JAMMING AT MUNDUCK

Monday, 8 June 2009

The thought of going to Munduk resulted from a chance discussion with a passing middle aged Englishman outside Warung Putuh in Anturan. He was going there because the image he had of Bali was one of the beautiful green mountainous interior, rice fields and tranquility, in some everything that today's Kuta and even Ubud are not. Yes that was my image too so I determined it was to be our next stop too.

Shortly after a touring taxi was leaving Perama as we wanted to go to Kalibukbuk, just a couple of kilometres down the road. An assistant obviously shouted to the driver that we would pay 4$ to go to Kalibukbuk where he was headed. The youngish driver seemed talkative and I instinctively knew it was someone we would get on with. As we got out I handed him a 0.5$ note and thinking it was a tip asked if it was OK, he smiled and said yes. Before he drove off we spoke of going to Munduk in the morning, he said he only wanted the cost of the car and the petrol the rest was up to me.

Breakfasting after our second early morning boat trip with Putu BW we half thought he would not turn up, but he did. En route he explained that his parents had nicknamed him 'Jamming' because he was always playing the likes of Eric Clapton and John Lennon on his guitar. Now married with a daughter of eight his wife had recently left him and daughter and his mother was in hospital, not that there was anything the least sad, or begging, about our relationship.Not only would he take us to Munduk but would show several things of interest on the way. 'Would we like to visit the hot springs?' 'No'. 'Would we like to visit Buddhist temples in a village largely inhabited by Chinese?' 'Yes', we said, and that was a good choice for not only was it a beautiful old place on a hillside but highest of the temples had been built in recent years.

Joan expressed her usual interest in plants, which were the clove trees, which the cocoa, which vanilla. He kept his eyes open and stopped when he saw an interesting example. We had presumed the brown fruit on the cocoa trees was ripe but it turned out that that was the first colour and that it turned to green and then yellow and yellowy-red as it ripened.

He stopped at viewpoints as did two minibuses full of French, who always seem to travel on mass, and then at a small coffee farm, where they also roasted the beans and ground it before packaging it in sealed plastic packs for wholesale. The roasting process being fueled by wood of which there was a copious collection in the large yard. Whenever Joan went to take a photo, their young son would insist he was in the picture, so when Joan went to photograph a bamboo pole as long as the yard would hold which they had turned into a single upright ladder by inserting wooden cross pieces at regular step intervals, he showed us how to climb it in its horizontal position.

They brought us coffees whilst we purchased 100 gm of best quality vanilla for 20$, and 250 gm coffee for 2$. We asked why vanilla pods were so expensive and Jamming left and came back with a leaf which was oozing sap and told us that the sap of the vanilla plant was like this but that the sap was extremely dangerous and resulted in serious skin disease for the cultivators. Further research on the Internet indeed showed that contact allergic responses to vanilla. Almost all vanilla grown today is hand fertilised and is widespread in tropical regions, though it needs specific conditions, the chief source in 2006 being Madagascar 59% followed by Indonesian at 23% of which the best quality comes from Bali.

http://www.agribusinessdwd.com/admin/descfolder/29.pdf

The world wholesale price was said to vary from 20USD to 200USD per kg.

The owner was well pleased with his sale and threw in a couple of vanilla pods and the three cups of coffee. We left in good humour, this was exactly the insight to was a problem which could lead to dermatitis, edema, erythema, rhinitis and asthma. Perhaps more relevant was the discovery that vanilla is in fact from an orchid fertilised by the Melipona bee found only in Mexico, which gave them a 300 year monopoly. This was exactly the insight into Balinese life we had hoped to experience. The French group had not followed us there, the factory yard was too small for tour parties boasted Jamming.

Next he took us to see the largest Banyan tree in Bali fully 750 years old and some many and so spaced were the roots that he took us inside and encouraged me to follow him as he climbed the interior. Bit by bit my physical confidence is coming back after the setbacks with my heart rhythm and vast loss of power last year. It's this sort of gentle challenge which is helping. To think that we were a little concerned about travelling again in our style, when we set out, I am more and more convinced that you keep going until a real setback shows you clearly the limit. Enough to say that neither Joan or I have felt anywhere near as well since the trip to Chile two years ago. Sleeping really well again, eating just two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, taking advantage of the loss of appetite whilst adjusting to a much higher temperature to rationalise that in the tropics you longer need food to keep you warm, the sun does that. Although on our feet most of the day tramping the streets, if nothing else, perhaps more of a change for me than Joan, but resting a great deal so we don't even need so much food for physical activity either unless you count sweating. To return to the 750 year old Banyan tree what a marvellous playground for the kids.

Leaving the Banyan tree to return to the car we happened to go past the covered village playground where the young men were limbering up for the next days match with Munduk. What were they playing with but spinning tops, rather large wooden ones with a steel point and a weight similar to the wooden bowls used on our greens. The pitch, not quite sand but full of holes bored by the tops as they spin. I guess it's a sort of China Clay. A three metre rope was pulled under tension from their feet around the underside one rotation at a time. They then displayed a huge range of individual styles to launch the tops in a whiplash motion onto the surface,spinning violently, where they gradually stabilised as they bored a hole, with the most successful spinning for around ten minutes. The most successful man seemed to using a style similar to an American baseball pitcher.On then to Munduk a few km away, seemingly a linear village with a main street running up the side of a mountain. By chance we stopped outside the very home stay we were looking for, Meme Surung. They had an excellent room with a quiet verandah looking through green clove trees to a green mountainside, mingled with farms and the rice terraces. We had got on so well with Jamming that we arranged for him to return from his home in Singaraja (Lion King) on the 10 June to take us on to Pemuteran on the north west coast. He asked for 15$ for the hire of the car and 10$ for petrol, and I gave him an additional 20$ for himself, he seemed delighted but so he always did, even though I initially handed him 0.5 $ when the man at Perama led him to expect eight times as much to take us 3km to Kalibukbuk.

He later explained his attitude as part of his religion. If he lost or was treated badly he smiled and took no offence because he thereby gained karma. If he got well paid that was a different type of reward which he accepted with scarcely any difference, though insisting we were good people, (presumably rationalising we were earning our own karma).The next day we just enjoyed a rest from the overbearing heat and read almost all day on the verandah. Though it was hot here too during the day it was wonderfully cool at night like a British spring at its best. As we entered our room for the first time we got two shocks, the first was a huge white mosquito net arranged as it were to make a four poster bridal suite, then we saw that on the hanging hooks were two umbrellas. Fear of mosquitoes is to me like most peoples fear of rats, snakes or spiders, so I did wonder what kind of reception we were in for. Remembering all too clearly the feast I had given to this insect on our honeymoon in the Catskill Mountains in New York State (just before Elizabeth Taylor chose the same spot for her marriage to Eddie Fisher in 1959. Were mosquitoes going to spoil our second honeymoon?Suffice to say in four nights we had not a single bite and experienced only two downpours both of which occurred in the late afternoon. From our balcony we could see two strange constructions. giant bamboo poles with an inverted u turn at the top and along thatched tail, these it turned out were wind vanes and looking more closely one could also make out a small flag and on some a miniature windmill blade which rotated to display wind speed. These vanes would turn through 180 degrees most days following the shift from on shore wind during the day to off shore wind at night with the strongest winds as expected in mid afternoon.
The second day we decided to walk to one of the waterfalls for which the area is famous. After looking at the sketch maps in the hotel we decided to walk up the main road to the car park and follow what would surely be a well marked route to the fall, ignoring the pertinent comment in the room log book to avoid the road and follow the slope of the valley instead. So we walked about 3km uphill, some parts steep - others merely hard. We we had just reached the car park and found the start of the path to the waterfall when a tourist car pulled up and offered us a lift to the viewpoint (1200m) overlooking the two large lakes, another feature of the area. Much to Joan's disgust I accepted for 3$ saying the now overcast morning would change to a fine afternoon by the time we returned to the path. We arranged for him to pick us up at 2pm as he returned to pick up the trekkers he had just dropped.

First things first, so pots of black tea whilst we looked out over the lakes. We are getting quite a liking for this with a little sugar, it's weak so we think we can get the same effect at home by taking the tea bags out almost immediately. Then before walking along the road overlooking the lakes Joan went over to the small shop alongside the restaurant and started to get interested in the comprehensive display of spices. Being told to bargain, I did so less ruthlessly than of old, and we walked away with a bag of nutmegs, something fungus like they likened to turmeric though different, 250 gm of black rice for making a desert with coconut and palm sugar, and she threw in a couple of sticks of vanilla and some mace. Her husband took us to see their home, the pigs in four or five pigsties, his mother's cow - all destined for sale to a butcher. He showed us the his garden, the sweet potatoes the cassava, and, what we had first gone, for his example of vanilla - it was a climber which attached to trees in the same way as ivy. It was a poor example but enough to get the idea, he said he had failed to get it to grow successfully as it needed just the right conditions of soil, heat and enough rain.

Our man stopped to pick us up, I pointed to the chess set, which are found everywhere and he immediately challenged us to a game which Joan and I working together eventually comprehensively lost having been in the stronger position earlier on. Just as well I refused his offer to gamble. Towards the end game he received an SMS text from his trekkers to say they were waiting , he texted back to say he was finishing a game of chess.Next day back to our books. Our calm interrupted by the arrival of a French Group. Next day we decided to walk down through the village but soon saw a road branch and followed it downhill into a part of the village we did not know existed, a veritable hive of activity of manufacture and transport of bamboo ladders. Clove picking, there were tress of them everywhere, was in full swing for we had arrived at the height of the picking season. The other crops of note were cocoa and coffee. Next stop Pemuteran, I am writing this from there having already found an Internet 'cafe'.




 

K D Arina/Jaming
Jalan Laviana
Kalibukbuk
Banyualit
Singuraja
Bali

Contact Jamming via Anto whose Tel is 081338430411