Category Archives: ricordo

Significant chatting…

Short but intense chatting..

A little bit knowledge about the poor but big Balinese culture..
How a poor and not improved culture can teach us a lot, can teach us how to live, how is the life and how much is precious at the God eyes..
Today was an amazing day..we spent the whole morning and a little bit chatting in the afternoon with Balinese people.
For first we went to Paon Bali Cooking Class, like many of you know..we love food and we love cook, we love learn new things, new ingredients, we love try new flavours and smells. So before book the hotel we already decided to do cooking class!
Our driver pick-up us from the hotel street and lift us to Ubud Market… what about that… the first impression was no really good.. I watched Nico and I said him “Maybe I don’t want cook”! was… really really shocking for me.. a lot of messy.. a lot of things all together.. not tidy not clean.. a real shock

Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of our first teacher that explain many things about typical Balinese product, from vegetables to flower, from the spices to the tea or coffee… also about “Cat-poo-cino” like he said.. we can talk about this.. and about their making coffee with something like a bean digested by kopi luwak (a cute animal) and how they go in search of coffee beans in the poo of that animal! .. it seems to be popular and valuable and probably we will test it before leaving Bali.. if I will persuade Nico to do that!

So.. he explained something about cardamom, vanilla, tofu, soy sprouts.. really interesting.. after that.. I was thinking to be vegetarian for a day! Eheheh the condition of the meat in that market was really bad but… I don’t want talking bad or judge them… because is their culture and their habit… just.. is too much for us but it is ok for the local people.. their bodies are right with that.
After we moved on talk about fruit and we tried a lot of local fruit! Was everything delicious and new for us! In Australia we tried passion fruit, mango and papaya but here are much good and much tasty and maybe a little bit different! Spectacular! We loved it!

The visit at the Ubud Market was an hour long and after that we jumped in the car and they headed to Paon Bali home…in the way our guide stopped for another part of the “lesson” he showed us the rice field, how it work and how they made rice.. and something else about Indonesian culture.. was interesting too (all the day was a lesson!!).

I hope that I’m not boring you! Is not my intention and.. if you are boring maybe you can read something else on our blog!! 😉

The lesson continued at the entrance of the house.. they gave us a very good welcoming drink.. and during our drinking Wayan, the “king” as he said (just for joking, not with pretentious tone!!) told us a lot of things about Balinese culture and Balinese lifestyle.. we can say that is the beginning of the thoughts.. he told us how they live all together (one of his neighbour’s family is about 37 people!!) he told us some local customs and traditions just to entertain and break the ice.. after that his wife Puspa came to us and began her presentation.. I don’t want tell you all the things that she said..She talked a lot! Eheh
The cooking class was really god, they are very clean (and here is like a God gift find cleanliness!), good organization, many assistants, clear and detailed explanations.. we prepared six or seven local dishes.. from chopping vegetables to crush the peanuts for peanut sauce (delicious !!!) from making the yellow sauce in a huge mortar until you get to the actual composition of the dishes, cooking.. we did everything! Was really amazing and funny.
They are clever people and they know how to treat customers (for that they have 5 stars on tripadvisor!) and how to make the situation funny.
So how I said before everything was amazing! And after prepare and cook we enjoyed the lunch all together.. and was delicious 😀 😀
They gave us a cookbook with all the recipes and we cannot wait to try it again!

The afternoon and the evening were good too.. we came back to our guest house (“Muka House”, we recommend them!!! Is very cheap and very very clean, friendly and helpful people!) and we spent a good time with our host Rai..
He told us and described the true Balinese life, his lifestyle, how he works and lives with his family (23 people). We were very interested in understanding how to have so many people and how they live together without arguing and fighting!
We talked a lot, he said us that once a month everyone put the same money in a big bowl and he go to the bank and that money can be usable for unexpected event and sometimes there is also an extra.. he put a little paper with each name in a bowl and he extract the piece of paper like a lottery.. and the person on the paper win some money, and the same until everyone has his part of extra!!
He told us that they do meeting every month for the important decision that they take together.. and when there is something too important they go to the temple and with prayers ask help from God..

It Is amazing.. sounds strange to us how the life can be manage in that way.. and was sad too because we know that in our western culture that is impossible to do.. he told us that is possible and that he learned from his father.. and his sons are learning by him..

We have to meditate…