated by the global attention, failed to erupt. Not long after the alert status returned to amber (level 3), when evacuees outside the 6-8km range had only just returned to their homes, Agung sprang into action on 21 November with a small eruption. On the evening of 25 November, a second, larger eruption ejected a significant ash cloud, causing some airlines, particularly JetStar, to cancel flights as a precaution. By the morning of 26 November the ash cloud reached at least 6,000 metres (Agung is over 3,000 metres high). On 27 November, the wind changed and the airport closed.

On 29 November, Bali airport reopened at 3pm, after the wind changed, despite a planned closure until 7am on 30 November. While the volcano alert status has returned to level 4 (danger), with evacuation zones in place at 8-10km from the volcano, the aviation code is now at orange, although for how long remains to be seen. Agung has been coughing quite a bit through December, but the wind direction has been favourable so this has not impacted either Bali or Lombok airports. Do note that Agung remains highly active and most consider it will do quite a lot more before it’s over: despite considerable pressure, the volcanologists consider it high risk.

As of 29 December, both Bali and Lombok airport were open for business, with domestic and international flights running pretty much as normal. The volcano remains at level 4, the highest available alert status, and the aviation code remains at level 3, amber: the government has invented a Bali status of level 2, but, as Rio Helmi explains, that’s meaningless PR nonsense. Australian tourist numbers seem to be close to normal, most mainland Chinese airlines have stopped flights until at least 31 January, and domestic visits are up.

If you have a flexible schedule, and are travelling on an Asian airline, now is a good time to visit Bali, with some excellent deals available. You should, however, plan for the possibility of travel disruption.

Do note that, as the gif below from Indonesia’s excellent Magma website shows, Agung is just one of many volcanoes across the archipelago: the nation’s volcanologists are really good at their jobs and provided you follow official guidance you should not be in danger. (You can take a look at the volcano from all sorts of places, just please don’t go into the evacuated zones.)

Does the eruption mean it’s no longer safe to travel to Bali? No. But you need to be aware of the possibility of airport closures, flight changes and travel delays. Agung is a famously unpredictable volcano and it could build to a large explosion over days, weeks, or months or, conceivably, go back to sleep without an explosion: it is impossible, even for volcanologists on the mountain with all available data at their fingertips, to predict what it is going to do. (Do check Stuart McDonald’s handy travel guide, volcanologist Janine Krippner’s advice and this great feed of all the volcano data you could want.)

Will Agung have a large eruption? Nobody knows. Expert opinion seems to be that it’s likely that the recent small ash eruptions will be followed by something larger and more explosive, which also matches anecdotal recollections of the last big eruption – but this is not a predictable volcano. Agung is one of only seven volcanoes in the world to have consistently hit 5 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (the volcano Richter Scale), which is why experts remain concerned.

How long will this phase of activity go on for? Again, nobody knows. Agung’s last hissy fit, in 1963-1964, interspersed moments of drama with long periods of quiet, and included two very large explosive eruptions. At the moment, about all it’s fair to say is that it’s unlikely these ash clouds will be the last of it – although, of course, they could be. Agung has been setting personal bests on all forms of instrument readings since September, and my personal and entirely unscientific opinion is that it’s going to wait until everyone’s forgotten about it and then do something spectacular.

You may well have seen on social media, thanks to the “I am in Bali now” campaign, that there are tourists in Bali, who are perfectly safe and having a great time. With lower visitor numbers, there are some excellent deals on accommodation (Agoda has some great offers right now), and not only in areas like Ubud that are closer to Agung. You’ll also be helping the island’s economy and so, indirectly, the volcano refugees, so there is an awful lot to be said for visiting now.

If you’re wondering whether to travel to Bali, here’s what to consider:

1: Where Will You Be in Relation to the Volcano Danger Zones?

Above is a map showing Mount Agung and Bali’s best known tourist areas. Below is a map showing the areas of Bali that were considered unsafe in the event of an eruption like that of 1963 (the current evacuations reflect a slightly smaller area of concern, with a radius of 8-10km). The circles indicate the risk of falling particles of different sizes; the yellow flow patterns indicate the risk from mudflows known as lahars, while the pink flows represent lava and pyroclastic flows.

As you can see, essentially, unless you’re within 15km of the volcano, or in a valley that starts near the top of the volcano, it’s safe to travel to that bit of Bali. Ubud is 30km from Agung; Canggu is about 60km; Kuta is about 70km; the Bukit peninsula is even further.

Out of the typical tourist destinations, Tulamben, for diving, is unsafe: I would be cautious about visiting Amed for fear of road blockages, although with such great diving AND volcano views, it’s highly tempting. Sidemen and Candidasa are considered safe: Sidemen also offers incredible views if Agung’s next act is more photogenic than apocalyptic. If climbing Agung or diving Tulamben are must-dos for you in Bali, however, now is probably not the time to book a holiday, although many tourists are finding Agung makes an amazing selfie backdrop. (See this post for where to get the best views of the volcano.)

2: How Key Is It That You Get Back to Work on Time?

An Agung eruption does not necessarily mean airport closures: that’s dependent on whether Agung throws up ash, how much ash it throws up, how high that ash rises, and what direction the wind is blowing. (You can read my guide on what to do if a volcano cancels your flight here.) There have been ashclouds through most of December, in fact, but the wind is blowing away from the airport and, if the weather follows standard seasonal patterns, may continue to do so until march.

Generally speaking, if Denpasar airport is closed when you need to travel, you will be able to get in and out by travelling to Banyuwangi, Surabaya or Malang on Java, or Praya on Lombok, depending on which of those airports are still open, but that will take time to organise, while you can expect flight prices to soar. During the last closure, the airport arranged buses from domestic arrivals to Surabaya aiport for 300,000 IDR: the journey takes at least 12 hours, and I would allow 18. (Private cars typically cost around 2,500,000 IDR for a 7-seat Avanza.)

Do, however, note that the air traffic control and ground staff at Ngurah Rai played an absolute blinder during the recent closures and, let’s face it, there are worse places to be stuck than Bali!

So: if you’re a surgeon, a fertility doctor, a head teacher, self-employed in a sector where you need to be physically present to earn money or likely to be fired if you don’t come back to work on time, then I’d either not visit or plan travel to Bali through an airport that can be reached by various different connections, and leave at least a day in hand to reach that airport. If you’re in a normal job, let alone a job that allows you to work from home, then, hell, I’d take the risk.

3: Do You Have Serious Respiratory Problems?

IF Agung has a large eruption, and IF the winds are blowing the wrong way, volcanic ash COULD impact the tourist areas. It’s nasty stuff and, while both adults and children can protect themselves with N95-rated face masks, if you’re struggling with serious respiratory issues it makes sense to holiday somewhere that doesn’t have an erupting volcano.

4: Are You Travelling on a Shoestring?

World Nomads have been very upfront about this, but not all travel insurers have. Most travel insurers will not cover you for volcano-related cancellations or costs if you booked your holiday or bought your insurance between 20 September and 29 October or after 21 November, because the volcano was considered a known risk at those times – the equivalent of a pre-existing condition for medical insurance. However, World Nomads (and most other insurance) will still be usable for other non-volcano issues, such as medical expenses in the event of accidents, so don’t travel uninsured. (As always, do check the Ts & Cs before you buy.)

5: Will You Get Your Money Back?

Most airlines won’t refund flights unless they cancel them themselves or the airport closes – so, while JetStar did offer alternative destinations during the last bout of flight disruption, you’re unlikely to get your money back.

According to aviation guru Gerry Soejatman, Indonesian aviation law only covers domestic flights and specifically excludes volcanic ash and airport closures from its limited consumer protection so your airline will be within its rights to refuse you so much as a bottle of water.

If you’re planning long-haul travel now, consider routing through Jakarta: there is spare capacity to reach Jakarta from all of the nearby airports if Bali airport closes, and you may even get enough warning to hop on a domestic flight before it shuts. It makes for a longer journey but ensures you won’t miss expensive international connections.

As you can see, for most people, travel to Bali is safe – even with the eruption ongoing.

Here’s some suggestions for those planning Bali travel:

Fly with an Asian Airline

Australian carriers are notorious for cancelling flights when volcanoes go off around Bali, primarily because they don’t have the ground staff at nearby airports or even in Bali to handle stranded passengers and they don’t fly to enough Indonesian airports to be able to easily reroute the plane. Despite its PR nonsense about “rescue flights” and “safety”, JetStar has not done well by its stranded passengers to date, and its motivations are economic.

Leave Time Around Connecting Flights

If you’re flying to Europe or the US through regional hubs like Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, allow yourself at least a day’s layover for your return flight. That means that IF the airport is closed the day you’re due to fly out, you can hop on a boat to Lombok, arrange a brutal bus ride or expensive car trip to Surabaya, or head to Banyuwangi to fly to Jakarta, and still make your connecting flight. Also consider booking important connections out of Jakarta, if that’s practicable: it widens your choices of non-Bali airports in the event of crisis. Do note that you can follow the projected path of any ash cloud using graphic projections from Darwin VAAC’s volcanic ash advisory. So, for example, if your flight home is from Jakarta in two days’ time and an ash cloud starts moving towards Bali airport, you might want to pick up a domestic flight immediately: there are loads.

Bring N-95 Masks

Will there be ashfall of a level that could endanger health where you are in Bali while you’re there? Probably not. But it’s worth being prepared with N-95 masks just in case. When you’re leaving, donate them to the evacuees, who really need them: pay a Gojek motorbike taxi to deliver them to Solemen Indonesia’s dropoff centres.

And, whew! I think that’s it! If you’ve got any questions I haven’t answered here, feel free to post them in the comments: if I can’t answer them myself, I’ll probably know someone who can.

The post Is It Safe to Travel to Bali with the Volcano Erupting? appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

From their first arrival, onto a building site and a house with no walls but a myriad bugs, through to revelations about the teacher left unable to work by Green School’s groundbreaking bamboo design – and rapidly disposed of with three months’ salary, $600 and health insurance for a year – it’s a story that should be fascinating to anyone who’s ever worked in education and anyone new to Asia who’s contemplating Bali. And, best of all, Kusel is actually a writer, and it shows.

There’s a lot to love in this book. From the standoff between the teacher and the designer over whether desks for small children should have sharp corners to the “vortex”, a green electricity set-up that featured heavily in the school’s PR but was attached to neither generator nor turbine, to the sheer discomfort of living in an open house that’s also an attraction for visiting tour groups, it’s pretty damn eye-opening about what’s arguably the most heavily marketed school in the world.

There are occasions when Kusel’s naivety might have old Asia hands climbing the walls: surely inconveniences such as bug bites, poor road safety and second-hand smoke are to be expected in the developing world? And there are elements of her narrative which are specific to the sheer insanity of a brand new school on Bali – not to mention one opposite a Hindu cemetery where open cremations are held. But others will have you nodding along, and, if you’re plotting a year on Bali – let alone contemplating teaching at Green School – her book is an absolute must-read.

Rash, published by WiDo publishing, is available on Amazon Kindle for $6.17. Or you can buy it on BookDepository.com for $20.84, including free worldwide shipping to countries all over the world, including Indonesia (not to mention Aruba, Madagascar, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands).

The post Rash: An Eminently Readable Bali Memoir appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

Dramatic Diving

The cool waters and fierce currents that surge around Penida (and the dinky neighbouring islets of Lembongan and Ceningan) make for some epic diving (one reason I’ll be back in August). Mantas are commonplace; during the season, the giant oceanic sunfish, or mola mola, frequents a range of sites; and there’s stuff to see at scales from nudibranch and pygmy seahorse to one-tonne mola mola. (People die at some of the sites around here, so pick your dive centre carefully: Blue Corner, with outlets on Lembongan and Penida, and World Diving are experienced and safe.)

Leisurely Lifestyle

The moment you step off the boat in Penida, time slows down – and, no, there’s not even a sea of hotel touts bombarding you. The pace of life is slow, the roads are empty, and bedtime is early: it’s the perfect counterpoint to the chaos of Ubud or South Bali. (So laid back is Penida, in fact, that island-wide power cuts are not unknown.)

Spectacular Beaches

Don’t be put off by the seaweed farming on some of the shallower bays. Nusa Penida is rich with stunning beaches – and, with the signature exception of Crystal Bay, almost all of them are hardly visited. Pantai Atuh is a perfect curve of golden sand, reached from towering promontories, with a stunning natural arch offshore. Pantai Kelingking, a no-no for anyone with vertigo, is a crescent framed by razor-sharp hills. And there’s at least two pristine white sand beaches that can be reached on foot from Crystal Bay.

Rocks to Reckon With

Geologically, Nusa Penida is uniquely blessed. The staggering coastline is more like a hybrid of Britain’s Jurassic Coast and Greece’s Zakynthos than anything you’d associate with Indonesia. There’s Broken Bay, a flawless circle eroded from the rocks complete with natural bridge to let the ocean rush through; there’s Angel’s Billabong, a deceptively tranquil canyon that descends to the sea in tiers of natural swimming holes; and then there’s the beaches….

The Open Road

Nusa Penida’s roads may be narrow – and, in places, not in the best condition – but between the lovely sweeping stretches of coast road, and undulating mountain routes that run along the spines of lush valleys, this is an absolutely wonderful place to be on two wheels. You’ll have the road to yourself much of the time – which doesn’t mean the tarmac gets any softer, so do wear a helmet. (Rental bikes in conditions from dangerous to shabby start from around 60,000 IDR per day: guesthouses can arrange these, or book them at the port.)

Magic and Ritual

Penida is Bali’s capital of magic, a place where black and white magic intertwine: according to legend, a demon queen married the island’s very first king. The temples, many carved from brilliant white limestone rather than the darker stone favoured on the mainland, and many of them right beside the sea, are stunning. If you see just one, make it Goa Giri Putri, a cave temple accessed through the tiniest hole in the ground. Inside, a natural cathedral extends through seven separate sanctuaries: around full moon and new moon, it’s dense with incense and incredibly atmospheric.

The Gallery

The Gallery is a little social enterprise just outside the town of Ped, which is home not only to the demon queen’s temple but to what passes for a social scene in these there parts. Swing by for vegan-led food, generally made using local organic produce, delicious ginger-hibiscus tea, local crafts including Penida’s very distinctive weaving, locally made soaps, and Mike Appleton, RIP. Until his untimely death in late 2017, he was a fount of information on all things Penida.

Thanks to Tom Bridge for his image, Mola Mola, on Flickr’s Creative Commons. And, if you’re looking for something entirely different this winter, why not try an Eastern Caribbean cruise?

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I’m sure Pak Kiko would be an excellent healer, if you shared a belief system with him. Although I understand from Made, who is no longer the housekeeper, having taken an exponentially more lucrative gig in America, that he’s not quite ready to unleash his powers and go full balian as yet.

The reason my abstruse and thoroughly expat-ty domestic arrangements are relevant is that today Pak Kiko saw a snake.

You could say this was an occupational hazard for a gardener in Bali, particularly one who works in a garden beside a river and therefore full of tasty frogs even before you tuck into the fishponds. You might even be correct in this. But to explain the true meaning of the snake, I need to explain the ghosts.

When, as I understood it, a blood sacrifice was required, Made thought I should check with the landlords.

I’ve touched on the ghosts en passant, I believe. We have the normal-for-Bali pair of a good one, in the kitchen, and a bad one, in the garden, a situation that is, I fear, not helped by our position on a river down which the ashes of the dead may sometimes travel.

Neither Zac nor I can see the ghosts. In fact, only Balinese Hindus are aware of them. But our bad one is particularly bad, apparently. As proven – I believe in its entirety – when Pak Kiko dreamed about a ghost lady with a strangling snake in the garden.

The reason our bad ghost is so evil remains TBC. Made at first believed the issue was that our landlords had failed to hold a ceremony to appease the earth goddess before digging holes for the fishponds and the pool. I went so far as to get estimates from a Hindu priest to undo the insult to the goddess, but when, as I understood it, a blood sacrifice was required, Made thought I should check with the landlords.

After agonising and negotiation, the upshot of this thoroughly Indonesian theological conundrum ran roughly as follows…

Our landlords are Christian. He started out as a Balinese Hindu. She’s from Toraja, so has been a Christian of the buffalo-sacrificing variety since birth. So, naturally, they had a Christian ceremony to appease the earth goddess when the pool and ponds were dug. (Being a priest in Indonesia must, one feels, be something of a shock to the system, not least because this is not the sort of problem the travelling missionary expects to encounter in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.)

The Balinese landlord explained they weren’t averse to having a Hindu ceremony on top of the Christian one if that seemed important, but they’d rather not have a blood sacrifice. The Torajan landlady – and Torajans are famously canny businesspeople, due to the fact that they spend most of their lives and income paying for buffalo sacrifices and clan houses so anyone who escapes the village has to be as hardnosed as hell with an Einstein IQ – pointed out that a Christian exorcism is exponentially cheaper than a Hindu one. (All a Christian exorcist needs is a bit of holy water, a bible and some incense, while the cost of the Hindu exorcism included a budget line for a truck to transport the offerings.)

After agonising and negotiation, the upshot of this thoroughly Indonesian theological conundrum ran roughly as follows. Only Hindus can see the ghosts, but the house is Christian, so the ghosts may well be Christian. We should, therefore have the ceremony in the religion that is most important to the household. Since Zac and I, the only non-ghosts resident in the home, do not have a religion and cannot see the ghosts we can’t participate fully in an exorcism either Christian or Hindu. Therefore, we should leave the ghosts to do their thing and get a Christian exorcism as and when we see them.

And so the ghosts removed themselves from my list of things to fix around the house and became a fact of Bali life. They are, unless you’re poor Pak Kiko, rather unobtrusive. Neither Zac nor I have ever registered anything untoward. In fact, it’s for all the world as if they’re not even real.

A large, green snake in a tree didn’t sound good. In fact, it sounded rather like a bamboo viper to me, though I know nothing about snakes.

I think, though I may well be wrong, that many Balinese have been a bit on edge after the earthquake, which comes uncomfortably close to the Nyepi New Year festival. Incense definitely hung heavier in the air than usual the morning after the quake.

So when I returned from school with Zac to see Pak Kiko in the garden staring fixedly into a tree with the long handle of the pool-cleaning net in one hand and a spray bottle of pesticide in the other, I wasn’t unduly concerned.

“How are you?” I asked him in my resolutely rubbish Indonesian.

“There’s a snake,” he said, looking tense, sweaty and grey.

“Oh,” I said, squinting up into the mango and not seeing anything. “What’s it like?”

“Green and big,” he said, frowning.

A large, green snake in a tree didn’t sound good. In fact, it sounded rather like a bamboo viper to me, though I know nothing about snakes. More to the point, Pak Kiko didn’t think it was good either.

“OK,” I said in rubbish Indonesian. “There’s a man who will come and get it.”

Pak Kiko seemed relieved. “Zac,” I yelled through the locked door behind which my spawn appeared to be celebrating the start of the school holidays by sitting beneath a headset definitely not revising for his imminent IGCSEs. “There’s a snake in the garden.”

“OK,” he yelled back, and pulled the blind down.

A tense 40 minutes passed, during which Pak Kiko watched the snake move from different locations in the mango tree into another mango tree, up a palm tree and back again.

I dialled Bali Reptile Rescue, the charity which exists less to protect people from snakes than to protect snakes from people and which helped us out when I found the cobra in my bedroom a while back.

An Indonesian lady answered. I handed the phone to Pak Kiko who described the snake and explained our address, then I explained the address again, then I texted it. (You can live in Bali for decades and still get lost. It’s not an island that’s set up for navigation.)

A tense 40 minutes passed, during which Pak Kiko watched the snake move from different locations in the mango tree into another mango tree, up a palm tree and back again and I, but for a few minutes when I thought a patch of congealed sap was a very small and extremely somnolent serpent, could not see a goddamn thing.

I went out the front to check for reptile rescuers, rang the reptile rescuers, looked up the road for reptile rescuers, rinsed and repeated. Finally, having only got lost once, the cavalry arrived: two Indonesian girls, one wearing flip-flops over socks by way of foot protection, equipped with snake forks and a large white bag. (I suppose this is a step up from the towel traditionally used to protect against rabid animals.)

That’s interesting, I think. Clearly the snake man has found some young local people who share his passion for reptiles and is training them up to continue his good work. Because, believe me, snake-wrangler is not a job that anyone should take without aptitude or at the very least enthusiasm. (And, yes, I know Indonesia is a developing country, but my point still holds.)

Neither of them could see the snake. Pak Kiko pointed it out, then pointed it out again, but it remained elusive. I realised, with a mild sinking feeling, that only one out of four of us had now seen the snake, and that one was the person who had had the dream about the snake lady in the garden. Oh Bali!

“Do you have a ladder?” one of the girls asked, as the three of them stood, hands over foreheads, squinting up into the mango, silhouetted like something from an Eastern Bloc flag-raising sculpture or perhaps an early 80s expressive dance troupe.

Of course we have a ladder! Not a very long ladder, not a very good ladder, and more step-ladder than the sort of telescopic affair that’s really needed to climb our substantial trees, but a ladder nonetheless. At last! I could be useful!

To do anything more would suggest that I’m unreasonably withholding a perfectly good, if rather, umm, shocking, 1990s Chinese factory reject washer-drier from someone who currently does the whole family’s washing by hand as well as working two jobs.

The ladder had moved into the store room because, after the tap came off in my hand the day of the earthquake, flooding the junk area, I had emptied the area of all junk and moved non-junk to the storeroom. Well, apart from the junk which Komang, the helper, or Komang #2, her cousin who was fixing the roof, wanted (and, yes, the roof leaks often, and, yes, there are a lot of Komangs in Bali: in fact, Pak Kiko is also a Komang). They couldn’t, however, take any of it as it wouldn’t fit on a motorbike, so we’re still housing a broken bed, a broken washing machine, and a broken TV.

I am, frankly, concerned about the washing machine as Komang #1 is Made’s cousin, Made has already lost one cousin (quite possibly another Komang) to a badly wired washing machine and I am fond of our Komang. But I have uttered my warnings, if not exactly articulated them, and to do anything more would suggest that I’m unreasonably withholding a perfectly good, if rather, umm, shocking, 1990s Chinese factory reject washer-drier from someone who currently does the whole family’s washing by hand as well as working two jobs to put her son through high school.

This post will answer all your questions, so back to the ladder. Rather than being in the junk corner, this was not only in the storeroom but actually locked in the storeroom. This is because Zac had left his keys behind one day, so I’d left my computer in Zac’s room, locked the two rooms containing anything of value – the storeroom and Zac’s room – and left the windows open so Zac could break in. (At over six foot, skinny and spectacularly supple, he can climb through the most extraordinary openings.)

Of course, because Bali, and because crisis, the storeroom door refused to open. I tried a range of approaches. Despite knowing damn well which one was the storeroom key, I even tried several keys. I pulled the handle a little, pushed the handle a little, yanked the door while pushing the key, pushed the door while retracting and turning the key, for all the world like a queen on his wedding night.

At this point, with three Indonesians still looking for the snake in the garden, and waiting on the ladder, the lock began to come off the door. Sensing a rapid deterioration into farce, I yelled frantically for Zac.

“The screw?” I said. “The screw that has come out of the door handle,” my son said slowly, as if talking to a developmentally delayed child.

“Can you mend the door?” I asked, helplessly. “I need to get the ladder out for the snake people and the door is locked.”

To his credit, Zac inquired neither why the ladder was in the storeroom nor why the storeroom was locked. “Where’s the screw?” he said.

“The screw?” I said.

“The screw that has come out of the door handle,” my son said slowly, as if talking to a developmentally delayed child.

I found it on the floor. “I have a screwdriver,” he said. “Let me have a go.”

Fixing the door handle didn’t make the door any more receptive to the key. “How about you just take the whole thing off?” I asked. “That couldn’t make matters any worse, could it?”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

I ambled off into the garden, where the girls were still looking for the snake and Pak Kiko was still pointing it out. “You have good eyes,” I said amiably, in rubbish Indonesian.

Christ! Taking the lock off, I realised, might make the door unopenable except by taking the thing off its hinges. Further, due to overspending on a weekend’s diving, we were on the verge of breaking into the emergency coin jar and certainly in no position to hire a locksmiths.

I rushed back indoors. Zac was patiently screwing the lock back on. “Yeah, I realised that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said.

Everyone who works at the property thinks I’m stark staring bonkers because I have long, animated conversations with my computer and appear to spend all day every day frowning, muttering and typing.

Out in the garden, the girls had finally identified the snake, so in came Pak Kiko, with the relieved air of a man who knows people have stopped thinking he’s mad. “The ladder, ma’am,” he said. (Indonesian as a language is hot on terms of address and hugely status-conscious in the way it uses said terms.)

“The door doesn’t want to open!” I exclaimed. “It can’t be unlocked!”

I gave the key one last despairing twist. It turned, smoothly and seamlessly, and the door opened. I’d say it swung, but it graunched and a bit of the facing almost fell off. My point is that it did not behave like a door that has been stuck shut.

I should add, here, that both Pak Kiko and Komang have watched me Skype chatting for the duration they have worked here. It was only after I mentioned to Komang that I was talking to my mother, and pointed to the computer where the voice was coming from, that I think she realised I was not insane. I then made a point of explaining the same thing to Pak Kiko, but I’m not sure he’s entirely got it yet.

I don’t know what they think I do on the computer all day, but they seem to find my habit of talking directly to it quite alarming. (That’s not helped by the fact that, like a lot of self-employed people, I can occasionally mumble when reading things to myself or totaling numbers.)

Which is a long-winded way of saying: everyone who works at the property thinks I’m stark staring bonkers because I have long, animated conversations with my computer and appear to spend all day every day frowning, muttering and typing. The door, perhaps possessed by the kitchen ghost, only served to enhance that perspective.

But apparently we weren’t finished. Oh no. That would be too easy. The ladder had been fetched so the snake needed to be retrieved.

“What snake is it?” I asked, out in the garden, still untarnished by sight of said ophidian.

The girl presented us with our second copy of the reptile rescuers’ handy guide to the snakes of Bali: we’d lost the first. “It’s a vine snake,” she says. “Not dangerous to humans. A pit viper is bigger. This is a thin snake.”

An hour or so in to the saga, I considered this job done, not to mention, the second everyone vacated the property, gin o’clock. “Thank you,” I said. “Would you like a glass of water? Or some tea?”

But apparently we weren’t finished. Oh no. That would be too easy. The ladder had been fetched so the snake needed to be retrieved.

Despite the fact that everyone involved now knew it was harmless and it was, at a minimum, five metres up a goddamn mango tree. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve crawled through a snowmelt waterfall rather than go too close to the edge of a drop, and at Everest Base Camp muleteers paused entire trains to let me count my way across swaying suspension bridges.

After years of more or less artless pruning, the mango tree in question – we have five – has taken on the shape of an inverted capital ‘L’. I am scared of heights so have endless respect for people, be they window-cleaners or guys who have summitted Everest eight times, who can brave them.

Blimey, I think, as the girl in the shoes shimmies up the ladder and inches her way across the bar of the ‘L’, I couldn’t do that for all the world! Wow.

The chick with the flip-flops hovers below with a large white bag, Pak Kiko keeps his eyes fixed on the snake, and shoe chick pulls out the snake fork and reaches up. Wow! I think. These girls are really showing the snake man a thing or two – he must be super-proud of his new hires.

The second she lets go of the branch, it all falls to pieces. “I”m scared of the snake,” the girl exclaims, in English. “I’m scared!” She looks like she’s going to cry.

Unfortunately, she is now more than her body’s length away from the top of a ladder, so freezing is not an option. Nor is dropping, as she’s more than three metres above the ground.

I recognise the symptoms of someone who’s scared of heights spazzing out, as we acrophobes technically put it. I’ve crawled through a snowmelt waterfall rather than go too close to the edge of a drop, and at Everest Base Camp muleteers paused entire trains to let me count my way across swaying suspension bridges, so I’m thoroughly au fait with THE FEAR. I also identify an absolute clusterfuck in the making.

“ZAC!” I yell, beginning to drag our beanbag loungers into position below the tree so she’s got something to land on if she falls. She could break a limb, I realise. Or even her neck! “ZAC!”

“It’s OK!” I say to her. “Please come down. It’s not a poisonous snake so you don’t need to catch it. The most important thing is that you don’t hurt yourself.”

The lack of venom in the snake and the lack of snake-catching chops of our saviours may be connected. Triage might have identified our household with its puny vine snake as the perfect practice arena for trainees.

As we coax her down from the tree, rather like firemen wrangling a kitten, it dawns on me that, perhaps, the lack of venom in the snake and the lack of snake-catching chops of our saviours may be connected. Triage might have identified our household with its puny vine snake as the perfect practice arena for trainees.

As the girls head off on their motorbike and a visibly relaxed Pak Kiko heads for home, I can’t help but wonder. Will he ever come back?

Has this scenario quelled his fears of the snake lady in the garden by living out the dream with a happy ending? Or is it a sinister precursor of snakes to come that indicates there is more to be worried about further down the line.

I lack the linguistic facility to ask him and I very much doubt he’d tell me anyway. If he doesn’t show after Nyepi, I guess I’ll give Made a ring. But first…. Gin o’clock.

The post I Think We Just Hit Peak Bali appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

This morning, we had a corker. Quite how much of a corker it was, as, for that matter, exactly where it was, remains TBC. The US Geological Society has it at 5.5 and somewhere near Keramas on the east coast; the Indonesian BKMG has it at 6.4 near Uluwatu down south. Anyway, it was what we pro journalists call “too goddamn close to my house for comfort”.

Further, as I visited a real live seismography centre at Krakatau. I’m going with the Indonesians, their 1950s seismographs, their 1990s computers, their proximity and their experience over the Americans and their fancy tech. Plus, it’s a big number.

I was “working”, which is to say on Twitter, when it hit. And hit it did. We get a lot of 5.-something earthquakes here and they’re a pretty ambiguous experience. There’s the odd ripple in the fishpond, a sense that your stomach just shifted a few centimetres sideways and back again, and a general feeling of seasick insecurity and hungover malaise. Nothing, in short, to write home about, which is why I haven’t, although I’m sure Sartre would have done a lovely job of it.

Holy cow, I thought, either that cat that nests up in the roof has really put on weight or someone’s driving a bloody mining vehicle past the house.

This morning’s earthquake started with a bang. Now, I am not sure whether there actually was a bang or I retrospectively invented a bang to rationalise the sensation that an elephant was leaping around in the roof. On balance, I think something heavy probably fell in one of the neighbours’ houses.

Anywise, the elephant jumped on the roof, and the walls began to shake; the windows, which have many panes, took up a gentle percussive tinkling. Holy cow, I thought to myself, being a little slow on the uptake of a morning, either that cat that nests up in the roof has really put on weight or someone’s driving a bloody mining vehicle past the house. The floor began to shake more vigorously. Reality dawned.

Zac, being sixteen, sleeps with his door locked. Being sixteen, he can also sleep through pretty much anything although not, I am pleased to note, his alarm. “Zac!” I yell. “Are you OK?”

Silence. Panic bites. How can anyone sleep through this? The bloody house is flamenco dancing. The windows are its jingling castanets. There are WAVES, not ripples, in the goddamn swimming pool.

If this carries on, I think with sudden dread, the house could come down. And why in god’s name is he not responding?

“ZAC!” I yell, pounding on his door with an open palm. “ZAC! WAKE UP IT’S A FUCKING EARTHQUAKE!”

“Uh?”

“It’s an EARTHQUAKE! We need to GET OUT!!!!”

My spawn emerges, floor still shaking, in his underpants, with the bewildered and rather aggrieved air of someone who just can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Unfortunately, none of our furniture is designed for hiding under.

And then it clicks. We look around the room. I’m not particularly up to speed on earthquakes but I do know that you’re supposed to get under a table to stop things falling on you and stay away from glass. Unfortunately, none of our furniture is designed for hiding under.

Our beds are solid-frame. The Suharto-era furniture we’ve inherited from our landlords includes an ugly teak table with one central leg below a circular base – better than nothing, but hardly going to help if one of the palm trees or mangoes in the garden comes crashing down (the papaya fell into the pool after a previous earthquake, so I’m aware of the risks). The grotesque and spectacularly uncomfortable teak sofa might fit some of Zac under it, but not me.

And, umm, that’s it. We look at each other and discuss.

“Should we go into the garden?” Zac asks.

“Trees!” I say, although I’m thinking that trees are likely better engineered to cope with earthquakes than the typical Indonesian building, even a single-storey one like ours. “What about hiding in a door frame?” (This is, gentle reader, terrible advice, about as bad as it gets after taking shelter under a chandelier.)

“Hmm…” says Zac, who actually does earthquake drills at school, which consist, I believe, of getting under your desk and covering your head then filing out in an orderly fashion at an appropriate time. “I guess.”

Normal service resumes later, as I go to turn off a dripping tap, the whole thing comes off in my hand, and I have to switch the electricity off at the mains as I cannot find the stopcock.

And with that the shaking eases, the windows stop vibrating, and the pool calms down. It will be a while before the birds, which stopped singing as they do at total eclipses, start up again, and quite a long time before I, personally, stop shaking.

I’m back on Twitter, trying to find out if there’s a tsunami warning and who knows what about the earthquake (answers, no, no one and nothing), when the Bag Lady rings on WhatsApp.

“Yes!” I squeak excitedly, picking up the phone and feeling suddenly soigné. “It WAS an earthquake! It was a REALLY BIG earthquake!” We agree to meet for coffee and a chat. The boy seems spectacularly underwhelmed.

It’s almost a relief when normal service resumes later, as I go to turn off a dripping tap, the whole thing comes away in my hand, and I have to switch the electricity off at the mains as I cannot find the stopcock.

The post My Teen Can Literally Sleep Through an Earthquake appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

As someone who both backpacks and writes about top-end food, booze and travel, I can confirm that Ubud offers the full spectrum of places to stay, from uber-luxury through to simple homestays, not to mention AirBNB.

To be honest, while I’m a big fan of AirBNB in city locations, I wouldn’t recommend it for Ubud. One of the great advantages of Ubud over the rest of Bali is its walkability, and villas in Ubud are often a proper schlep from anywhere.

So herewith, in answer to the timeless question, “Where should I stay in Ubud?” are eight great places to stay in Ubud. That means next time someone asks me, I’ll just send this link.

Please note, prices are in descending order. Also, if you book using Agoda after clicking through from my site I receive a small commission.

COMO Shambalha Estate

The flagship of Christina Ong’s COMO brand, COMO Shambhala is generally considered THE best hotel in Ubud and one of the best spa retreats in the world. Out in Payangan, 30 minutes or so north of Ubud, it’s a fair old whack from the centre, scattered among stunning gardens in splendid isolation.

Glorious natural hiking opportunities run all the way down the dazzling gorge to the river and encompass a jungle gym and tiered natural spring pools. The service is so unnervingly good that you can expect a helper to arrive with a cool towel and a glass of spring water the second you start to look puffed.

Whisper it, but I personally prefer the spa at Hanging Gardens. Still, as part of an integrated wellness programme – complete with diet, exercise, and relaxation – the treatments here take some beating. I’ve heard the yoga teaching is phenomenal, while the in-room products smell stealably lush.

The suites cluster in groups, each themed around an element and an Indonesian design style, with individual pools and dining-cum-sitting rooms shared among the units; you can build community if you would like, but opt out if you’d prefer not to. Even the entry-level suites feel wonderful, built out over the garden so that they float in thin air like treehouses, while the private pool villa is sybaritism writ large.

COMO Shambhala is a timeless place where the ordinary pace of life slows down, helped by the ban on both mobile phones and smoking (the second is honoured more in the breach than in the observance). The restaurant offers the full spectrum of dishes from spa-friendly to steak.
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Hanging Gardens

A honeymoon favourite for its eminently Instagrammable pool, Hanging Gardens also sits well north of Ubud in Payangan, and literally hangs down the gorge. So vertiginous is the descent, in fact, that you ride from entrance to the rooms and the glorious spa on a dinky little funicular railway.

Rooms here feature their own dinky little infinity pools – strictly for plunging, not swimming! – and many have outside tubs as well (some, bizarrely, in colours like pink or peach!). Dark wood dominates, and they feel quite blissfully airy and timelessly Balinese.

The spa at Hanging Gardens is probably the best in Ubud. It’s the location that does it – so close to the water’s edge that you can hear the river rushing past as you indulge in pampering treatments. Facials are phenomenal, while the signature massages fuse disparate elements into an integrated whole – request a hard massage if you want it.

You’re less splendidly isolated out here than you are at COMO – there are regular shuttles to and from town, while you’ll see plenty of other guests in a way you don’t at COMO – but it is still simply gorgeous (sorry!).
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Bambu Indah

The brainchild of jeweller and Green School founder John Hardy, Bambu Indah sits in Sayan, in the north of Ubud, amid an actual Balinese village. It’s a lovely and unique place, perched atop the gorge, with each villa individually designed and styled. While still set away from the action, it’s a much shorter ride from other food and cultural activities than some other high end venues.

Quirks from a bamboo lift down to the river below to a bamboo treehouse nestled high above the gardens, not to mention the freshwater pools, enliven it no matter which you pick. Hardy lives his values and the permaculture garden supplies much of the organic fare served in the restaurant, while the Balinese activities on offer here are unusually authentic.

You can choose between antique buildings sourced from across the archipelago or airy new constructions in bamboo or teak. The Udang house features a glass floor set over the freshwater swimming pond; the Pagoda is a magical, four-storey, bamboo structure with a child-like playfulness; the Padi house is the perfect place to play Marie Antoinette or work on that novel.
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Bisma Eight

If you’ve got this far, you’ll have noticed that top-end accommodation in Ubud tends to cluster a fair way out of town. You may well also have found this irritating, since Ubud’s walkability is a major plus point.

This contemporary, hugely awarded boutique hotel is the answer to your prayers, sitting on leafy Jalan Bisma roughly halfway between Monkey Forest Temple and the Ubud Royal Palace: they’re 15 minutes walk in either direction. Yet Jalan Bisma is still at heart a ricefield road and come nightfall you’ll still hear the sounds of the sawah issuing from the greenery that surrounds you: Bisma Eight even has its very own 53-are farm just down the road.

The rooftop houses a very solid restaurant and cocktail bar, with spectacular views. Rooms, which are all suites, feature Japanese bathing tubs in the bathrooms, cool dividing screens, and contemporary design that wouldn’t, but for the greenery, feel out of place in Ginza. The pool is pretty, too.
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Sri Ratih Cottages

While downtown Ubud feels traffic-choked and tourist-heavy – especially over peak season – Penestenan, known as an “artists’ village”, is much less hectic. That’s not to say it’s immune from construction or development – far from it – but if you’re looking for a quieter location in Ubud, Penestenan’s rambling web of narrow ricefield roads may hit the sweet spot for you.

And, if you don’t mind braving steps and hills, Penestenan is still walkable from downtown Ubud, and an easy hop from the classic walk along Campuhan Ridge. Sri Ratih Cottages enjoy a great location: far enough into Penestenan to feel rural, but not so far that walking into town means hiring a scooter or a car, and also a feasible walk from the high-end eateries of Sanggingan. (See my “Where to Eat in Ubud” piece for more on this.)

Rooms are fresh and modern, with outdoor showers and a contemporary take on Balinese style that’s very attractive for the price point. There’s a pool and expansive gardens, with ricefield walks just seconds from your doorstep. And, at least on Agoda, the rates are right.
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Sri Bungalows

Right in the heart of the action, yet pleasingly set back from it, this complex of bungalows sits amid gardens and ricefields just at the top of Monkey Forest Road, which is about as central as it gets in Ubud. But it doesn’t feel either noisy or central, thanks to the quiet gang you need to stroll down to discover them.

The deluxe rooms feature everything the flashpacker could desire: fresh, modern bathrooms, airy four-poster beds, and terraces with views across the ricefields. There are no fewer than two pools in the pretty gardens. Food, booze, and spa are on the basic side of flashpacker, but with foodie magic from Locavore to Spice by Chris Salans pretty much on your doorstep, it really doesn’t matter.

As with much mid-priced Indonesian accommodation, unless your haggling skills are solid you are likely best off booking through an online platform like Agoda.
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Taman Indrakila

The Sanggingan location puts these great-value bungalows a little way north of the action, except for during Ubud Food Festival and Ubud Writers Festival when it’s right at the heart of it all. Yet when you look across the pool into the gorge and turn to admire the sacred mountain Gunung Agung from your verandah, it’s hard to care.

Air-conditioned classic Balinese bungalows feature details like hand-carved doors and sculpted brickwork, as well as airy four-posters with drapes, and terraces with tables, chairs and staggering views. (Laptop luggers please note: there’s no desk.)

The simple bathrooms let the side down but explain the sensible price, while the included breakfast is on the dainty side. The adjoining Elephant Cafe serves up good-quality vegan fare as well as booze and coffee, while you’re well positioned for fine dining at Mozaic, Room 4 Dessert, and more.
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Tu Eka Homestay

On a budget? One of a raft of cheapies at the south end of Jalan Hanoman, Tu Eka offers good value accommodation in comfortable walking distance from all the main attractions – generally around US $10-15 on Agoda. The air-con rooms, in a classic Balinese garden setting with flowers, statues and birdsong, feature details like four-posters and hand-carved doors for an authentically Balinese feel that’s a bit more interesting than yer average homestay.
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And, whew, I think that’s it! Let me know if you’ve got any faves you’d like to share…

The post Where Should I Stay in Ubud? appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

In China, once upon a time, I was sufficiently unwise to utter the phrase ‘Oh, I eat anything!’, which led to me expanding my repertoire to both chicken feet and chicken heads, though mercifully no bear paw, tiger parts or genitalia. (Thanks, China!)

Because I like challenging my own personal food taboos, I have forced items from dog and snake to crickets past my protesting emotions and because I am a moron I routinely nibble raw chillis to see if they’re the heat I want for my cooking.

However… When it comes to fine dining, I have rarely had a truly bad experience. Indifferent, yes. Over-ambitious, yes. Room for improvement, yes. Dull, yes. Overpriced, hell yeah. But rarely proper abysmal.

In fact, I’m always rather mystified by how food critics find such memorably execrable dinners. Do they go looking for them, in the manner of Pete Wells versus Guy Fieri? Do they prowl through the TripAdvisor top ten, sniggering, until they find a corker? Do they have teams of junior researchers, like the ones who find the victims for Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares? Or are they just insanely picky?

On Friday, I lost my bad fine dining virginity. And how.

It was the Bag Lady’s idea. Well, in fact, it was Miss Korea’s idea. I was booked in for dinner with the Bag Lady and the Mother of Four, another lady who stands in loco parentis for Zac when I’m occupied with dengue, or travel, or suchlike. Then Miss Korea suggested to the Bag Lady that they have dinner at a beach club none of us had visited.

I’m a sucker for a bargain. And, at just 400,000 IDR (that’s around USD $30), for four courses with a glass of wine at each round, this sounded like a bargain. The food in the photo looked pretty enough – a riot of colour and texture, complete with edible flowers. The beach club belonged to a legit 5-star resort – I’d meant to take a look when it opened but, after a look at the menu, hadn’t been down. And, while I hadn’t heard of any of the three chefs featured on the menu, it all looked plausible enough.

This is the picture:

Looks legit, doesn’t it?

The accompanying glass of international wine with any pairing menu in Indonesia will be more of a thimble than a goblet, even if the establishment is on the very best of terms with the smugglers that run booze out of Batam and across the archipelago in speedboats.

Further, Miss Korea said, the wine was international. This was probably the point at which alarm bells should have started to ring. It is sadly true that the accompanying glass of international wine with any pairing menu in Indonesia will be more of a thimble than a goblet, even if the establishment is on the very best of terms with the smugglers that run booze out of Batam and across the archipelago in speedboats.

Also, since foreign alcohol is taxed at around 400% in Indonesia, said glass of international wine will generally be the sort of thing you’d pick up for a fiver, or conceivably a tenner, in your local offie no matter how high-faluting the menu. This is also why cocktail pairing is often the way to go on Bali, unless you appreciate the comedy value of a real live French sommelier solemnly unveiling the Jacob’s Creek complete with tasting notes as you sample your 8-course dégustation.

There are, in fact, some local wines – made with imported grapes – that aren’t actively disgusting, particularly if you haven’t recently drunk wine in Europe, Australia or the Americas: entry level retail for these is around US $13. But I digress. The point is: if you’re giving away your food PLUS international wine at those prices, you are sending up a major red flag.

We began with a stellar Bali sunset, a round of cocktails, and sundry complaints. Miss Korea sent her Dirty Martini – plastic glass – back for more dirty and more vodka, yielding a round of rapid-fire Rohypnol jokes; I fished the ice out of my Negroni; the Bag Lady wisely ordered her French-75 clone without sugar, which was sensible since someone had clearly dumped a vat of antifreeze in the carbonated urine that served as a base wine; and the Mother of Four remained diplomatically silent.

The table collapsed in nervous laughter. I picked up a strand of the nest to inspect it. “It’s crisps!” squealed the Bag Lady. “And they’re stale!”

And so to dine. Our first course was an amouse [sic], “Tahu Berontak deep fried tempura crushed tofu, wok fried vegetables”, accompanied by about a centimetre of “Cape Discovery Brut Cuvée, Indonesia”.

Along came the amouse: a bread-crumbed mini-egg perched atop a quasi-nest of mysterious white things, on a neat black plate as sold by all the best catering supply companies in the early noughties. Were they wok-fried vegetables? Jumbo crispy noodles? Miss Korea and I took forks in hand and probed the nest, which skittered, hilariously, across the saucer.

The table collapsed in nervous laughter. I picked up a strand of the nest to inspect it. “It’s crisps!” squealed the Bag Lady. “And they’re stale!”

It was mystifying. I tried to imagine the scene, backstage at this 5-star resort (rack rate from US $200 per night, which is a lot on Bali), where the chefs opened up a catering size packet of out-of-date crisps, dumped handfuls on the plate, and balanced eggs on top of them, and servers brought them out, and nobody, at any point, realised that this was not a good idea.

The bread-crumbed mini-egg tasted of sour tofu. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t a tempura, either.

Also bewildering was the wine. While Cape Discovery is far from my favourite bottle of local fizz, it’s normally perfectly quaffable, particularly if you haven’t left Asia for a while. This stank of sulphites, a burnt rubber waft that I’d never come across before, and I wondered whether they’d actually picked up a bad batch cheap.

“And how was the wine?” she asked, clearly hoping for a win. I maintained a diplomatic silence. Miss Korea gave it all barrels. “It was disgusting,” she began. And continued. And continued.

We were, collectively, deep in analysis of the meal’s many flaws, when the poor marketing girl from the resort came to our table and asked, “How was the amuse?”

“Very amusing,” said Miss Korea. “It certainly amused,” I said, almost simultaneously.

Miss Korea and the Bag Lady launched into a detailed explanation of why stale crisps should not feature on a fine dining menu, even if they did look a bit like a nest.

The poor girl gritted her teeth and made all the usual noises about feedback being helpful.

“How would you change it?” she asked.

“Daikon nest? Spiralised zucchini?” I suggested. (I’m a great armchair cook.)

“The point about tempura,” said the Mother of Four, when pressed. “Is the contrast between the soft, fluffy batter and the ingredients inside. That’s not what’s happening here.”

“And how was the wine?” she asked, clearly hoping for a win.

I maintained a diplomatic silence. Miss Korea kicked every single stereotype you’ve come across about Koreans being indirect and concerned with saving face hard in the nuts with a metaphorical stiletto heel and went in with both barrels. “It was disgusting,” she began. And continued. And continued.

The marketing chick looked as if she might cry. “Would you like to exchange it for a different sparkling wine?” she asked.

Hell yes, we would. She disappeared into the kitchen never to be seen again.

It arrived as two flabby pancakes loosely rolled around some filling in a diarrhoeic puddle of peanut sauce topped by a mournful cherry tomato and some cress.

Enter the second course. The Bag Lady has been vegetarian for a while now, with the odd bit of fish when she feels like it. (One of her dogs had a narrow escape from the people that kidnap dogs for the dog meat restaurants, after which she felt she couldn’t object to people eating dogs if she went on consuming pigs and cows and sheep and chickens, which is a position of admirable consistency.)

A vegetarian menu had, therefore, been ordered.

The second course described itself as “Lumpia Basah home made ‘Javanese’ fresh vegetables and chicken spring roll peanut butter sauce and pickles”, and, no, I don’t know what’s up with the scare quotes either. It arrived as two flabby pancakes loosely rolled around some filling in a diarrhoeic puddle of peanut sauce topped by a mournful cherry tomato and some cress. Yes. Cress.

This raised many questions. Not only: “how difficult IS it to leave the chicken out of your spring roll filling?” But also: “why is an allegedly 5-star kitchen buying in both peanut sauce and pancake mix?” And, further: “why on earth are we paying 10-15 times the price we’d pay at a local warung for a flaccid spring roll in a pool of brown gloop?”

This is the difficulty with Indonesian food. It’s so easy to get a feast of spicy goodness at your local warung for pennies that you really need some serious-ass provenance or cheffery to justify paying restaurant prices. There are a lot of great chefs doing wonderful things with Indonesian food right now, but it does need to be approached with both caution and talent.

Or, as the Bag Lady, who was on a bit of a roll as the meal entered so-bad-it’s-good territory, explained to the manager when he had the unwisdom to come over and see what we thought of the food, “You’ve made this with pancake batter out of a packet! I know the taste, because you get it in a packet, and my kids love it, so I make it for them. I know what pancake batter tastes like. EVERYTHING has come out of a packet…”

You seem embarrassed, suggested the Mother of Four.

“Fuck no,” I said. “I’ve been through childbirth.”

“You’re comparing this to childbirth?” asked Miss Korea.

“If it gets that bad I’ll just make the rubber glove sign,” I said.

The wine, a centimetre of Australia’s Sacred Hill Chardonnay – that’s under US $4 per bottle in an Australian off-license – was palatable.

This raised a range of questions. Signally, what the actual fuck is a foam of anything, let alone sweet basil, doing on a menu that also features stale crisps and bought-in peanut sauce? Are you so short on ideas that literally half your courses have to include tempura? And, what is a pindang sauce?

For the main, we had a choice of “soft-shell crab tempura with South Sumatran ‘pindang’ sauce, roasted baby potato, ‘kemangi’ (sweet basil foam)” or “beef cheeks ‘rawon’ sauce slow cooked in traditional Eastern Java black nut keluwak broth, whipped potato and vegetables, salted duck egg and bean sprout”.

This raised a range of questions. Signally, what the actual fuck is a foam of anything, let alone sweet basil, doing on a menu that also features stale crisps and bought-in peanut sauce? Are you so short on ideas that literally half your courses have to include tempura? And, what is a pindang sauce?

“Sardine,” our server helpfully explained, which sounded risky. For some strange reason, perhaps related to us being a gaggle of cackling bitches, we were hitting a new server every course.

Our main courses arrived in what looked like outsize ashtrays, or, suggested the Bag Lady, “specimen bowls”.

The sardine sauce was less disgusting than anticipated. The lemon basil foam did not belong with any of the ingredients it shared a plate with, or indeed in the same restaurant, but would have been quite nice served with a dessert of some kind. The soft-shell crab tempura was an actual tempura, with nary a breadcrumb in sight. The potatoes were fine.

Rawon, which is basically a beef stew with extra umami from the kluwak nut, was authentic, done well, and paired fabulously with mashed potato. It seems churlish to whine about serving size after two abysmal courses, but, fuck it, I’m going to. Two teaspoons of mashed potato, two dinky cubes of beef, a slice of carrot, half a bought-in salted egg, and a sprinkling of bean sprouts doth not a main course make, however artfully arranged.

The Bag Lady’s vegetarian pasta started promisingly – by which, in this context, I mean “tasted like normal restaurant food” – but revealed startling and repellent patches of pure sugar, an inclusion we concluded could only be explained by someone in the kitchen confusing the salt shaker with the sugar shaker and then not stirring properly.

It was at this point that we began discussing where we should go to dinner AFTER this. Rare as it is to be actively hungry three courses in to a four-course meal, the Bag Lady and Miss Korea could do with dessert, while the Mother of Four and I could do with an entire meal.

The wine, a Vina Ventisquero Reserva Pinot Noir from Chile, was fine. It apparently retails at almost USD $10, so that’s a pretty damn fine wine for Indonesia (unless they’ve been grey-marketing bottles from when the wine-maker was producing cheap wine, which is also a possibility).

Incredibly, almost unbelievably, it tasted like sick. I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it literally tasted like vomit, albeit dairy vomit, perhaps what baby spit-up might taste like.

Finally, the pièce de résistance! Dessert! It looked BEAUTIFUL. Exactly like it did in the picture, complete with pretty strawberries and edible flowers. In fact, before tasting it, I even apologised to the manager for whining that the meal looked nothing like it did in the picture.

It was “Es Pisang Ijo ‘Makassar’ refined Makassar pandan banana dumpling with rice flour porridge, vanilla ice cream and mango jelly”.

And, incredibly, almost unbelievably, it tasted like sick.

I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it literally tasted like vomit, albeit dairy vomit, perhaps what baby spit-up might taste like.

Which was really, really weird because, at least in my experience, food doesn’t taste like vomit on its way into your stomach, only on its way back out again. Even off food doesn’t taste like sick. It tastes wrong, but not like vomit. (If you’ve eaten food that tastes like sick before, please do let me know.)

By this point, we were all thoroughly enjoying the meal, albeit more as a culinary crime scene investigation (CSI: Food!) rather than anything like dinner. Truly execrable food can make a fine bonding experience.

The culprit wasn’t the lurid green banana dumpling that didn’t taste of banana (or pandan). It wasn’t the sickly-sweet bulk-catering vanilla ice cream. It wasn’t the under-ripe strawberries, the unnerving brown coil of theoretically mango-flavoured grass jelly, or the feathery thing none of us could entirely identify but which seemed to have popped over from a different, and altogether better, restaurant. It was, the Bag Lady, decided, the rice porridge.

“I’ve found the bit that tastes of sick!!!!” she squealed, waving a spoonful of white gloop at me. “Here! Eat it!”

Our wine pairing was Bellissimo Moscato, another local wine and one tailor-made for the Indonesian palate. If you can imagine an Asti Spumante with reduced alcohol and extra antifreeze for tooth-hurting sweetness, you’ve just imagined Bellissimo Moscato, a watery, saccharine affair that’s closer to diet Sprite than wine.

There is a great deal to be said for simple food, done well.

We closed the evening with another first. I’ve had two dinners for work before – notably when I’ve forgotten to try a crucial local delicacy and I’m leaving the next morning, but also when I’ve had three places to eat at for research in a single day – but I’ve never had two dinners socially.

We drove across town to the place we were originally planning to eat, our little neighbourhood French bistro, Les Buku. It’s not fine dining, has limited pretensions, and is pretty much the kind of food you’d find in any decent-sized town in France.

But there’s escargots, oysters, entrecotes, onion soup and, most of the time, tartare, all served with minimal fuss and spectacular warmth.

We ate another dinner, drank our bodyweight in red wine, and toddled home, happy, if overfed. There is a great deal to be said for simple food, done well.

The post CSI: Food appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

I’d hesitate to say that the opportunity to visually try before you buy is the only pro of Tinder. For example, even on Bali, an island replete with beautiful, grateful, dewy young women both Asian and Western, most of them unlikely to guzzle an entire bottle of wine over dinner and then have vocal “opinions”, Tinder shows that there are men in middle age prepared to, if not precisely “date”, then at least, well, have sex with women of approximately their own age.

That age, of course, being a moveable feast. For nowhere does the heterosexual man’s enviable capacity for self-deception display itself more boldly than on Tinder. Here “Brian, 42” sits portly in his blazer in a deckchair, while “Victor, 31” stares haggard, balding and greying into a mirror that’s clearly reflecting a very different self from the selfie that results.

To be fair, neither men nor women of middle age possess the selfie skills of millennials. And that’s not just because, when a millennial lady sends a boob shot to a millennial gentleman – a habit I’m told is quite prevalent, at least in Oz – she has less to worry about than we golf-balls-in-a-sock types.

The millennial is mainly thinking lighting. By contrast, the best the typical pre-surgery lady of middle age can hope for is that, should Tinder progress to the “on our backs” stage, our boobs will remain roughly positioned on our chest, rather than collapsing below our armpits and sagging into the sheets like a pair of deflating windsocks the second we let go of the headboard onto which we are clinging as if our lives depend.

Apparently, for the record, “boobs staying on chest” is the middle-aged gentleman’s equivalent of the middle-aged lady’s “getting it up”. Frankly, I dread to think of the requirements when Tindering in one’s 60s, which is probably why Brian, 62, has set up a new, or maybe even his very first, Facebook account to become Brian, 42. That’s assuming he’s not married, of course.

For another peril of Tindering while middle-aged is the prevalence of PEOPLE WHO JUST SHOULDN’T BE ON THERE. They’re usually quite easy to spot. On Bali, they cunningly camouflage their marital status by subtle devices such as posing in a motorcycle helmet, with their back to the camera, not using a photo at all, or replacing all images with shots of their dog, or perhaps even their child.

And, yes, I did say their child. It appears there are middle-aged ladies who find shots of someone’s small, ginger toddler unaccompanied by dad(?) an appropriate prelude to sexting. Or maybe that’s for the youngsters?…..

Unfortunately, Tinder is also technology, and therefore replete with all the dangers that lurk in anything binary for those past the bloom of youth. And those dangers extend beyond middle-aged men who haven’t the technical nous to disable potential matches within their – and therefore their wives’ – Facebook social circle.

For example, a lady might inadvertently, while cackling over Brian, 42, with a friend, perform some weird finger movement that results in an inadvertent “super-like”, leading to a stupendously awkward conversation that closes rapidly with the lie that a lady is deleting her account as she’s new here and Tinder is “not for her”.

Or a lady might confuse her current location with her past settings, leading her to send a retrospectively toecurling and highly sexually aggressive message to some poor 20-something who’s advertised himself as liking cougars and looking for a sugar mummy and isn’t even in the same town, only to scare him so absolutely shitless that he deletes all text from his profile in a fit of millennial angst.

Said lady might then learn from a friend that said friend has 17 Facebook friends in common with hot surfer who probably wasn’t looking for a cougar after all, and that therefore a real life encounter in a bar is actually highly likely and probably imminent and all one can hope for is a large, stiff gin and mutual lack of recognition.

Strangely, Tinder is replete with 20-somethings who are happy to engage in congress with ladies verging on the age at which they-could-be-your-bloody-mother-are-you-mad?! Should a more sophisticated explanation of this phenomenon be required than “most 20-something men will shag anything with a pulse”, one theory suggests that many straight teen boys have a mother with a hot friend, and that said hot friend becomes the stuff of formative fantasy. Congress with a woman in her 40s while in his 20s is the closest the former teen will come to living out those early shower self-romances that left his actual mother wondering why the conditioner went down so goddamn fast.

Naturally, the teen boy’s fantasy of shagging Mama’s hot friend did not include a realistic depiction of the morning after.

Oh god, the morning after! It’s a depressing fact of middle age that a woman who can plausibly pass for 30ish, when supported by dim light, alcohol, cosmetics, Botox and a full night’s sleep can age literally two decades after a night of passionate congress, lost sleep and sliding makeup. It is also a fact that the panda-eyed morning-after look which, like tube tops and crop tops, looks so damn sexy on those under, say, 30, transforms into crazed, bin-ravaging bag lady once past the doomy threshold of 40 and the “witching hour” of 6am.

Of course, certain problems of Tindering while middle-aged are specific to Bali. Here many middle-aged gentlemen stave off the ravages of time and alcohol by surfing like demons, leading to a remarkable depth of torso talent compared to, say, Singapore or, heaven forfend, London. Most middle-aged ladies will lack tight-tummy shots of themselves navigating epic barrels, not to mention tight-tummy shots of any kind, not to mention tight tummies.

Sadly, Tinder takes all its pictures from your Facebook feed. And until you learn that it’s possible to post pictures for Facebook that will only be visible to yourself – and hook up with the gays to learn how to do sexily revealing shots that magically camouflage sundry porcine parts – the typical middle-aged woman’s Facebook feed will be comprised of a) unflattering shots in the grip of children and b) unflattering shots in the grip of alcohol. For, unlike the selfie generation, we do not spend hours of our “busy” days waving long sticks and practising looking good on camera.

On balance, I feel, especially for those of us whose thumbs seem so much less opposable than millennial thumbs – and particularly for those middle-aged lady writers who can’t send so much as a text message without accurate punctuation, even if that’s at the cost of the easy flow of banter and frankly plain unnerving to anyone who doesn’t write for a living – that the old-fashioned way of meeting people at a bar has much to recommend it.

And so, dear Brian, 42, this time I really am deleting my account. Just after I’ve met up with Delroy, 28.

Thanks to Mark Goebel for his Fire Danger shot on Flickr’s Creative Commons.

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