According to a friend of mine, Pocari Sweat actually tastes lemony and quite good, but...yeah. Not going there. Also, it's Japanese, and pocari means 'lightly, e.g. a cloud floated across the sky. Hmmm.
Hmmmm....
strange fruit indeed
Some of you may not be aware that I am actually the head of a cashew nut empire...
This is clearly the owner of a very popular-with-foreigners health-food joint called Kafe's (who is clearly a foreigner his or herself) idea of a joke. And yeah, one that I clearly appreciated.
YOU figure it out...
food cart, balinese style. (ayam means chicken but i'm still trying to figure out what bakso is.)
in kintamani, up in the mountains. this was the first time i saw this type of transport (which in thailand and laos is called a songtheow) in bali.
and then caught the tail end of this fab car.
the rice terraces of tegallalang. happened upon on the side of the road...stunning!
disco nuts! (kacang means nut)
Anyone care to offer possible explanations?
Ever wondered where your potato chips come from...?
caught in the act: lizard on the mirror (i was relieved it wasn't a rat i'd heard rustling about.)
i'm a trillionaire!
pictured on this bill is pura danau beratan, bedugul, one of bali's most famous temples. which i visited...
which makes this photo... yes: the money shot.
more name vanity...mia motorbikes! (ok, it probably says mio)
or perhaps you'd prefer a flashy red one?
my friend rob rented a motorbike so we could explore bali (which was great for me, since i hadn't left ubud for three weeks by the time he came back). i especially enjoyed the license plate. (that is my helmet, which doesn't have a proper strap closure so i have to tie it every time i put it back on.) (also, they key is on a 'canada' key chain--you know, the typical red and white maple leaf flag design. probably left behind by an american tourist after obama was elected and he realized he didn't need to carry it around anymore!)
Nice.
Um...hunchback crossing? (These are the street crossing signs in Bali, but I can assure you that I've yet to see a Balinese shaped like this guy.)
Drop your clothes off at your own risk... (On the same day out on the motorbike in the south of Bali, I missed out on photos of Urbane Laundry, Plastik Laundry and Mercury Seafood....)
This is one of the many 'offerings' given by Arie, sweet but crazy and also quite annoying owner of Arie's Warung, in Ubud. Note that the Lonely Planet (an ancient edition, clearly, but not as ancient as Arie's jokes--ie 'Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl meet for a conference...') mentioned the *other* Ary's Warung, which, although spelled differently, this Arie (or someone working for him but it seems quite clear to me that he did this himself. This is a man who also saves, for example, photos from the newspapers of it snowing in Las Vegas and brings them out to show you while mentioning global warming as you try to eat your dinner.) accidentally marked and then had to cross out and draw the arrow pointing out his own venerable establishment. It's actually quite sad, really, how he messed up his only copy of the Lonely Planet before photocopying the page and has been giving out copies ever since. I do feel quite sorry for Arie. But I can't eat there, as he is far too annoying.
extra special offering...must be an extra special day! (i know if i ask i won't get any answer so i've stopped asking such things of locals, unfortunately. they will just say yes to whatever you say.)
snake fruit!
Now there's a great name for a bake shop!
took the scenic route, sidemen road, on the way up to bali's main temple, pura besakih. so glad we did!
At a particularly silly dinner one night, my friend Rob and I decided this frog would look better as 'smoking frog.' We were so right.
too fucking funny.
I think the real irony here is that the sign is neither well-painted nor well-designed. So I hope their taxi service is at least something special.
convinced that this chicken, who resides at my guest house, had somehow gotten up the tree and couldn't get down, i forced my friend rob to 'rescue' it and help it get down. after we came back from dinner, lo and behold, the chicken was back. apparently she sleeps there every night but we'd never noticed before. we learned a few days later that these are a different breed of chicken (called ayam kampung, village chickens) that can actually fly some not-so-short distances--at least compared to 'broiler' chickens, which here in bali have been brought in from australia and are therefore called ayam australis.
tamarillo (tastes like a sweeter yet bitter tomato)
yoga, polly, albie and alex, for whom i housesat. alex went to high school with my cousin's husband in australia. ah, the wonders of facebook. had a lovely visit with them on my last day in bali and got in as much polly-cuddle time as possible. she is the sweetest!
adnyana and putra, my adoptive grandparents at puri muwa, my home away from home in bali, where i stayed a total of three weeks while recuperating. putra noted my progress with my walking ('jalan') regularly. such lovely people.
it was indeed quite a place! the balinese food, however, was not so hot, so except for my daily breakfast (an egg jaffle, which is australian and indonesian for toastie, brought to me on my porch by the friendly people on staff), i didn't eat meals there.
part of my departing gift from puri mawa. the other part was four little painted wooden cats. i had no idea what i would do with them but i had to keep them with me a least for a time since they were a gift. i gave them away in moni, flores, a few days later, during a gift exchange with two women on the side of the road involving a band-aid, tea tree oil, a bracelet (one woman's gift to me), an XL bali t-shirt (another gift i managed to acquire right before leaving bali, from a lovely woman from couchsurfing who came to meet me at the airport for our first and last meeting) and the cats. whew.
these were for sale in the airport in denpasar, bali and, frankly, i found that pretty damn surprising.
