LittleSandyBeach

The ferry from Gili T to Bali took two and half hours, very bumpy the first hour and then luckily the waters got calmer! It was one of the nicest boats we’ve been on and they even put on a film on for everyone to watch.

We had heard stories about how you get swamped by taxi drivers when you arrive into Padang Bai Port on Bali but we’ve become used to it by now in most places. However we’d never seen them actually climbing onto the boat before everyone got off! We politely declined a taxi about 30 times and found our driver from our accommodation.

Sidemen is a region in east Bali known for its lush rice fields and stunning views of Mount Agung. It’s been largely untouched by mass tourism and is described as what Ubud used to be like twenty years ago.

On our first full day we went to the Sidemen Rice Terrace. It’s a 4km loop where you can walk through the local rice fields. It’s not only rice grown but many different vegetables including chillies and pak choi.

As we walked around we met a lot of the local farmers tending to their crops and they were all very friendly and wanted to talk and say hi. We even got offered to buy a kitten from them!

After about 3km we were delighted to see a local man selling coconuts. We shared one as it was the biggest coconut we have ever seen, weighing about 3kg!

In the afternoon we headed to Gembleng Waterfall. It is a tiered waterfall with different pools where you can take a dip.

After climbing around a hundred very steep steps we made it to the main level where there is a famous infinity pool overlooking the jungle below.

In the evening we went to a nearby restaurant called Sundari Restaurant which does local Indonesian food plus a few western options. The view over the valley and of Mount Agung was pretty amazing.

At breakfast the next morning on our balcony Tasha spotted a rather large visitor on a palm tree just a few metres away… a Giant Silk Orb-weaver! It is one of the largest, non-tarantula spiders in the world, the females reaching up to thirty centimetres across!

At 11am, we went to Adi Silver Class ran by our host’s uncle. The class was 2 hours long and took us through the step by step process of crafting and designing a silver ring each. First we weighed out the silver nuggets to 7g for one ring and picked out which design we liked.

Next, we had to melt down the silver using a blowtorch operated by a manual foot pump.

Once melted it was poured into a small mould and placed in water to cool off. We then had to hammer it down to make it thinner before rolling it through a machine to get it the right thickness of the ring.

After that it was time to draw out the patterns we liked. And with the assistance of the man we chiseled it in.

He then soldered the two ends of silver together to form a ring of the right size. Both rings fit first time, he made it look very easy. The last thing to do was then sand down the edges and give it a good polish.

We were very happy with our finished rings and the experience was a lot better than we expected.

Yesterday, it was time to head off to Blahbatuh a province 30 minutes outside of Ubud which is very quiet and local. Bali is known to have traditional bamboo villas and since we are here we’ve decided to treat ourselves. Luckily it’s out of season so we managed to get it for a bargain price. We will share more on the next blog post… it’s SPECTACULAR.