Journey 02 · Indonesia
Rice, Fire and Offerings
Bali to Java, sixteen days
Published 31 Oct 2025 · Travelled 13–28 Sept 2025
- 8 moments
- 16 days
- 671 km
- Autumn
- Indonesia
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 8.4312° S, 115.2793° E
- Tegallalang rice terraces
- 07:05
- 26°C, humid, bright
At seven the terraces belong to the farmers and the ducks, and the light comes through the palms in slices. An hour later it's all swing tickets and influencers, so we came early, ate bubur ayam from a cart, and watched a man repair a mud wall with his feet. The rice does not care who photographs it.
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 8.5074° S, 115.2635° E
- Ubud market
- 08:20
- 28°C, warm
Every morning Bali assembles thousands of canang sari — palm-leaf trays of petals and rice and one cigarette for the grandfather spirits — and every morning the island's grandmothers carry the tall ceremonial towers to temple on their heads, hands free, posture of queens. I walked behind this one for a block in open admiration. She knew. They always know.
The plate · Warung near Peliatan · 12:40 · 31°C
Nasi campur, the committee lunch
One plate, eight small decisions made for you: rice in the middle, then ayam sisit, tempeh, sate lilit off the stick, urab, half an egg, and the sambal matah that runs the whole show — raw shallot, lemongrass, chilli, lime. Twenty-five thousand rupiah on a banana leaf. Trang finished hers before my phone had even focused, which is why she doesn't appear in this journal.
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 8.3919° S, 115.6317° E
- Pura Lempuyang Luhur
- 09:50
- 27°C, clear enough for Agung
At Lempuyang the candi bentar frames Gunung Agung like the mountain commissioned it. The queue for the famous mirror shot runs two hours; the view itself is free and immediate one metre to the left. We paid our respects, skipped the queue, and I got my frame between two tour groups' allocated moments.
the 'lake' in everyone's photo is a man with a mirror under your phone. knowing this improved my morning.
Overheard · Peliatan · 12:15
"Same table, same order, extra sambal. You are not a tourist anymore, you are a regular. Regulars help fold the boxes." I folded the boxes.
- Pixel 9 Pro · main · numb thumbs
- 7.9209° S, 112.9531° E
- Penanjakan viewpoint, Mount Bromo
- 05:15
- 4°C, cold, cloud sea
The jeep convoy climbs in the dark like a procession of headlights, and then you stand at the rim of a caldera watching a smoking cone float on a sea of cloud while the sky does its full colour catalogue. It was four degrees. I am from Hanoi; Trang had flown home; I wore every shirt I owned at once and regretted nothing.
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 7.7930° S, 110.3658° E
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 7.7930° S, 110.3658° E
- Jalan Malioboro, Yogyakarta
- 16:30
- 32°C, hot, then rain in one minute flat
Yogyakarta's main street still keeps its andong carriages, drivers snoozing between fares, horses accessorised beyond argument. One street back, the becak men play chess on the pavement until a customer interrupts. I ate gudeg — jackfruit stewed sweet in coconut milk until it thinks it's meat — from a lesehan mat and watched the whole economy roll past at horse speed.
- Borobudur
- 08:05
- 24°C, mist lifting
- Last frame
Seventy-two bell stupas, each with a Buddha inside, and at eight in the morning the mist burns off the Kedu plain in slow curtains. You climb through nine levels of carved stories to get here, which the monks intended as a lesson. Mine, after sixteen days: the itinerary was rice, fire and offerings, and I would order all of it again.
- Pixel 9 Pro · main
- 7.6079° S, 110.2038° E
The route
8 stops
Journey completed
Sixteen days, eight stories
- Distance walked
- 88 km
- Frames exposed
- 3100
- Offerings stepped over, carefully, per day
- ~40
- Sambals ranked
- 11
- Volcano alarms set
- 1, at 02:30, survived
- Favourite moment
- The offering-maker at Ubud market balancing a tower of fruit on her head like it was a hat
- Best food
- Nasi campur from a warung near Peliatan — the sambal matah alone deserves a monument
