April 9th, 2005
The one day we went and visited a Coffee and Spice Farm. We walked thru a cocoa plantation to a little hut and watched how they roasted coffee beans. They let us stir the beans for a bit over the fire and we could even pound them into the fine grind with a person sized mortar and pestle. Then we were invited to go sit at a small pavillion to enjoy a small sample of the coffee, 1/2 coffee and 1/2 cocoa, or tea. We tried them all, the caffeine glutons that we are! Near the sampling pavillion there was a little open air store that had other samples of local fruits you could try, which we did, and then you could buy the raw cocoa, or coffee with or without wooden carved boxes, and all kinds of other spices and incence oils. We found that even though we could get the goods straight from the source, that the prices were very inflated here. Jer and I bought a little wooden box with cocoa in it, since we like to mix it with coffee, but found out when we got home that the amt of cocoa that was in that wooden box, amounted to the size of a 'dime bag'. We got ripped off in that one and only purchase.


Cocoa plant before it becomes that lovely vitamin CHOCOLATE!


Whiskey on the left, and Sherry roasting the coffee beans.


Up close of coffee beans roasting.


Carrying things

The next few shots are of women carrying different things. We saw this everywhere we went, whether we were in a small village or in a larger town like Ubud.


Doing chores I would assume. These people can carry just about anything on their head.


It looked like this woman had picked up a few things from market as well as some supplies to make her offerings.


Not only do they carry one basket full of stuff, but they stack them up too.


Carrying just a few items home.


Everybody seems to have much better posture than us lazy slouching Americans. : )



This woman is carrying stuff wrapped in a sheet, and a small baby.

The next few shots show women dressed in their formal clothes for going to do a Temple Offering. The Temple Offerings happened around 6pm everyday. The baskets are more decorative and the clothes more formal with each woman wearing the ceremonial waist sash.


This is one woman who was with a larger group of women that you'll see in a few shots.

We ended up at a busy intersection in this little sub village of Ubud, when we went walking up the stairs to the 'real bali' and found this little town. We got to the intersection at offering time, and this is what we saw in the next few pix. Notice the man with the rooster!


On the way to Temple Offering.

This group of women came around a corner right where we were standing.


They were all beautifully dressed and had lovely baskets. In everyday chores many of the women had a piece of material that was twisted and wrapped to form a circle on top of their head to form the platform to start balancing things on top of her head, but for the Temple offerings, the piece was more like a circular disc, made of bamboo and was decorated.


Heading towards Temple, young and old.


As they went by, we got a few shots of them from behind. The routine of these people is amazing to experience. The reason they do so many offerings is to keep everything in balance, between yourself, God and the environment.

© December 6, 2008