Bali pt 2

Yesterday I took a traditional Indonesian cooking class where I learned to cook gado-gado, sweet tempe, and fried banana (and no, I couldn’t actually eat any of it). I don’t think it will be very interesting to describe the cooking process but it consisted mostly of boiling vegetables and frying everything else with lots of oil. They use sugar in a surprising amount of dishes, which I didn’t expect, but I guess it makes it taste good?

Rice paddies are EVERYWHERE in Bali! In fact, I’m staring at one right now as I write this. They grow four different types of rice here: white rice, white sticky rice, black sticky rice, and red sticky rice. The regular white rice is the most common, so that takes up most of the space in the paddies. The process of growing rice starts with planting rice in a fenced off square, roughly 5m x 5m. Two weeks later, the sprouts grow above the surface and they have little seeds at the end, which are used to grow the rest of the rice! White rice takes three months to grow and all three types of sticky rice take six months, meaning they can harvest only twice per year. Those types are a lot more expensive!

In Bali they do ceremonial offerings twice a day; the afternoon offering is a “Flower Offering,” or “Canang”. These are made using a young coconut leaf, bamboo stick, flowers, and porosan. You have to fold the leaf into a little box and attach them using a bamboo stick. This box if then filled with porosan, which is a type of dried leaf, and flowers to represent the different gods (Wisnu for water in the North, Iswara for wind in the East, Brahma for fire in the South, Mahadewa for Earth in the West, and Siwa for life and balance in the middle).

I just went to the Holy Water Temple where I was, quite literally, blessed. I got to bring my flower offering and put it with the others which was exciting! But I can't help but think it got overshadowed by those around it. Darn. 

There was a pool filled with spouts, each representing a separate blessing. You go down the line and stand in front of each spout. I was taught the correct order in which to wet your head and face, and when to drink the water (it was straight from the spring, so no concern of Bali Belly!), however I think I definitely messed it up. Hopefully I will still reap the results! 

All I could think of was Michael Scott falling into this

I'm off to Kuta now for the weekend!