Bad Taste, Good Times

When we picked it out from the refrigerator case, it seemed innocuous. I knew that it wasn’t really – but it was so mellow I thought maybe it was the wrong thing.

Emily had been wanting to try it. She didn’t fully believe my warnings about it smelling like ass. But my wife’s the kind that when she hears something is semi-horrible, she has to try for herself.

So, when we took Aunt Penny and Susan on their tour of the local supermarket, I looked into the case with the cut-up fruit – and there it was. Durian.

We picked it out shortly before going to the checkstand, but by the time I placed it before the checker, the smell of ass was already bursting out of the sealed package. As we completed our purchase, I made Emily smell the package. She in turn passed it along so that her mother and aunt were also grossed out by its pungency.

Durian is a tropical fruit indigenous to most of Southeast Asia. I can’t tell you what it tastes like because its smell is so offensive that I’ve never been able get it to my mouth. However, people I knew in Singapore and Thailand have sworn up and down that it’s the tastiest of all fruits – that it’s sweet, creamy flavor is like candy. To them, it doesn’t smell at all.

I haven’t known a foreigner who can deal with its smell and it’s so pungent that the Singapore Metro system forbids people from carrying durian on the trains. In Bangkok, I saw several taxis with “No Durian” placards as well.

None of this daunted my wife. Given the pungent odor emanating from the grocery bag, we all suggested Emily try her durian in the parking lot, before we all got into the car. She obliged.

Emily slowly opened the wrapping and touched her piece of durian – finding it soft and pliable. She disliked this. In fact she complained about how soft it was. Then, fighting the fumes, she picked off a piece with her fingers and put it in her mouth.

“Oh, my God, this is the most horrible thing I’ve ever tasted!!!!”

There aren’t words to describe the hideous expression that washed across Emily’s face. Luckily, I grabbed the camera in time to capture it.

All of this was just another funny experience in a day of laughter, joking and touring the great interior of Bali.

After a leisurely seaside breakfast at our hotel, we piled in the car and headed back toward southern Bali. There are two roads south from Lovina – one through the large northern city of Singaraja and the other just west of there. I had intended to take us along the westward route so that we would go back through Kintamani with its views of the great volcanoes of Bali – and most particularly, Mt. Batur.

Unfortunately, it had been awhile since I negotiated the roads of Bali and I fell for a sign that led me onto the first of the two roads – leading back to where we came from two days prior. It took until we reached the top of the mountains before I realized we were at the wrong volcano and lake.

I had no intention of letting the great views and sights of the other volcanoes and lakes elude our guests. Unfortunately, there were not cut-throughs or short cuts. We had to go down the southern slope of the mountains, cut over west and head back up into the hills again.

Along the way, everyone was treated to the fantastic scenery of Bali’s interior. Tall, meticulously sculpted rice terraces, coffee trees, lush foliage, mountainside vegetable farms, lakes, rivers, canyons and bridges all lined our path as we charged back up to Bali’s two largest volcanoes.

There, later than everyone would have liked, we enjoyed lunch at a restaurant with a sweeping unobstructed view of Mt. Batur, Mt. Agung and the lake between them. The look on Susan and Aunt Penny’s faces as they walked onto the restaurant terrace made the long drive worthwhile. It’s hard not to be awed by Bali’s majestic volcanoes and volcano valleys.

Emily and I also spent some time on the lookout for the brethren of our dog, Conlan – a Kintamani dog I brought home from Bali. We saw a few Kintamani dogs, but none that looked quite like our shaggy beast of a Balinese dog. They had his lean, lanky body and his swagger – but none had quite as much shag as our guy. Still, we missed our dogs and I waxed nostalgic about him as a puppy and what his life in Bali might have been like had he not come to the Untied States.

Following a great lunch enjoying the cool, refreshing air of Kintamani, we headed into the heart of the volcano valley and drove around much of the lake and up to the holy temple along the lakeshore – all the while dodging giant potholes and avoiding near-collisions from drivers barreling down tiny roads, going who-knows-where on roads in the middle of nowhere.

I have long found the volcanic valleys of Bali fascinating as they look nothing like the rest of the island. There in the shadow of the lava singed side of Mount Batur is a rocky, bare area with just a little farm land situated against the lake. The villages are small, the people are especially poor and the stark landscape doesn’t feel tropical in any way.

When we finished our quick tour of the Balinese badlands, we headed back up to the highway and then back down the mountains toward Ubud. After a lot of driving, we were all happy to see the giant gateway to the Kingdom of Gianyar – in which Ubud is situated.

Our grocery store tour and Emily’s durian-eating adventure gave way to some shopping around Ubud and a beautiful dinner at the always wonderful Cafe Wayan – the home of my favorite dinner in Bali. Aunt Penny joined me in taking part of Wayan’s incredible Sunday night buffet of traditional Balinese festival foods of which I have written about at length. They remain just as good as ever.

While enjoying a beautiful dinner at Cafe Wayan was the last even of a three-day weekend of sightseeing and incredible views, the important part was the fun everyone had together. This weekend was a tremendous amount of time together – all of which went incredibly smoothly.

I was especially happy to share some of the less visited and incredibly beautiful parts of Bali with our very special guests – as well as Emily who had not yet seen them either. The calm waters of northern Bali, the forested hills of Kintamani, the immense coffee plantations and unending, cascading rice terraces are some of the things that make Bali special to me. They are the heart of Bali. They complete the story of Bali and they gave us the chance to further the story of family, togetherness and us.

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