The volcano indeed serves as a magnificent backdrop, and the hosts welcome you with warm smiles, almost without exception. The Balinese are not only brilliant and warm but also sincerely kind, often smiling without expecting anything in return. Rarely do people love other people as they do in Bali. Perhaps with the exception of Papuans, but we will delve into gastronomic preferences later.
And how did the world return the warmth of the Balinese? The colonizers and military occupators exploited Indonesia's abundant natural resources for 350 years, often through forced labor and oppressive policies. Tourists and expats bring the money today, as colonizers brought the roads, but in many cases they also bring even more corruption and pollution, and disrespect for local customs.
Russians and Instagrammers
Canggu is the Asian Magaluf, or worse. It's an open sewage filled with trash that flows into the sea through a beach crammed with drunk magaluf-like tourists, growing number of arrogant Russians connected enough to get Putin's permission to sunbathe far from Russia while their war continues, and a crowd with Bitcoin tattoos.
Traffic is unbearable on this part of the island. To cover just a few kilometers, it takes you half an hour of taxi ride, or the same amount of time if you walk, except there's nowhere to walk. Narrow village roads are now serving millions of people. Canggu smells bad, both literally and metaphorically, Seminyak isn't much better either, and if you don't belong to the groups mentioned in the title, you better run as fast as you can.
Towards the luxurious Nusa Dua, if you're dead inside and care only about soulless luxury hotels and spas. Or to Sanur. If for nothing else, to try the fish head soup, fried fish and sambal at Warung Mak Beng. You'll sit at some of the communal tables, you'll be served soup, fish and sambal - because that's the only thing they serve, you'll pay a couple of dollars value, and as soon as you get out you'll think Jesus, I need this again. Restaurants are too rarely judged by how much and how soon you wanna eat those dishes again, and too often by how "interesting" they are. There's nothing interesting about Warung Mak Beng food, it's just tasty as hell.
After Sanur, go further from the beaches of the south, in the direction of Ubud.
The region around the center of Ubud is beautiful and Ubud has its many charms, with certain areas offering a unique blend of beauty and tranquility. Imagine stepping from the bustling town center into a serene hotel or restaurant, where views of a vast, enchanting jungle await you. Monkeys included. Then there are kilometer-long walks through rice fields and the jungle, ending up at the art market, or at Beer Brothers with the best imperial stout all the way to Pasteur Brewery in Vietnam.
But if you're not an Instagram spiritualist or a hashtag vegan, Ubud might wear on you. Ubud is also a vast souvenir shop and a backdrop for Instagram photos, a place where you come to eat avo toasts and wait in line to sit on a swing above the rice fields, hunting likes, or if not attractive enough, at least some proof that you were in Bali.
Ubud is also the only place where virtue signalling is done by taking off your shoes before entering a vegan restaurant that almost begs you to keep your shoes on and your smelly feet inside of them. To little avail.
Trash and garbage
The attitude of both locals and some tourists towards trash disposal is perplexing. Plastic, cigarette boxes, and all sorts of waste are often carelessly discarded, whether into canals where children bathe, on roadsides, or even in their own yards. The author of the legendary travelogue "Indonesia, Etc" Elizabeth Pisani mentioned an anecdote from a ferry where she asked a crew member if there was anywhere she could throw the trash, the woman looked at her in wonder and threw her trash bag into the sea.
People who have visited Bali in the past swear that it all looked different and better up until a few years ago, and that trash is not the biggest problem anymore.
COVID forced Bali into terrible compromises, Russians arrived with enough money to corrupt, and now not only do they disrespect and ignore local customs and sanctities (I haven't conducted scientific research on this, but many locals have told me so, and prejudices sometimes truly save time) but also build their own settlements where local residents are banned from entering.
In Bali, almost anything can still be built without proper and sensible permits - you can even monopolize and fence off a waterfall. Just a few years back, local children refreshed themselves in one of them, now it's enclosed by a wall and protected by hotel guards, and serves only as a backdrop for dinners of the wealthy.
What about tomorrow? It seems like no one cares about tomorrow.
In Indonesia, things are generally not thought out or planned thoroughly. "We, the people of Indonesia, hereby declare the independence of Indonesia. Matters which concern the transfer of power etc. will be executed by careful means and in the shortest possible time" - these 157 letters are the entire declaration of Indonesia's independence, and the key three letters are "etc."
We build etc, and we'll see what comes next.
Go North
In Trunyan, dead bodies are not buried nor cremated. Instead, they are left out in the woods to decay.
Yet, all the things described in the dreamy first sentence still exists, just far from the airport and far from the tourist crowds. Bali is still beautiful if you're willing to invest the time and effort. And risk a bit.
Balinese drive like maniacs. Everyone rides without helmets, everyone rides children without helmets, children ride motorcycles themselves without helmets. Only the dogs on the street seem to care even less about life. They lazily walk in the middle of busy roads, scratching their balls on the hot asphalt, while drivers don't even try too hard to avoid them.
I'm not particularly interested in theology, but common sense suggests it's related to religion (after all, you'll be reborn and hopefully have a bigger house), fatalism (everything is predetermined anyway). Fatalism could have something to do with volcanoes too. They bring super fertile soil but also the possibility of being boiled by lava at any moment - so why worry, who cares about helmets? One of the Balinese volcanoes, Augur, took more than a thousand lives in 1963.
Apart from their motorcycle-suicides, Balinese frequently commit regular suicides as well (much more than the average in Indonesia). In 1906, an unprecedented historical event known as the "Badung Puputan" was recorded. It involved the mass suicide of Balinese royalty and soldiers rather than surrender to the Dutch colonial forces. Today, gentle and kind Balinese too easily give up in the face of other adversities.
In search of the real, sincere, traditional, and uncorrupted local sights and flavors of Bali, you can embarked on a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the south. The road leads through clusters of concrete and metal villages built without any plan, all the way to Ubud. Then along winding roads through the jungle past the lake and the volcano Batur alongside which stretches kilometers of black, long-cooled lava. Then over the mountain to the sea, until at one moment you no longer see Westerners, but start meeting farmers on rice fields instead of people doing yoga poses with selfie timers.
Or you can choose a somewhat westerner route through the beautifully green Munduk, where rows of coffee, cocoa, and clove trees thrive in the fertile volcanic soil. In Munduk, it's worth stopping at the waterfalls, or if you're more of a foodie than a waterfall enthusiast, at Moding Plantation Resort. Those people, Dutch owners and their partners and employees, care about Bali.
Everything on this estate is recycled, wastewater is purified, and the estate houses one of the best, most elaborate, and precise traditional Balinese restaurants, Warung Bongkot, with unrivaled views of miles of plantations and jungle.
True Bali
In March, during the rainy season, the sea is wild, the sky often gray, and the downpours never stop. All this contributes to the impression that you've come somewhere where people truly live with everything life brings, where everything around you isn't a sunny show for tourists. Houses here are not oriented towards the sea as Westerners prefer, but towards the mountain, where they believe they are closest to God.
Tejakula is an authentic fishing village, but I don't care much about fishing. I came for a very precise reason and to a very special place: I came to Dapur Bali Mula.
Dapur Bali Mula is the most admired restaurant in Bali, a restaurant like few others in the world. It was mentioned in the book "Paon" by authors Tjok Maya Kerthyasa and Wayan Kresna Yasa - the first great book on Balinese cuisine written by Balinese authors and a brilliant entry point for understanding Bali in general. As soon as I read the description in "Paon", I knew I had to come here - never mind the three-hour drive from the airport, this restaurant sounded like a place worth flying 15 hours before that drive.
The restaurant has only been around for a few years but has already gained legendary status among lovers of traditional, local, and authentic cuisine. Dapur Bali Mula is also the most recommended restaurant on TasteAtlas.
I asked for a reservation, and they smoothly declined me. "We only accept reservations for 8 or more people."
I didn't give up, convinced and persuaded them, said that I was only thinking of traveling three hours just for them, that I was interested only in authentic and local food that is almost non-existent on Bali... "OK then you come" - in the end, I received a message.
Through a forest road, a half-hour walk from the "center" of Tejakula, lies Les, a serene village known for its waterfalls, traditional salt farming, offering a glimpse into the tranquil rural life on the island. We stop at a beautiful traditional estate within which the restaurant is located. On this estate, there's no trash, the huts aren't concreted one over each other but are beautiful and traditional, covered with palms and surrounded by greenery.
Immediately at the entrance, you see the open kitchen, "Paon" (after which the previously mentioned book is named). There is an open fire, within which bamboo branches and coconut husk crackle, and a boy is slowly roasting a duck. Behind a partition, more cooking staff are busy: grating coconut on a pangikihan, an ancient precursor to the microplane, pressing kaffir lime against a large knife over a salad to extract the juice without letting the seeds fall out and keeping the lime shape intact, or cooking chicken soup, while other chickens innocently wander below, unaware they might be next in line.
To the right of the open kitchen, at a table, stands... is it Timbaland? It's not Timbaland after all, but Gede. Gede (a name given to first-born children in Bali) Yudiawan, is a high priest and a chef in his early forties, who has worked across Indonesia, been a chef in big hotels, and owned large restaurants.
At one point, he grew tired of it all because cooking for 200 people is much more stressful than cooking for 20, and you almost inevitably deliver lesser quality. He also had to pursue priesthood, like his grandfather, after receiving a message in his dreams that he was ready.
After COVID, he decided to retreat to the quiet north of the island, plant his own garden, make arrangements with local fishermen and farmers for fish and meat, and settle down.
Now, with his assistants, he strains Arak at the communal table. Arak is a fiery local spirit distilled from palm sap or rice, favored by many Balinese as their drink of choice. Its consumption has tragically claimed numerous lives due to incidents of methanol poisoning. Fortunately, Gede and his team make their own great arak among other things, and nobody's going to die from that one, unless one grossly overdoes it.
They're taking the concept of communal table very literally, even allowing a dog to sleep on the table. When he saw us, Gede looked around for the best spot for us, asked the dog to wake up and move, and seated us. They finished with the Arak straining for tonight, and dinner could begin.
You don’t choose the dishes, there’s no menu, the dishes choose you. You will eat what was harvested and procured that day, and you will pay what you wish. In a place like Tejakula, in a relatively poor country like Indonesia, this is both fair and democratic. The local population (provided they gather eight who appreciate such food enough to travel hours for it) certainly "donates" less than relatively wealthy foreigners, if they're sensible enough to fairly reward this sensational and unique experience. And a relatively high donation isn't more expensive than dinner in an average restaurant in Europe.
You eat with your hands. Just as sushi isn't as tasty if eaten with a fork, just as Bolognese isn't as tasty if eaten with chopsticks, so Balinese food isn't as tasty if not eaten with hands as the Balinese eat it.
I'm not a cow so I only have one stomach, and there's only so much you can eat at once. As my imperative was to try and learn about all their main specialties, after the first dinner, arranging a second was easy. Arak helped.
Indonesia is predominantly Islamic and prefers beef. But Bali practices a special brand of Hinduism, and here beef is not eaten by many, but many drink alcohol and eat pork. Roasted suckling pig is one of the island's main specialties.
"Normally, I don't cook for two people, but I made an exception. That didn't happen by chance, our meeting wasn't coincidental," Gede told me on our first dinner, few nights ago. For Gede, nothing is coincidental. He's not just Hindu but he's the village high priest, and that's his primary calling. Cooking is a distant second for him.
The food was sensational. Sate Lilit, skewers of minced tuna and barracuda, were now the best skewers I've ever eaten in my life. The sweetness has a simple explanation: the palm syrup they make themselves is thick, aromatic, and intoxicating; it could make piece of meat along the highway taste good, let alone such good skewers from freshly caught fish. But while there's an explanation for the sweetness, I find the amount of umami unexplainable, since GMOs aren't used here. A mystery, yet the man is a priest.
Crispy duck in a rich paste (the second dinner) was equally sensational. Crispy, sweet, salty, and juicy. The young man had turned it over the open fire for so long that I would lie even if it wasn't all that good. But, I swear, it was.
And there is always fluffy, soft rice. Without rice, in Bali, food is just a snack.
Credits: Matija Babić
In the fresh spicy salads (which can include various proteins, from chicken to octopus or dragonflies), as well as in the pastes and sambals accompanying all dishes, it was impossible for me to identify all the flavors and ingredients: from salam leaves, jicama, toxic (until processed) candlenuts, tamarind, various strains of ginger and galangal, coconut, to the countless unknown spices and herbs. They seem unrepeatable, yet you absolutely want to repeat them.
Balinese sausages are smoked and aromatic, different from European ones, but meaty, full, and bright, satisfying from the first bite even to our palates accustomed to different flavors.
Why there aren't Balinese restaurants worldwide, I wondered, sipping on a glass of five-year-aged Arak, the oldest Gede has. The food is so sensational (third time I use this term, I know), the balance of sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and umami (balance and harmony are central in Hinduism, and food is central to Hinduism), it would fare equally well or better in London or New York as it does in Tejakula.
"Freshness," said Gede, pausing while showing me on his phone various religious processions he led, of which he is as proud as some people are of their children, dogs, or their football team's goals. Not me, not much to show about Dinamo Zagreb. He didn't show off his dishes on his phone at any point, making a point of what's really important to him.
"Our ingredients must be super fresh. We eat only what we have harvested or caught that day. There's no freezing or possibility of air transport. There are a few Balinese restaurants in Jakarta, but the taste isn't the same."
At one point, Gede casually mentioned that he puts over 20 local herbs and spices into his "base paste" (a fragrant paste that is the foundation for almost all Balinese dishes). I doubt they can be sourced in New York or London.
Even in the basic "base genep", the most essential and commonly used spice paste in Bali, ingredients include nutmeg, cloves, peppercorns, shrimp paste, virgin coconut oil, salam leaves, Asian shallots, garlic, Balinese chillies, tabasco chillies, fresh turmeric, fresh ginger, lesser galangal, fresh galangal, and lemongrass. That's the most common one, and everything must be harvested, chopped, crushed, grinded, and cooked at the same day. Where would you find that?
To experience Balinese food, one can and should and must come to Bali. For the authentic traditional Balinese taste, look and feel, one must visit Gede. It's worth finding seven friends and ignoring the Bali south, Russians, trash and Instagrammers.
