Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
Finally, the first ‘real’ day of the International Field Project 2015. Why ‘real’? It was our first day after a ‘normal’ night of sleep, including normal beds and a relaxing shower, and all the other luxury you long for after a 25 hour trip (in my case; without sleep). So what have we on Tuesday, the 21st of April? In our agenda it said ‘morning and afternoon: mountainbiking’, but when we entered our mini bus, no one could imagine what our day could look like.
After breakfast at the hotel, we had a two hour ride to have breakfast again. Yes, exactly, we had breakfast two times. However, during the 2nd time we were able to enjoy the lovely view of a volcano. Actually, one that erupted only 6 months ago. After this relaxing moment, and one of many group pictures that still have to be taken, we went to another place. This stop included a tea-, coffee-, fruit-, tabacco-, and chocolate tasting. Everything we consumed was produced locally, and tasted really good. By the way, yes, you can see this as breakfast #3.
Further
more, do you remember that I told you that the planning said ‘mountainbiking’? Actually, even though we left at 8 o’ clock at the hotel, we did not touch a mountainbike until 14:30. Probably, the times in our schedule were in Dutch, instead of Indonesian. However, the mountainbike trip was legendary. Every now and then we stopped, at the rice fields, a 10 meter tree, a small community or in order to dodge some chicken…
One of the things I asked myself, is whether the ‘authentic’ tour through the small towns was really that authentic. That is why this blog post is called ‘ Exploring the (staged) authentic cities of Bali’. It is really nice to see that concepts discussed in class, such as staged authenticity, are brought into practice. Our guide told us that the community we visited was paid in order to visit. However, does this mean the communities really live the life they live or that they act like they are. Yet, this does not mean that things were not interesting.
In my opinion, having such a tour certainly adds value to a trip to Bali. So if your trip includes a stay on Bali, write down on your bucketlist: ‘Explore the (authentic) cities of Bali’
Written by: Tjeerd van Dijk
