A long bike ride

---

This guy lones me a bike for a pound (these keyboards don'e have the pound symbol). I decided to cycle to this place that's up north. It's being considered for UNESCO. It's an ancient collection of temples carved into stone set in a vally of jungle. It was fantastric when I arrived but it took bloodly ages getting there. I took a friends advise and went off the beaten track. Julian, who lives next door has been here for 10 months. He showed me a hidden route. there where barely cares on the tiny road. a few scooters every now and then. It was across vast rice filed planes. famers and small villages every now and then. It was so beautiful I can't even descruibe it. I started off so snap happy. but as the journey went on I took fewer photos. It stayed beautiful the whole way for around 2 hours.



I stopped at a shop for kopi for 20p. yes 20p. soon after I stopped for directions. Asked some farmers in the frice fiend by the road. They new no English. But pointed when I said the name of the next village. then somehow next thing I was knee ddeep in their rice fied. It's water clogged mud with shoots coming out of it in rows. They wouldn't stop laughing (no matter where you go in the world or how different the culture is, we all understand when someone is taking the piss out of another. This form of interaction seems to be universally easy to communicate). We washed in the stream nearby as they continued to laugh at me. Then we sat in a deserted and half constructed concrete building with no doors or windows but 4 piullars holding a thatched roof. They fed me ricwe and veg and we all had kopi. I didn't understand a word but they chatted together accepting me easily.

Then this guy on s cooter arrives and can speak english. well a word or too. they all chat. THEN...he takes me to his home round the corner. He has a large family. the youngest of his 4 daughters is 4 months old. his oldest wayan - who is ten was holding her younger sister whilst cooking dinner. She made me a drink as soon as she saw me.
i has red rice in a plastic bag - it's like purple rice pudding. made in coiconut sauce. they have it for breaky here. i've had it with kadek the cleaner and her family in the mornings after we go to the marketr together (i don't go often though as she leaves at 5am!)

the kids showed me their garden. the toilet outside and chickens and a rooster. geese - they're everywhere here. and pigs! loads of them. at the back there was just rice terrances as far as you can see. What a place to live i thought.

i left because i still hadn't arrived at this place - Agung Kawi. they asked me to visit again. i couldn't tell them that i had no idea how we got her from the main road. i had only cycled 5mins when a scooter pulled up beside me. it was the teenager - one of the cousins that had showed me around the house - he'd come to find me to give me my map i'd left behind. on my way back the farmers had gone but the shop lady was there along with all the local kids who had gathered to play footy bare foot on the football pitch round the corner. We chatted again. i told her about my day and drank kopi watching the sunset. the view caught me by suprise again. she showed me her house behind the shop. they had kingfishers in a cage! sadly Balinese people like to keep birds as pets in tiny cages - they like the sound of the chirping.

Anyway the place, Agung Kawi, was worth it but the journey there was more special. Sometimes it's the journey not what's at the end of it that's important. lol...cheese.

x

---