Basa gede or Balinese sauce is a classic Balinese spice paste in the tradition of Asian pastes such as Thai curry paste and Cambodian kroeung, commonly used for saté and duck and chicken betutu. While available commercially, it’s best fresh from the mortar and pestle. Here’s an authentic recipe for basa gede or Balinese sauce, courtesy of … Read more
If you’re staying in a holiday rental in a village like Tumbak Bayuh in Bali, as we have been, you could find yourself a little frustrated by shopping in Bali, and might be happy to hand over the task to your villa cook if you have one. However here is our Bali shopping list. While … Read more
The gamelan and its music had always intrigued me as a musician. I’ve always found the Indonesian ensemble of metallophones, xylophones, gongs, and various other instruments wonderful to listen to, but I had little idea as to how the hell they made that enchanting noise. Was there a score that the gamelan orchestra followed, I wondered. Were there … Read more
For travellers who need some handholding, the only thing they’d probably miss from a holiday rental is a concierge. Being travel writers, we’re not the types to depend on one other than to score us a hard-to-get restaurant table, although we can certainly appreciate a good concierge. Occasionally we’ve been surprised to find a holiday rental … Read more
The gardens of our Balinese villa are so gorgeous, we decided to devote a whole photo gallery to them instead of including them in our ‘Home Away from Home in…’ post as we usually would. The location is so beautiful and our Balinese villa gardens so tranquil that even when we had to work it was a … Read more