Bali: the Indonesian island whose name is globally synonymous with vacations and honeymoons to hot, sunny, sandy beaches! This is where our Indonesia trip actually started. How better to kick off a tropical island visit than.. in a tiny village right in the middle of the island!?
After four long flights (and a short night at a hotel in the Jakarta Airport), we landed at Ngurah Rai International Airport (aka Denpasar or just Bali Airport) in southern Bali. Pak Awri and Ibu Mita (more on them below!) picked us up and we drove two hours north through a few cities and several small villages to the tiny hamlet of Mongan in west central Bali. Fast-forward to the next morning and we awoke to this view, still my favorite in all of Indonesia.
As most people on Bali will tell you, it is over-touristed. Too many people, too many cars, too much plastic.. “Real Bali” has been shrinking for years and is getting hard to find. Mongan is a warm and welcoming reminder of the natural beauty of this amazing island and its people. It has very little and yet has at all.. it’s very lush and peaceful. Friendly locals work the picture book rice paddies in near silence. Maybe it’s just the vastness of the space, but even the occasional mechanical drone of a tiller didn’t break the vibe.
There are birds, lizards, and insects flitting about, including lots of dragonflies! Walking through the field roads reminded me of growing up in Vermont.. with an exotic twist.
The hamlet of Mongan itself is a cluster of a few dozen buildings. It’s hard to say how many homes there are since, as is ubiquitous across Balinese Hindu culture, each property is actually a compound with a stone gate, an ornate temple area, and the actual house. Compound size can vary from a large estate to a tiny hut, but the components are still there. Mongan has a narrow dirt road as its main road, which then transitions to more of a path. This works well though since the primary means of transportation is small gas scooters.
The most widely known business in Mongan is Bali Silent Retreat, offering wellness programs and food. We never went in but did find it to be a very convenient reference for rideshare drivers!
There is actually another business that we did visit, Subak Kopi. This a delightful little coffee, tea, and snacks house is right in the middle of the rice fields. They make delicious little local treats, and you sit in the open air, covered bamboo huts. Very relaxing… and the views!
Soo.. why Mongan? Well.. that brings us to the heart of so much of our trip. My ~uncle Bill Dalton and his lovely wife Ibu Mita live on a thriving farm and homestead in Mongan, appropriately named Villa Mongan. They are an energetic and mind-expanding couple, who generously housed and took care of us for two stints during our trip.
Bill is a renowned travel author, whom I had heard of my entire life because of his best-known work, The Indonesia Handbook. A version of it with brightly colored Indonesian masks has sat on my parents’ hallway shelf since I was a child.
We had never met in-person, but I had read and heard of him through family members. Bill founded Moon Publications (now Moon Travel Guides), which published 65 guides under his ownership and he has rubbed elbows with all the other big players in the travel guide world. His worldly adventures easily warrant a book of their own, and as you might expect Bill has already written an amazing preview that tells his story far better than I could. He’s latest book, on the Komodo Dragon, is set to be released soon!
Ibu Mita is a dynamo in her own ways. From the moment she met us at the airport, she enthusiastically shared her love of life, nature, gardening, and connecting people. She is from Java originally, but as we walked through the hamlet and surrounding fields every woman and man yelled “Ibu!” (Ibu is the Indonesian honorific for adult women, literally meaning “mother”) as they clearly love and respect her.
Each morning (despite repeated assurances that we could make do!) Ibu Mita and her delightful staff prepared a basket of fresh fruit (mostly from the garden just outside), a heaping hot plate of Mie Goreng fried noodles or Nasi Goreng rice (the two most popular dishes in Indonesia), and an omelette. Across five weeks across Indonesia we didn’t find better food, and believe me we tried! Bill and Ibu Mita also introduced us to several exotic fruits that we had never eaten. Perhaps most exciting were the bananas though- Indonesia is their birthplace! They have hundreds of species with uniquely delicious characteristics, while the US generally only has one, the classic yellow Cavendish. It is not bad but… it seems so bland compared to the fresh local varieties! It’s like being limited to Red Delicious apples. These ranged from finger-sized to large cucumber-sized, and varied wildly in taste, sweetness, firmness, and texture. YUMM!
The best rice paddy and volcano views, shown earlier, were taken right from Villa Mongan, from the room we stayed in.
In addition to all the flora, Villa Mongan is alive with fauna, both domesticated and wild.
All buildings are home to geckos. Geckos are ubiquitous across Indonesia, and around homes you’ll typically see two types, the smaller common house gecko and the larger, more colorful tokay gecko. They both like to tuck up under the eaves and make their signature sounds (geckos are the only lizards that vocalize) just as you’re falling asleep. Fortunately it isn’t constant. Tokay geckos make about ten loud honking sounds (sort of saying “geck-o” or “to-kay”) then go silent. We heard the common house gecko a lot less as they make a higher pitched chirping sound that blends in with the insects and birds.
We were absolutely thrilled to meet Bill and Ibu Mita, and really came to realize how much of a sanctuary the home they’ve built there really is. We also came to appreciate our unconventional introduction to Bali, and are so glad we got immersed in local natural and cultural ways in a non-touristy way early on.
Oh and an extra super bonus: my dear silly-wise friend Amber & her awesome social-ninja daughter Tipo visited us from Jakarta! It was wonderful to see them (the first of three times on this trip) and introduce them to Bill and Ibu Mita. Connecting special people in life is always a treat.
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