Seaweed Farming in Lembongan

I was sitting in a beachside restaurant and talking to one of the guys there. This is what he told me:

People began farming seaweed some time ago. They went out and marked out little plots. In the beginning they went out and marked them out. There was no sales, no rentals. People just went and took some of the space. Then they put little anchor lines. These were to hold the growing lines in place. They then took long lines and attached bits of seaweed to it. These bits of seaweed are well chosen, chosen for ones that look like they will grow well. The lines are taken out, on a boat, and attached to the anchor lines. Then they are left for 40 to 45 days, during which they grow. Once grown, they are harvested. The growing lines are detached from the anchor lines and put in a boat and brought to shore. The grown seaweed is stripped from the growing lines and laid out to dry. New bits are attached and they are taken out to be replaced on the now empty plot.

The harvested seaweed dries on tarps in the sun. It is covered with plastic and left. It is this part that bleaches the seaweed to the pale colour. There are apparently two kinds of seaweed out there. There is a higher quality green kind and a lower quality reddish-coloured kind of seaweed. What kind is planted and harvested depends on where the plot is located. Off-shore of the island is a kind of plateau that goes out for about four or five hundred meters. Then there is a sharp drop off of the sea floor. This is a breakwater and at that point large waves can be seen. Surfers like that area, for the waves are good for surfing. The large waves seem to rarely come into the shore. These large waves stir up the water in the vicinity of the breakwater. This stirring up of the water keeps some sort of feeder, or parasite off the seaweed, and that seaweed is the green stuff. And that is what is planted out around the breakwater. The red seaweed is harvested closer in and is of a lesser quality as a result because of the parasitic effect. The higher quality seaweed sells for a higher price, so those farmers with plots out by the breakwater make more money.

All of the space out in the plateau is now claimed. Farmers may have three or four plots, but they rarely have too many because they must farm the plots themselves and can only plant and harvest so much with their time. If they have too many plots, some will go unused and be wasted. Anyone new who wants to harvest seaweed has to either buy a plot from someone who has one, or rent a plot in some fashion.

The guy at the restaurant told me that he used to help his parents with their farms, but it is a lot of work and can be frustrating. It is possible for one person to string and plant about 50 lines of growers in a day. They can only be planted at low tide. If low tide is at 9 in the morning, not much problem. But if it's at 2 in the morning, well, no dreams for him that night. He has to go and plant. And if the tides are too big, as happens through the month as the moon changes position, there is no planting. In addition, if the waves do get too rough, during a storm for instance, the seaweed can be stripped away and then all the work of planting it is wasted. Nevertheless, he told me that currently seaweed farming accounts for about 60-70 percent of the economy of the island, with tourism making up the rest. Of course, it used to be 80 to 20, so the revenue of tourism is going up. Or perhaps it is revenue from seaweed farming that is going down as more young people choose to farm tourists instead of seaweed, and ageing parents have to do more with less and get less done.

But that is the process of seaweed farming as it was explained to me.

Later on, I watched a fairly impressive sunset over Bali.

Lembongan Island

After Ubud, I returned to Kuta, but only to get out to another place nearby, Lembongan Island. I had been told about Lembongan Island by a man I met when I visited Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in Jakarta. He told me it was a laid back island with a bunch of things to do, or where a person could just sit back and relax. It sounded good, so I booked through to the island once I returned to Kuta. Unfortunately, I had missed the last boat to Lembongan and had to go the next morning.

But once I got here, it is very nice indeed. At night there are not many lights, so the sky is visible (assuming there are not clouds in the way). The people are nice and helpful. And most of all, even though they are dependent in many ways on tourism, they don't push it on you. It's not, “I will take you somewhere tomorrow.” It's, “Do you have a plan tomorrow? Would you like to go snorkelling? If you want, I can help arrange it.” They don't put the hard sell on you. I like that best.

It is a small island though. And when you arrive, there are just guest houses and resorts all along the beach.

All over the bay is basically a seaweed farm. You can see the farming plots from some spots on shore. The farmers go out and get the seaweed from their plots and then bring it in to dry. I'm not sure about the bleaching of the seaweed. They don't do anything to it, but when it comes in it is various shades of green. When it is drying, it starts to become white. It may only be the sun, but I don't really know. I am going to ask someone and find out.

Later in the day a walk in town showed the same sorts of places. There were temples and homes and shops, but it was a slower sort of place than Kuta, or even Ubud. I did find out what happens to the offerings when they are done serving their purpose. It's kind of sad really. And I also observed someone putting out the offerings at one spot.

I also got to watch the unloading of cargo of some sort from a boat. I have seen that women do a lot of the heavy lifting here. And I envy them their posture. I wish I had spent more time and effort on my posture in my youth. Then maybe I wouldn't be dealing with an iffy back now. :)

Soaking up the Balinese Culture Again, Another Balinese Dance

Another night in Ubud, and after debating for a while, I decided to go and see another of the dance performances. I had heard that the Kecak (pronounced “Kechak”) was good and so I set out to find one. The best one in town was performed on a different night, but there was a women's group that was performing a Kecak dance that night. I located the venue and went in. For the first time since arriving in Bali, it was not raining in the evening, so the performance was held outside. This was also had a story, and the story was told on the ticket. Basically it told of a royal couple who were happy together. Then along came a god-type being who came between them. The woman of the couple was taken away after the man was distracted. A god tried to free the woman, but she wouldn't be touched by someone other than her lover. In the end the man returned and saved her and the couple was reunited. Then the god fought some monkey gods. Then a man showed his belief in the story by walking on burning coconuts. And he really did. It was quite entertaining, and I enjoyed it much better, probably because I had the story to follow, and it was outside so it wasn't so loud. Also there were about 40 women who were singing and chanting during the story-telling. And they chanted for the whole time. I found that quite impressive.

 

A Bike Ride Through the Ubud Countryside

I really enjoy getting out into an area to explore it and see it for what it really is. When I get somewhere I like to take walks to look around. This gets me familiar with where I am, so I am less likely to get lost, but I also get to look at where I am in a better way than if I am in a taxi or tour vehicle of some sort. One of the best ways to do this is to take a bicycle ride.

Ubud has many tour agencies that offer bike trips through the countryside. And they make it easy. They take you up to a high point of the terrain and all that is needed is to coast down most of the way back to Ubud. Sign me up!!!

The day got off to a rocky start. I had been told I would be picked up at 8:30. I was ready and waiting by 8:15. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. 8:30 came and went. As did 8:45, and 9:00. By 9:15, I was wondering what was what. I headed down the street to the office of the agency where I had booked the trip, but it wasn't open. Well, I had no other choice, but to head back to my guesthouse and give it a little longer before finding something else to do and dealing with it later. As I approached the guesthouse, there was a man looking about, and I knew that had I waited a few minutes more, I wouldn't now look as though I was the one holding the process up. It figures...

There were two other people on the trip. They were a married couple from Brazil. It was a bit odd to learn that, because the guy was an avid surfer, and the idea of a family man being a surfer seemed a bit weird. But I guess there is no reason why it shouldn't be.

We headed up toward the volcano where I had viewed sunrise the previous morning, but by a different route. We stopped part way up at a tourist farm for a while. We got to see guavas, and pineapples, the trees where cinnamon comes from, lemongrass, and various kinds of coffee. We even got to see a couple of caged civet cats, held in cages for the benefit of visiting tourists in order to show where a prized form of coffee comes from. One coffee tree makes some nice bean fruits. These cats come along and find the best fruits and eat them. They continue on their day (night, actually, as they are nocturnal). Eventually, nature takes its course and the civet cats leave the beans behind on the ground. In the morning, the farmer comes along and collects the “processed” beans. They are taken to the “factory” to be washed, dried, roasted and turned into coffee. This particular coffee is called Luwak Coffee and it is highly prized, and expensive. Personally, I think all coffee tastes like crap, but this coffee would make that a literal description. In any case, you would have to pay me to drink any coffee, so there is no way I will be trying Luwak coffee.

After our little tour of the farm area, we were shown the coffee making process in their “factory.” It's not really a factory in any way connected to what you normally think of as a factory. There was a little fireplace where one man was roasting possibly a pound of beans in a little steel kettle-like container. Nearby there was a wooden mortar and pestle where someone else was pounding the beans into powder. The same would happen to the cinnamon, or the lemongrass, or any of the other products of the farm. After the factory, we sat and got to sample some of the products. Some were quite good. They even made cocoa, but it needed sugar to make it appetizing. I didn't know raw cocoa was so not nice tasting. I liked the lemongrass tea, with its cinnamon and nutmeg and cane sugar. And then we had the opportunity to buy some of the products. I haven't been buying much so far, mainly because if I buy anything, I then have to do something about it, but also I have done my fair share of getting woven things, silk things, and other such handicrafts. They all start to seem the same after a while, and it's hard to buy them. I also sometimes wonder who makes those sorts of things and how. Are they hand-made? Are they made locally or far away? Who gets the benefit of the sale of scarves and things like that? But these products I was sure of. They were made on that farm, by the people I met there and they were doing it to make a living. And the make nice little gifts, so I bought some lemongrass tea. And then spent a few minutes fending off the man who was helping as he was suggesting all the other stuff that I might want to buy. Sigh!! People are just never satisfied with any sale. Oh well.

As a side note, I am noticing a whole new kind of terminology that has come into being with the growth of “Eco-tourism.” As the troubles of the environment gain more press and people are urged to travel responsibly and do eco-tours, other tourism streams seem to want to jump on that bandwagon. So we are hearing lots about medical tourism (people who go to other countries to get surgery, often because it is cheaper in the other country. Or green tourism, or gallery tourism, or wine tourism. And here, at this farm, it was called agro-tourism. I wonder how many more x-tourism terms are going to be made before we get bored of it all.

After the farm we headed up to the top of the edge of the volcano where we stopped for breakfast (even though it was about 11:00 by this time) and got ready for our bike trip back to town. But the view of Mount Batur was quite nice. At least it was until the low clouds started drifting into the caldera. And the fog started to obscure the view. And just as we were finishing our breakfast, it started to rain. It went from just being cloudy to a full on torrential downpour in about three minutes, and we were left sitting there wondering if it would break or if we should just go. In my experience such sudden downpours often end just as quickly and in a short amount of time, so I figured waiting a few minutes would find the end of the rain. But no, it just kept pouring. We eventually decided that we would put on the rain gear and just start out. So we did.

Shortly after we got below the edge of the caldera on our way down to Ubud, the rain slowed and then quickly stopped. This was one of those rains that happens against a mountain. The moisture laden clouds hit the mountain and stop. The moisture laden air behind it piles into the stuff stuck against the mountain and it builds quickly until the air can't hold the moisture any longer. And it starts to rain. (However, I am more familiar with it in Canada in winter where moisture laden air ends up dropping lots of snow on one side of a mountain pass, while the other side can be pretty much bone dry.) We were soon taking off our rain coats and enjoying nice weather back to Ubud. We passed through towns on back roads. We saw community elementary schools and hospitals and local government offices. When we arrived at each town, we would see temples. Each town has at least three community temples, one each for three of the main aspects of Hindu deities. During special seasons, the whole town prepares offerings for use at the main temples, in addition to the offerings they prepare for their own homes. Each home also has a temple, but these can vary widely in size and elaborateness. Not surprisingly, this relates to the relative wealth of the owner of the property. Wealthier home-owners have bigger, more elaborate temples in their homes. But they are everywhere you look in each town.

The journey was really nice. We travelled through little communities and people waved and said hi all over. I imagine that they must see all kinds of people on pretty much a daily basis, but there was none of the hands out with things to buy, although we did pass many souvenir shops of various sorts on the way. Mainly we passed people engaged in the dailiness of life.

Then we passed down into the areas where rice-growing was viable. I guess there is a fairly narrow set of climatic conditions for growing rice. Higher up towards the ridge of the volcano's caldera, conditions weren't favourable, although there was still one rice field per community, for use by the community so they could prepare the offerings for their temples. But down towards Ubud, rice-growing was viable and the terraces began. We saw many of them all over and they were quite beautiful. We passed through countryside with rice terraces on either side of us. It was serene. And then we got closer to Ubud and reached a place called Tagallalang. This is tourist trap central. We arrived there and there were hordes of tourists, and the hawkers as well selling their tourist wares. It was busy, noisy, smelly, and generally horrid after such an idyllic passage through the countryside. The lone selling feature of the spot was the absolutely spectacular rice terraces right across from the road. The only minor obstacle to getting a good photo of them was the ridiculous man who picked up a bunch of bamboo and stood in the way of the photo-taker, presumably to give the photo more character and authenticity. No, get out of the way, you fool. And no, I am not going to give you a posing fee.

Finally we ended at a guest house set among some rice terraces just outside of the Ubud center. It was a great to finish the day's spectacle.