G’day!

Bonjuorrrno!!

Bonjour!!!

Ahh yes the Bali that I forgot. Where street hawkers try and converse with you and mimic  accents like the most skilled parrots in whichever language they think that you speak. Ubud is the place that every Balinese asks if you’ve been to. Mostly because as Made tells us, it’s a hub for foreigners as it is the cultural centre of Bali. ]Mr NQN’s mum, as an artist always bases herself here on her visits to Bali.

And we’re not crazy about the main markets here at Ubud. It’s mostly filled with tacky kind of souvenir items (I can do without a wooden penis bottle opener thanks). We both preferred the boutiques in Seminyak as the products themselves are nicer and Mr NQN and I are terrible at haggling. When a person who looks to be struggling tries to sell you a beautiful carved wooden jewllery box for 10c it’s hard to negotiate or say no to them.

Made is taking us on tour today and on the drive to Ubud from the villa we pass by rice paddies where people work all day planting and harvesting rice in a three month cycle. On the side of the road there is a set of tents with temporary Javanese workers set up to work. They make a mere the equivalent of $5-$6 for every 100kgs of rice that they harvest.

There are families of four on motorbikes and a travelling bike with a glass display containing donuts attached to the back drives past. Bikes carrying a perilously large and uneven load drive past and all of a sudden we hear Jingle Bells and an ice cream motorbike with a display of ice cream cones drives past.

It’s the Balinese version of Mr Whippy!

I ask Made to give me two words to best describe Balinese and after considering it for a minute he said: gentle and religious. I have to agree on both counts. All throughout the streets are offerings to the gods. We walk through the palace to the King of Ubud.

Offerings

Can you spot the ahem… souvenir?

We do a little shopping around Ubud Markets but it isn’t great for much apart a Halloweeny mask so we make our way down two other streets. There’s a stall where we buy a pepes which is tofu, coconut and fish wrapped in a banana leaf which is deliciously soft and fragrant in lemongrass and ginger. And the princely sum for our little snack? 10c or 1000 rupiah!

Pepes: 1000 rupiah or 10 cents!

Incredibly inexpensive beauty treatments starting at $4.00AUD  for a half hour massage!

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“We need one of those signs that tell them that we don’t want any more food!” Rita, Flo and I agree as we are converged on by eager trolley ladies and waiters.

“Would you like this?” “Or this?” “Or this?” “How may drinks?” “No Chinese tea? Are you sure?” “Mineral water, coke and lemonade?” “How about some dumplings? Or spring rolls. Or duck?” The atmosphere in The Eight in that of frantic feeding and I feel like an adventurer that has been lost at sea and people are throwing food at us in an effort to quickly feed us. We almost feel like we have to scoff the food down instead of eating at a leisurely pace.

I recently told you about my very first parking fine as a newly minted driver. Well on my first visit to The Eight (from the same people that own Zilver), the new Chinese restaurant in Market City was marked with another auspicious occasion, my first car prang. There I was, waiting at the traffic light when another car backed into me from the side. When I finally make it to The Eight I am mid mini meltdown. And as they’ve just sat down they are already the subject of much attention and fussing. Service in yum cha restaurants is never brilliant let’s face it. Here they’re certainly friendly but sometimes a girl needs calm, especially if you’ve got a table burgeoning with food!

Pan fried rice noodles with peanut sauce

I’m the first to admit that whilst I adore peanut butter I’m not a huge fan of it with dumplings or with savoury items. These are lightly crispy on the outside and are served with a thick molassasey sauce paired with a runny peanut sauce. Not bad but not what I feel like.

Shrimp won ton dumplings

Now this is my kind of people. Plump flavoursome dumplings filled with large, tender but not mushy prawns. It is served with a soy, sesame and chilli sauce and I ate at least 4 or 5 of these. Comfort food, you do see…

Prawn dumplings

The Eight bills itself as a Modern Chinese restaurant so with that in mind we were going for the more unusual items. This is a large prawn with tail wrapped around with minced prawn. It wasn’t bad but firmer and tougher when compared with the other dumplings. And a word of warning, don’t pick these up with the prawn tail and swing them about because I did and they fell down onto my bag. But it was that kind of a day…

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