Rice paddy staycation - a Bali experience to come out of Covid
I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a hand-built bamboo pavilion that sits amid a patchwork of rice paddies.
Overnight stays are in Astungkara Way's beautiful bamboo pavilion.
Crickets sing, frogs belch, water trickles gently down nearby canals. A mosquito net sways in the breeze above me and a full moon throws palm shadows across the floor. This is a night to remember.
With beaches banned during lockdown and borders between regions closed, Bali’s tourism operators, just like those in Australia, have had to get all inventive on their product. Tim Fijal, the Canadian founder of Astungkara Way, a social enterprise that combines rice farm regeneration with hands-on tourist experiences, has had to pivot like the best of them.
Tim’s number one experience, a fully immersive 10-day pilgrimage across Bali to connect with the culture and traditions of rice farming families, has been repeatedly postponed over the past year. To fill the gap, he has recently seized on the micro-adventure trend offering overnight rice farm stays for groups of up to 10 people.
Writer Penny Watson with Astungkara Way’s resident cows. All pictures: Penny Watson
For us it’s a win. The pilgrimage is on my bucket list while I’m here in Bali, but 10 days is a major logistical undertaking, especially with kids. One night sleeping out, however, with food, beds and activities included, is easy. It’s kind of like camping, but Bali-style, without the hard work.
Tim’s idea is that families, or friendship groups, get the opportunity to connect with our hosts Pak Wayan and Ibu Titak, and the surrounding Badung region community of Subak Uma Lambing, the 87-hectare rice farming co-operative that Astungkara Way supports. It’s not difficult. Soon after arrival, staff are on hand to show the kids how to make boats out of banana leaf stems. They are off floating them down the canals before we grown-ups are even part way through crafting ketupat – little rice casings made from young coconut leaves.
Later, at the permaculture garden, the kids are first again to mix compost for planting little pots of rice. Hands readily shoot up with responses to ‘what can we make with rosella and lemongrass?’ (tea) and ‘what do we call cooked rice in Indonesian?’ (nasi).
Dinner is courtesy of Ibu Tatik and her daughter Kadek. It’s a spread of typically delicious Indonesian dishes made from veggies picked in the garden earlier. It includes tofu satay, a soya bean treat known as tempe and one of my newly discovered favorites, sayur urab, a salad of beans and greens mixed with bamboo shoots and grated coconut. Our plates are lined with banana leaves (so there’s no need to do the dishes) and we eat crossed-legged on bamboo mats in the family’s outdoor compound.
Camping Bali-style in a bamboo pavilion.
Our accommodation is on the top floor of a wonderful two-level pavilion made of bamboo, with a peaked thatched roof, open sides supported by great thick bamboo columns, and rattan flooring that feels good underfoot especially after you’ve kicked of muddy shoes.
Comfy mattresses lined up along the floor are set up with pillows, clean sheets and a blanket. Above each bed individual mosquito nets hang from the ceiling like giant jelly fish. When the sun goes down the kids are keen for bed, a combination of exhaustion and excitement. When they’re asleep we grown-ups take a full moon walk along trails around the rice farm listening to Tim talk about the subak: the ancient Balinese canal system still used to irrigate rice paddies today.
We wake early for a bowl of bubur, a traditional Balinese breakfast similar to congee, before setting out on an eight-kilometer walk along a small section of the longer pilgrimage trail. We zig-zag through rice paddies, wander through jungle with towering coconut trees, and detour down little village streets where we’re greeted with “om swastyastu” by the locals.
Our destination is a traditional Balinese water blessing ceremony at the waterfalls of Tamen Beji Griya Temple. Wrapped in sarongs, wet-through, with ceremonial rice stuck to their foreheads, the kids swear the 8km walk was worth it. You don’t get much more immersed in Bali than that.
Penny travelled as a guest of Astungkara Way.