We Found Paradise in Bali
If you're wondering what Paradise looks like, you can visit Sideman Valley. We're two retirees hooked on travel. Follow us on our Journeys around the world. This Valley is just gorgeous. Look at this, and up on the hill I believe that's where we're going. I'm not sure but, yeah okay. Surya Shanti Villa, there it is. Oh and we're there. That's the front desk. We're at the Surya Shanti Villa in Sideman and all of the rooms are on the side of this Hilltop where you get an incredible view of the valley.
And the gardens are absolutely immaculate. This is where you come in and then you go up those stairs for the check-in. Below there's a farmer he's farming his fields. Once you arrive at the resort this is the entryway you have the stairs to climb. Well we just arrived and they welcomed us with a welcome drink and a foot massage. Hello. Thank you so much. wow Gosh it's beautiful. It's got like a thatched roof and you come in, there's a bathroom,
there's flowers everywhere and look what they did they put flowers they made a welcome home with a heart, this is so so romantic. It's, I have no words. It's just beautiful and I mean usually get a welcome drink but we had a welcome foot massage with a welcome drink when we arrived and the manager the owner himself welcomed us to this beautiful room, the suite that we got and it overlooks the Rice Terrace. Fresh Breeze is coming through and it overlooks the swimming pool and the valley. I mean I have no words it's stunning. I really don't know how you could get anything more beautiful. I really don't see how you can get anything more beautiful, it's stunning.
We're in the heart of the Jungle and off in the distance you can see the ocean. And in the morning we're going to check it out we should be able to see the mountain in the morning. There's a few tours that we can take from here. And we're gonna do a hike through the rice fields in the morning after breakfast.
We'll leave a link below on the name of the of the hotel. And we're in Sideman which is kind of in the mountain area still in the central part of Bali but more on the East Coast side. It's about an hour and a half from Ubud. We're starting our morning with a two hour Trek through the rice fields and we have a local guy that's taking us. He said this is the hotel Temple right here. And they've already done their offerings for the morning.
The gardens are beautiful. Jeez! The gardens are magnificent. Irrigation for the rice fields. Beautiful Rice Terraces and Resorts everywhere. Are these Resorts? Yeah. Look at the man over there working the field. Like the Trek is taking us right along the
irrigation's Edge for walking right on top of this. There's not like a trail. So you have to watch a footing. It helps to have a walking stick when you go on these hikes. Grab a walking stick and it helps a lot, your balance, everything.
What is this? It's fruit. What kind of fruit? This is the passion fruit. Oh, the passion fruit. It's passion fruit. No, I know. It's kind of sour. Oh yeah it tastes good like in a smoothie or something. And there's a man over there he's rototilling for his Rice Field to get ready to plant. They are planting these flowers here for offerings, for people, for welcome flowers, to welcome into their homes, decorations and they also rotate their crops because you can't plant year over year for the the rice. They have to rotate the crops so they put in vegetables, also. That looks like chili. Are those chilies? Yeah. They have chilies growing
here.So yeah. So they're growing onions and peanuts here in between their crops. Papayas are growing wild everywhere. This one, just on the side of the road and you look up and it's completely loaded with papayas. This rice right here, it's ready to pick so it's already completely grown and it's ready to harvest. Okay, so they're taking the rice and after they pick it then they put it out in the Sun. A lot of them use the road to dry it and then they're going to store
it and then they don't actually have it cleaned until they're ready to eat it. These little stores amazingly have almost a little bit of everything. This is the local alcohol in Bali. Local alcohol in Bali? Yeah this from the palm tree. The is palm wine. Yeah. You want to try it? No no no, it might give
me a headache. But yeah, these little stores they have absolutely everything, you just have to dig around and you'll find it. You are just walking along the road and you see bananas, everywhere. It's so Lush. You can tell you're in the rain forest or you can tell you're in the jungle. Irrigation ditches everywhere. The government is responsible for these irrigation ditches. So this is a village life. There's a barber shop.
They got a gift shop going here. All kinds of stuff. Okay maybe later. We're here several days. Selamat pagi. (good morning). There's home stays and little Resorts everywhere. And it's kind of interesting, they have a gift shops right here.
Well we're looking at the mountain right here, it's really close. There's a farmer right here preparing his fields. It's just so neat to see all the farmers out working in their fields. A little restaurant right here. A little restaurant. Yeah flowers, bananas, it's a farmer's Paradise here. They have these Trails right along the rice fields. If you don't know where you're going, well.
This is the way back to the hotel, amazingly. Way up on the top of the hill up there, there's a restaurant and a lookout area but he said you have to really do a lot of climbing to get there. This plant right here they use it for cooking, making pudding, cakes. They also use the leaves for offerings. They wrap like rice with coconut and they also use it to wrap like a chicken dish and then they steam it. They use a lot of different kinds of plants for their cooking.
You kind of have to walk these irrigation dishes to get around. Okay, we're walking through the jungle right now, back to our Villa, but you're just not going to believe how beautiful this is and the irrigation system here is amazing. It's a little steep. But it's great. It's a nice hike. We arranged this one through our hotel. It's two hours. You need two hours to do it and it takes you through the rice fields, through the Jungle, through the little town.
So go to Sideman, get out in nature, hike Through the Jungle, the ice fields and then just enjoy being around the farmers and nature. It's amazing. It feels like you're in National Geographic. Oh he has a banana tree. Is he gonna plant it somewhere or is He's just gonna use the plant? He's gonna use the plant. Oh. One thing about the jungle, especially after it's been raining last night, it makes it like a sauna. So be prepared to bring water and be prepared to sweat. But it's a good sweat.
Like there is a trail here but without the guide you're gonna get lost, for sure. It's extremely peaceful here. Coffee shop! They have cappuccinos, lattes. You can rent a scooter, trekking, go to the Sideman Market, weaving, all kinds of stuff. If you come to Sideman, there's a lot of choices. So do your research. There's a
place for everybody. Home stays, four or five star resorts, neat little cottages. So I don't think you really go wrong because you're gonna go out and hike and do tours and enjoy it. Another restaurant overlooking the Rice Terrace. They have nice menus too! Like on the way back to the our resort, we're just passing all kinds of restaurants and bars and beautiful Villas. They're everywhere and everybody has a nice view of the rice fields. I had no idea there was this many. Like when you go online you don't realize and they're kind of all concentrated in this one area which makes it really neat. But the views are magnificent.
Okay this is not a tourist trap, this is the real deal. They're really making the fabric here. Hi. I have no idea how they can figure out the pattern. wow! They're so colorful. You can tell it's not dyed. This is weaved into the fabric, these designs. You can use for sarong, you can do a dress or you can just hang it up. These are done at
home, she said. These. And these are the ones that were done downstairs in the factory. I bought this one and I'm going to use it for a tablecloth. Okay, we're in Sideman Central. We just left the loom factory and we're walking the town. It's not real big but it has a hardware store, it has
little shops. You can buy rice, vegetables. Oh they have a lot of rice. Lots of little mom and pop places. Yeah, Village Life. Barbershop, clothing store. You can buy, it looks like they're selling uniforms, probably kids uniforms. You can buy a motorcycle too. Here they sell all of the stuff you need to do your offerings.
In most of these towns they start the market early because people go back to their homes and they cook for the whole day and so they buy everything in the morning. All kinds of vegetables and fruit, bananas, oranges. So we just stopped at this little restaurant to have a drink and I ordered a lime cucumber mocktail. Really thirst quenching. It really gets your thirst. And can you beat this View? So this is the resort we're staying at and this is the entryway and our room is up there the second one to the left with their yellow flag.
2023-03-01 20:30
