Good morning! It's our final morning in Nusa Penida. We have a schedule today. We are having
breakfast at 7:00. At 7:30, a cab's coming for us, and then at 8:00, we're going to be back
in the harbor where we landed on Nusa Penida to try to figure out how to take the ferry back to
Padangbai, where our driver will be waiting for us. Today we are headed to the mountain town of
Bedugul. I'm really curious about this, because a lot of people have commented about how cold it is
up there. It's part of like some mountainous hilly region, so really curious to find out what cold is
like. It could be a pleasant change. We have a lot in store today, we're making some stops on
our way to Bedugul [it has some heat! Yeah, I'm in trouble.] so we have just a really big day.
Bill's obsessed with getting his laundry done here because they give his shorts creases.
These are creases - creases in my shorts, [and your shirts!] and my shirt and Heather's shirt.
My shirts have them too. It's because we picked up and we dropped off and did some laundry yesterday,
and for 40,000 rupiah, not only do they do your laundry they press our shorts
and shirts which is something we never do at home. This is wonderful! And underwear.
And underwear - who does that? That's amazing.
All right; let's move.
Thank you.
Well, on this side, they don't take the ticket from the card - they don't take
the money from the card, only cash, so I'm glad we didn't put enough money on our little card
in Padangbai for a round trip and we only put it on for one way,
because it would have been lost. We would have been paying twice. Do you have our tickets?
As we pulled up, the boat honked so we were kind of nervous that we were missing it,
but as it turns out they're just loading the cars, so looks like we were on time. Just more chaos.
We're leaving a half hour early on this side. Schedules are loose.
How they do that is beyond me! Pura Taman Ayun was one of 6 royal temples and the
second largest temple complex on Bali. Original construction was completed back in 1634 and only
royal families were welcome to worship here. Their descendants help maintain the site still today.
We are at Temple Ayun, which also has security guards here so...
This temple dates back to 1627 and it is huge. It's massive! It's also beautiful. I can't wait to
walk around and see a little bit more of it. We aren't even to the main temple yet. Holy cats.
We are also of course following the local custom for dress, including Bill in a sarong. Yes,
we just purchased that in Ubud. When we got out of the car with our driver, who's waiting back
the entrance for us, he said, "you already have your own sarongs?" and we said "of course we do,"
because we had done our research on appropriate customs for visiting the temple. He thanked us.
He said, thank you for abiding by our local tradition because he, of course,
is a practicing Hindu, so that's kind of neat.
These roofs are so cool! I love the different tiers and how it's sort of a pyramid in shape.
All right. I found a little moment to myself. You might have noticed that we've not visited
that many temples while we've been in Bali so far, and there's a reason for that. It's me. No,
it doesn't have anything to do with our religion, although in a way it does have
to do with religion. The Hindu believe that women who have their period are unclean
and you are not allowed to enter a Hindu temple during that time. Now, of course nobody would
know if we had entered a temple during my unclean time, but we would know. In fact,
their religious beliefs go incredibly deep and they believe that if you are the one who enters
the temple and you're unclean that you can become possessed, that you have bad luck befall upon you
and also to the residents who live immediately outside the temple, and even to those who worship.
Bad things can befall them - possession, bad luck - so although it is not our religion,
we wanted to abide by their practice and so we waited and here we are and it's pretty amazing.
If you decide to come and visit Bali and you want to go to the temples, this is just something that
you need to keep in mind if you are a woman. Well to be honest, that was a little bit anticlimactic
after the big real talk at the beginning, but the real talk stands, and the temple is beautiful even
if we couldn't exactly go in it. We can admire it from the wall all the way around the outside.
The Taman Ayun temple is actually a Unesco World Heritage Site, though not because of its history,
but because of the significance of water at the site. The same Unesco World Heritage
Entry that includes the famous Tagallalong Rice Fields also includes Pura Taman Ayun,
because it is the supreme downstream water temple for the largest collection of subaks in Bali.
Now time for some lunch before we hit the road again.
Well, there were 2 police when we arrived and like 9 when we left, and they seem to be
enforcing the mask mandate - like really nicely. That's the first time we've seen that.
We're at a place that serves suckling pig - first
time trying it - and our driver has been kind enough to take us here and
give us a sampling of different things. This is the satay. I'm going to give it a try. Good? It's
very good. It's like a sausage. It's got - it has some heat and some spice. Yeah, I'm in trouble.
All right, now I'm going to try the skin - first time!
Oh, it's so crispy! It's crispy? It's really good. It's crispy on one side.
The other side just melts in your mouth. Way better than I thought it would be!
Now we're going to try the soup. It looks like there's,
for sure, there's pork in it, maybe some cilantro - I don't know if these are onions or potatoes;
let's find out. I don't know if that's the case. Oh my god. It's spicy!
Bill has 2 bowls of soup.
What Heather didn't mention is the pork that's in the soup has a really nice smoky flavor.
They're doing their smoking out back, so it's authentic. She couldn't sense it because she
was so overwhelmed by the by the spiciness, but it's very good. This is where we tried suckling
pig for the first time. They had a huge selection of dishes, but our driver arranged for us to have
a little bite of each. Really cool! After lunch, our driver convinced us to stop at a coffee,
tea, and chocolate plantation. The employee first showed us some unroasted coffee beans,
roasted coffee beans, and then somehow encouraged me to try one of the roasted coffee beans.
Oh, it smells really good. Nice and dark.
Eat it? Yes, no problem. Ok.
Really? Yes. I'm gonna eat a coffee bean - straight up coffee beans. All right, let's see.
Oh, it is like a peanut.
Oh, it is bitter. Oh, it tastes like coffee.
It's making coffee in my mouth. Oh it's weird. I need some water.
You can try to roast it. you can try? Somehow I also found myself stirring beans in the pan. This
doesn't seem like the most efficient way to roast beans nowadays, but it was fun to play along.
I'm going to be tasting the coffee bean for days. Cocoa from the flower.
What flower? Cocoa - Chocolate. Oh, really? Yes.
We have the red - that's the red chocolate plant.
We were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by cocoa bean trees. Our guide pointed out several
different colors of beans and then found some pods that he opened for us. We were able to try a raw
cocoa bean, which we had never done before. You can try this; no problem. You can try. To eat?
Yeah, but this is the bean. Don't eat it. This? Yes. Really? Yes, no problem, no problem. And then {spits]? Yes.
oh kinda sweet!
I can spit? Yes. It's not Singapore. It's very fruity. It tastes like fruit, like, it tastes like a
piece of fruit that you can put in your mouth and then spit it all back out, but then you have the
taste of fruit left in your mouth. I don't know what to compare it to. It's just
generic fruit. It was really interesting.
Oh, it smells nice and like bitter cocoa - just slightly sweet, but mainly bitter. Yeah. That's,
oh yeah, I like the smell of that. We enjoyed learning about the coffee
and chocolate processes at this quick stop before we continued on our way to Bedugul.
We made it! We are in Bedugul. More from Bedugul
tomorrow. We are pretty tired after a long travel day, and in the next video,
we will answer the question - does it feel cool to 2 Minnesotans who are in Bali? Stay tuned.