TEGALALANG RICE TERRACES

Visiting the Tegalalang Rice Terraces was a highlight for me on this trip.

I mean, clearly, you can see how stunning they are.

But more importantly for me, was the journey it took to get there. Yes, it’s a cliche. Life is about the journey and not about arriving at the destination. But cliches are cliches for a reason folks.

It happened to be the only day, thus far, that we had been granted with a thunderstorm from the weather gods. Our weather apps had informed us that every single day of our two week holiday would be loaded with thunderstorms. Fortunately, we only experienced a couple.

This was one of them.

You can only imagine how torrential downpour would effect a rice terrace. We are intelligent individuals and figured it out for ourselves as well. But there we were, standing at one end of the terraces, looking at the journey ahead of us.

There was no way I was going to let a thunderstorm deter me from climbing the rice terraces. If you look at the picture above, you can see the buildings across the way. That was where our journey began.

We waited out the downpour at a small cafe located in a prime location for photo snapping. You can also see in the photo above the rice terraces leading down the hill from the brightly colored buildings. This meant we had to first climb down the terraces only to climb back up. So down we went.

^ view from our cafe!

We hired an umbrella for $2 from a random woman at a clothing stall. Then upon entering the terraces, I purchased a traditional rice hat worn by rice workers for $3. This would keep the rain off of me for the most part. We mainly used the umbrella as a hiking tool from that point onward.

 

The two of us were slipping and falling all over the place. It took us at least double the time it would had it not been raining. But that’s what made it so memorable. We had committed to the journey, and we refused to turn around. Eric took off his shoes at one point, I almost fell in a bed of water, and we laughed the entire time.

And the views were incredible!

I would stop along the way just to soak in the scenery and appreciate the moment. And to catch my breath.

We were asked to ‘donate’ a few times along the trek, but as a word of caution, make sure you have the cash! These donations are actually requirements in order to move to the next section of rice terraces.

Once we made it to the top we felt accomplished and therefore deserving of a Bintang. We made friends with a local girl selling Bintangs and these small delicious fruits.

She invited us to come sit with her under the shelter she had. We shared some laughs and beers and felt as though we were getting a taste of the local life.

^ amazing fruits only found in Indonesia!

This experience, once again, proved to be educational. Under circumstances that were less than ideal, we chose to make the most of it. And it turned out to be one of the most cherished memories from my trip to Bali. It didn’t matter that my shoes were filled with mud, or that my photos would all have grey cloud as their backgrounds, or that I failed to prove my grace while climbing through the slippery mess we found ourselves in.

I was with the best company, in an amazing location, with the sound of laughter as my soundtrack to the whole thing.