Trip with Elle, Andrea and Katz to visit Juliana’s family in Baturiti Bali

Many people who have been reading Baliblog will remember Juliana, the young Balinese girl who is studying in Australia.

Juliana’s story is that she is from a small village close to Bedugal in the highlands and she met Elle Peters and her family while working at a hotel in Legian. Elle heard that Juliana was a top student but had no chance to attend university so arranged for her to come to Australia.

I met Juliana last year and heard all about life in the village. One of the things she always talked about was her mum’s cooking and the fried dragonflies that her granny would make.

Elle was in Bali recently and invited me to drive to Baturiti and visit Juliana’s family. I rented a Kijang from Jl. Dhyana Pura for 140,000rp and picked up Elle at the Green Garden Hotel in Tuban together with Andrea from Australia and Katz from Tokyo Japan.

The ride up to Baturiti took about 2 hours and the weather changed from hot and muggy to overcast and cooler. Elle has met Juliana’s family before and knew where the house was. Baturiti is a little market town in the highlands and Juliana told me last year that I had actually taken a photo of her mother Putu without realizing it.

The family home is located right on the main road just past the market and as we stopped Elle jumped out and immediately saw Juliana’s dad Nyoman, who invited us in. We walked several meters down a narrow alley between 2 houses and met Putu who was busy cooking, Juliana had warned her we were coming. “We don’t speak Indonesian and they can’t speak English so you are the translator.” said Elle. ‘Wonderful’ I thought, ‘hope you’re not expecting any deep level of conversation’.

Juliana’s granny squatted in the house across the alley offering pleasantries in Balinese.

We sat down and Nyoman gave us a Coke each which was followed by a bowl of vegetable soup. I had 2 it was so good. This was followed by ‘pisang goreng’ fried bananas. Thinking that was our lot I was getting comfortable on the couch when Nyoman started passing around bowls of rice and ’soto ayam’ (a kind of chicken soup). I gobbled all mine and have to say honestly that Putu knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.

Our conversations were fairly short and topics like Nyoman and Putu coming to Australia and how Juliana is doing in uni.

Nyoman told me he owns 20 pigs and gets up at 4am to the market nearby, finishing at 10am. Down the slope behind the house we checked out his pig shed which Elle funded.

The area behind the house is tiered and the vegetation is huge! I didn’t see any dragon flies though.

During our visit Elle called Juliana in Australia and I had a quick word “Juliana I’m standing in your mum’s kitchen in Baturiti!” I said.

The cloudy weather delivered what it promised and gave us a quick downpour. The highlands have a very different atmosphere from the coastal areas with way less of a tourist scene (if any) and many cool overcast days.

Driving up to Baturiti we saw a lot of people in ceremonial attire down the road and Nyoman told me that the village of Pacung was having its ‘odalan’ (annual village temple ceremony).

We spent a short time chatting and after a short goodbye climbed back into the Kijang for Kuta.

It was great to see another family’s lifestyle and exciting to think how Juliana will be able to help her family in the coming future.

• Juliana from Baturiti Bali
• Sunday night bbq party
• Juliana enjoys pasta in Legian Bali
• Metting Juliana and her posse in Legian Bali
• Saying goodbye to Juliana and the family in Legian Bali

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