Bali - Villages and Countryside

We had not realized how diverse Bali is, each village or area specializing in one commodity only, from brick making to silver jewlery. We have visited the villages renouned for their woodcarving, basket and material weaving, having the honor of meeting "The Master Carver", I Made Ade.

The growing of flowers, fruits and vegetables being more suited in the higher altitudes with the rich volcanic earth. It was a welcome relief for us to spend some time away from the heat and traffic of Ubad.

The countryside is rich and lush with rice terraces, the irrigation schedule is arranged through a communal system in order for all the farmers to have an equal share. Because this irrigation is free flowing there are no mosquitoes in the rice fields. Egrets ignore the scarecrows and gently dot the landscape, while broods of ducks huddle in muddy waters searching for the eels and bugs... it's a good eco system. The crops are harvested by hand and carried (mainly by women, and on their heads) in bamboo baskets. For added income, in addition to farming, a family will also raise a pig (new definition of having a piggy bank!) and a cow. It's the women's responsibility to raise the pig, while the man raises the cow. Some men also take great pride in raising roosters for cock fighting, we were told that some wives become jealous of these roosters, as the husbands spend so much time fussing over them... moving them frequently throughout the day so they have access to fresh grass and bugs, in addition to giving daily massages to these birds!




Each village is very different too, some unkempt with chickens, half starved dogs, wandering oxen followed by a gaggle of geese. Yet peek behind the entrance to the homes and one is greeted with open smiling faces, a woman sitting weaving cloth one thread at a time, another making thin rice cakes for offerings. We stumbled across a village thanksgiving cermony whose purpose apparently had something to do with interfering with the bad karma of a recently deceased relative, thus ensuring harmony for their future happiness (or something like that!). The elder was very gracious, trying to explain, in passable English, the purpose of this cermony. Over in a corner we couldn't help but notice the young girls and children playing on their smartphones!







Then there was the extreme, a very clean, orderly village with brick homes, bamboo roofs and smooth stoned roads... no animals wandering anywhere. Future ownership of a home here is strictly controlled as it is restricted to the offspring of present owners, no outsider is permitted to move here.

There is one village famous for the roosting of the herons (hundreds!) who return each evening around 6 pm. Ketut, our guide, took us there to see them returning for the night. The smell from the bird droppings was quite offensive, these poor villagers apparently have tried to get the herons to relocate to another area, even if it were just a field or two away, but to no avail, they prefer to perch in the trees on the main road alongside their homes.