Tag Archives: Munduk

The centre of Munduk village clings to a narrow mountain ridge either side of the main road to the coast and spreading down into the valleys below. It is not a particularly attractive village, though its setting is spectacular and its popularity with predominantly French (it seems) visitors is due to the numerous trekking opportunities in the surrounding mountains. We have booked a guide to take us on a four-hour trek through the rice paddies and coffee plantations that cling to the mountain sides and back to Munduk via the oldest Banyan tree on Bali. We set off down what seems to be a narrow pathway, but is actually a road (at least, cars manage to get along it) eventually becoming little more than a track (albeit one still used by mopeds) which links the many small settlements that dot the Munduk district. The main crop in the area is rice, but more and more paddies are being given over to a mix of coffee, cacao and cloves which are more lucrative and less work, although, in the case of cloves, considerably more dangerous. Cloves are big business in Bali due to the enormous popularity of kritek cigarettes which contain a 25/75% mix of cloves and tobacco and account for 95% of the Indonesia cigarette market. A packet of 20 of the best quality kritek will set you back 10,000 rupiah or 75p and are very pleasant, according to Andy who had to have a couple of puffs. A relatively recent phenomenon dating back to 1917, kritek has turned Indonesia from a net exporter of cloves to a net importer. Harvesting the cloves, and this is where the danger comes in, involves spending eight hours a day up 18 foot bamboo poles secured by guy ropes and with only pegs for footholds. The trade off being that cloves are only harvested four months of the year. A huge range of other crops grow here including avocados, pineapples, bananas, star fruit, snakeskin fruit, cassava, sweet potato, tapioca as well as herbs and spices like lemon grass and ginger. Use is made of every part of the palm tree and the banana plant and bamboo has myriad uses from floor coverings to scaffolding, baskets to a cooking ingredient. Plus a host of other plants that grows wild and is used for vegetables or medicinal purposes.  
From the rice paddies we climb becomes much steeper for about 15 minutes until we reach the small village that is the home to a majestic old Banyan tree. Banyan trees are parasitic, growing on a host tree and eventually engulfing it. They have a mass of external roots around the base and this one is so enormous that we are able to climb up through the centre of this tangle of roots and emerge on the opposite side. There is a game of gensing (not sure that’s the right spelling) drawing a large and enthusiastic crowd in the centre of the village. This game, which is peculiar to four villages in Bali, involves large spinning tops. The game is played under and open sided canopy on a square sand court divided into quartiles by two teams of four players. The first player sets his top spinning using a long length of rope which is wound tightly round central knob on the top and pulled with such vigour that it cracks like a whip on release. He is immediately followed by a member of the opposing team who sends his top crashing down onto his opponents’ with the intention of slowing or halting its spin. This process is repeated in each quartile until all the players have spun their tops. The team with the last top spinning wins the round and the losing team must begin the next round. The game proceeds in this fashion for two hours with the winners scoring the greatest number of rounds.
Our guide turns out to speak very good English and is very informative. He also has a number of strings to his bow. As well as being a guide, he is also a designer, painter and a tattoo artist – the only one in the village. By his own admission he is a reformed character, having llead a somewhat dissolute former life in Kuta, Bali’s main tourist resort, where he was into drugs and alcohol.  
We are back at our homestay by 2pm, have some lunch and then collapse into a heap in the room to relax, read, blog and just generally recover. There is little to do in Munduk other than trek; restaurants are few and far between and there are no bars or other places of entertainment. The only shops are mini-marts, little more than stalls in family homes selling a few basic necessities and having minimal stock.  
We are staying at the Guru Ratna Homestay on the main road. All the family seemed to be here to greet us when we arrived yesterday and like all the Balinese we have met, very friendly, always smiling and extremely polite. The rooms, reception and restuarant terrace are round a pretty central courtyard garden. The terrace has a fabulous view looking out over the mountain ridges that ripple below and beyond the peaks in the distance. A perpetual soft blue haze to hangs above the verdant slopes. We watched the sunset from here last night; the sun disappearing as if in mid-air, behind unseen mountains or cloud, we couldn’t make out which through the haze.  
Our room faces the road which makes it rather noisy particularly when, like last night, a ceremony draws people from across the surrounding district. Cocks crowing and the continuous round of dogs howling in a canine version of the Mexican wave add to the cacophony, making the nights less than peaceful. And whilst the family is friendly and welcoming, we were over-charged on our first meal by a staggering 100%. Fortunately we had been put on our guard by a comment in the visitors book to the effect that the homestay added hefty ‘taxes’ to the bill so had asked how much was being added to our ‘tab’. After some too-ing and fro-ing the bill was gradually reduced to the correct amount. Now we are paying for everything as we go to ensure no more ‘mistakes’ are made. Of course, the family were very apologetic, but we think they may have given our bill to someone else and were trying to recoup the difference. Tax and service are normally combined as a single charge added to the final bill – 21% seems to be the usual amount ; 11% tax and 10% service – although smaller places don’t seem to charge it at all.

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