My cousin has a friend Ketut he sometimes stays with and brought out to Preston Beach last year who was our ride to the hotel so I contacted Ketut and he picks us up in half an hour from Sanur and we’re off and the white people are getting fewer and fewer until I’m deep in Batubulan and kicking up in Ketut’s house with his wife bringing through some delicious food and lemonade overlooking rice fields. We grab Ketut’s 12y old boy and he takes us for a drive through narrow, hair raising streets and I’m still half expecting to be taken to a diamond factory or a pearl factory but we arrive at the ponds and I pay the princely sum of $4 for rods and some dough. The place is a large series of concrete ponds were they grow fish for the markets and seems to only visited by local families and the water is pumped from a nearby running river. The families all sit around and share the catch afterwards with their hands which is cooked in the nearby kitchen.

 

The rods are long flexible plastic sticks with some mono line hanging off them down to a small float with a running leader and braid running to the hook and you dangle it in and watch the float and strike as they start to run with it. Even though the fish are contained it's actually quite difficult as the small ones suck the dough off the hook and I could only manage a dozen tiddlers but the oldest boy pulled in a nice size ‘snapper’ which went into the live bag and after we were done they fried it up in oil and brought it out with rice, sambal and soy sauce and we washed it down with a bintang for us and some sweet tea and lemonade for the boys. Ketut’s eyes lit up when I snapped off the head and shoulder meat and put it on his rice and watching him get every skerrick was like watching an artist at work. Back to the hotel and Ketut refused to take any money because he says I am a friend and we were his guests but I insist he take 500k and use it toward his ceremony the next day and he seems pretty stoked with that.

 

If we were ever going to get Bali belly this was going to be the place but we survived and it was an adventure I neither planned or anticipated but something that gave me an insight into Bali life I wouldn't see in the tourist areas and something the boys will remember forever.