You’ve seen Jacques’ room and my outdoor bathroom. I think it’s high time to see the remainder of this place. Owned and run by Annette and Jim (an Australian couple who have been living in Indonesia for 10 years, Bali for 4) The House Of Singing Bamboo is about 15 minutes out of Ubud, tucked away on the side of a gorge overlooking rice paddies. This is definitely a case where photos will give you a much better idea of how beautiful this place is – I don’t think I can find the right words.

You come down this stairway from street level and the first landing you get to is the guest house (where I’m staying).

And here you have it. The entrance to The House Of Singing Bamboo – my guest house.

Come on in! On the ground floor is the bedroom and sitting area, with a deck, access to the bathroom and a kitchenette.

The deck – where the dining table is located, and another sitting area. Fresh fruit is served here every morning. And when we opt in for the chef made dinner, it’s served here as well. That’s the main house you see on the right, a couple of levels lower down the hillside. 

Yes please. I’ll have some of this every morning. Papaya, watermelon, mango, banana, and sometimes other local fruit. Fruit that is allowed to ripen on the vine is seriously millions of times better.

The view from the balcony – down the gorge, cascading rice paddies.

A great place to sit and write blogs – or just sit.

Upstairs is a sitting area complete with tv and dvd player. We watched almost a full season of Modern Family….oh JJESSS

We can use their pool whenever we want. It also has an amazing view of the rice paddies. I must admit that the past couple of days I’ve fallen into a routine of waking up, eating some fruit, lounging by the pool for the morning and then either heading into Ubud or cycling through the local villages in the afternoon. Awesomeness.

A look up at the guest house from the main house.

I went for a little walk through the rice fields yesterday. I’m told it’s okay to do so. I did come across a few of the people working the paddies. They smiled and said hello – but I still felt like I was intruding on their world.

This is hard, hard work. Made even harder for the owners of these rice paddies because of the deep gorge. They cannot get any motorized machinery into the paddies, so it’s all done manually – just like it’s been done for centuries. The irrigation system is complex. Because this is the rainy season, he needed to drain some of the water. More than a day’s work for him produced a series of lovely little waterfalls. He must have an extremely strong back, arms and hands.

Somehow they manage to get a couple of cows down the narrow path to the paddies to help plough.

The baby rice. When I first got here there was a tarp covering it for protection. Soon they’ll take the baby rice from here and plant it through the paddies. They grow a highbred, which means they can cycle through three rice crops per year.

As you can see, this is a pretty special place. A few nights this week we’ve heard chanting and music from celebrations in the surrounding villages. The gorge seems to trap the sound. As I sat listening to it I thought “this is an amazing example of what makes Bali so mystical”.