Day 17: Bali

Day 17: Bali Moving from Capella Ubud to Sixth Senses southeast of airport

Chef Dean in his pride and joy: the garden/orchard

Question of the Day: Well, punk, are you feeling hot today? Well…are you?

Pick one or more of these answers

a             a)     THB was scanned by security before enterint 6^th Senses resort and failed the coronavirus test?

b            b)     Everybody in the car was scanned, the bottom of the car checked or IEDs and security let us in

c             c)      Our (first room) was so hot that THB begged them not to take his temp again

            d)   After an hour of the a/c not working, THB and DB moved to another room, nicely chilled

Correct answers (turn your display upside down): 9 or q, ), P

Weather: Hot and humid, the norm

Today was our cooking class with Chef Dean at Chedi (Ched-dee has a new name now which THB thinks translates to the land of the elephants) and so we don’t need to set off early. Phew! Lots of car time and we’re in an entirely different type resort than Capella’s jungle ravine setting; Chedi is flat, low rise scattered buildings. SAS and CYS will be staying here in a few days, it is much closer to Ubud than the Capella.

Pics from around Chedi:

Split elephant gates

Chef Dean has trained a flock of doves to eat our of his hand

One of several scrolls covering up restrooms

Chef Dean does harvest lotus roots for cooking, those are somewhere else on property

THB caught an egret in flight

There is a large flock of ducks roaming the paddies, and one goose????

If the goose was an anomaly, so was the black and white dove (a very recessive gene)

Chef Dean is a character. It’s just THB and DB for this class, and it last 3.5 hours or so (while our guide and driver now hand around waiting for us to finish up). First Dean gives us a little on his background and then we get the tour of his organic garden. He’s been the chef here since 2012 and his first task was to get his garden going (and there’s and orchard also) and it is quite extensive with many fresh herbs and spices we don’t see in our area.

Back to the “kitchen” (a little area set up at the end of the open air dining room) and watch Dean (and his sous chef, mostly Dean) makes 3 dishes for us, learning a number of new techniques and combos along the way. Very interactive from a q&a standpoint, and Dean intersperses lots of entertaining stories. We have a small plate of each of the dishes. 

Pre-lunch appetizer, excellent tangy sorbet

Prep table. Chef Dean notices two pots of tea on tables...uses it as a teaching moment for one of staff about how to prep the prep table. We know because the lingua franca of the kitchen is English

Straight from the garden, all organic, very local

Real palm sugar (we have samples in our suitcases), Chef Dean had to fire his original source when they sent the highly processed version.

Our first course, diced chicken with local  ingredients (recipes are on their way to SFO)

e                                         

Veggie salad, mild;y spicy

Paste warming up, many spices involved

Noodles swirled in. Tip: put your sauce on edge of wok and not on top

Around 2pm we’re wrapping up when we’re shown to a table and each of the dishes made show up in much larger portions. Only extra charge: our two local brewskies, $5 each.

Chef Dean will be moving the kitchen to the back of dining room (where we have demo)

More of our dishes have arrived and we're chowing down

Black rice "pudding" with ice cream: excellente 

What a show, and the food tasted great as well. We even get a certificate of completion with our picture, and aprons. Soon we’ll be opening our own Indonesian restaurant, check our web-site soon for more details.

Another long drive. Of note: twice we pass along a long stretch of wholesalers selling just about everything “Balinese”…easily the most depressing sight we’ll see on Bali. All this “junk,” in shop after shop after shop after shop. Where is all going?

Bride and Groom rental shop. Grooms also get made up. Rental company takes back items as soon as all the festivities are over (there is a package that includes hair, make-up, photography)

This and next pic are hard to understand. The passenger is way back in his seat and wearing a crown and passed out...it's the groom on his way to another part of the wedding festivities

One of the world's largest statues...with no real intent or purpose. It's a white elephant?

We do a visit to a batik shop making cloth, both by hand and machine. While DB is mulling purchases one guy hovers over us, even listening in to our conversations and switching bargaining techniques. Buti made a big mistake with visit, even though DB kept telling him what she wanted: a nice, not horribly expensive boutique. Buti is not a shopper. Neither is THB, he wouldn't sink this low though. 

Security checking for IEDs. This is done at every resort now. What would they do if they found something suspicious...hard to imagine it would go well for the rent-a-cops

6th Senses lobby on left

More of lobby

Greeting very nice, it goes downhill from there (as does the property: all the units are below us before we get to the cliff)

Around 6pm (it’s been a long day in the car) we reach 6^th Senses, all four of us pass the temperature scan test (the car has a/c), survive a long pleasant check-in experience, and reach our room. It’s boiling!! No way…they either must have forgot to turn the a/c on or it doesn’t work (turns out to be the latter). While we’re having sushi for dinner they move all our stuff (we never unpacked).

Dinner outside is too hot and buggy, we dine inside

It's cool in this room

More pics of miscellany:

It's not raining so breakfast is out from under the overhang. The palm trees are still wearing skirts

Pancakes served cold....with yogurt. Still, not bad

Every single entity on Bali has an offering "bouquet" set up fresh every day. A few flowers, some color, every single one

That's a dragonfly; Budi says that when he was a kid they would catch and steam them and eat them. 

Traffic is slowing down: someone has laid out rice in the right hand lane and reduced the road to one lane

We see some rattan woven shapes and wonder what they are...once a year each village produces a figure on then on the auspicious day they march it around and set it on fire, just like Burning Man. Some creators are so proud they try and hold off the burning for a few days to better show off the work. Budi captured this one before immolation on his smart phone