Each day Desak and Kuman, the cook and housekeeper at our villa at Tumbak Bayuh, consult the Balinese calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. When Kiki, the villa manager, suggests we try to see a traditional ceremony while we’re on Bali, she heads inside to check the complicated almanac. While we naturally have difficulty deciphering … Read more
“Hello! Hello!” two skinny little kids call out as they peek from behind a dilapidated brick wall, a short distance down the lane from our villa in the tiny village of Tumbak Bayuh, Bali. “Hello!!!” we shout back and the kids smile shyly and scurry away. Opposite, at the entrance to another home, a young woman … 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
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
Our two-week stay in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, was so different to other destinations we settled into on our yearlong global grand tour. There were so many travel lessons we learned in Tokyo for slow travellers and lovers of local travel that we thought the experience warranted a post on our Tokyo reflections and Tokyo travel … Read more