Picking papaya in Seminyak Bali

One of the most pleasurable thing about living in Bali for me, is watching things grow in my garden. Apart from watering the plants and trees, we don’t do anything special, nature takes care of the rest.

This morning I looked up at a tall papaya tree, and saw one has turned yellow. Asking Ana if it was time to pick it, she suggested getting a long bamboo pole. I imagined she was going to poke it, myself acting as fielder. Give the Balinese credit, they have figured out how to pick papayas. Ana came back 2 minutes later with a pole, that had a bag on the end. Technology!

It took about 10 seconds to get that papaya and lends credence to the old saying, that every Balinese has a pole long enough, to steal the papayas off his neighbor’s tree. Papaya has a long list of health benefits as well as being a meat tenderizer. Cutting into it, the flesh was ripe and I gave half to Komang around the corner, who is prego.

My favourite fruit is mango and right now is mango season. Supermarket Bintang has some ripe mangos. If you want to sample a fruit unique to Bali, go to a local fruit market and ask for a wani, which is a mango-looking fruit with white flesh.