Strawbs Anyone?

harryopal

Bad luck about the foot. I take it no broken bones. Any cuts? infections are so easy to develop in the tropics. Are the strawberries sweet? In Aus the supermarket strawberries always looked great but never sweet. For obvious reasons they don't want to transport ripe strawberries so rarely ever buy. Best ripe strawberries I ever had. many moons ago, were in New Zealand along with fresh cream. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Balifrog

Very difficult to find proper strawberries here in the South. Barely good enough to make jam, which we do (did mango and pineapple jam as well)

Markit

Balifrog wrote Very difficult to find proper strawberries here in the South. Barely good enough to make jam, which we do (did mango and pineapple jam as well)

The original plan was to use most of the berries for some superb jam and the crash didn't change that - got home with about 3kg mush/juice (in the pot with a kilo of sugar and some lime/lemon juice and cooked for an hour or so then thickened it up with some cornflour, half in the freezer the other in mouth). It's worth the outing if for nothing else the scenery. After the rains it's beautifully clear in the mountains (and fecking cold).

Mark

Interesting trip report. Curious to know if you were stopped and extorted for driving through Kintamani?

gtrken

Markit wrote Nothing broken just had a Nmax fall on it - wished I was on my pushbike instead. Strawbs were wonderfully solid and sweet - as you can tell from the photo they gave me a good mix of ripe and not-so for later enjoyment. At the moment you can't move for people selling berries up on Bedugul, must be season? Anyone wanting a contact up there to some lovely people with great wares, just ask. I do miss fresh cream, but my waistline doesn't.

Would be interesting to see how you would have felt riding a pushbike that distance ? I reckon a sore foot would have been less than the damage from that . Cheers Back in Bali soon Ken

Markit

Mark wrote Interesting trip report. Curious to know if you were stopped and extorted for driving through Kintamani?

A guy did come running over from the sidewalk shouting "hello" and waving a ticket book but I've been here waaaay too long to stop for that shit.

Markit

Although having lived here a while I'm still always on the lookout for something new and interesting to do so a couple of days ago I wrote to a farmer advertising his strawbs on FB and asked if I could just come by his farm in Bedugul and pick them up, as most places/producers here on the island will deliver to DPS and Ubud but not to lazy old Karangasem/ Candi Dasa area. I wasn't so very interested in the berries but wanted to motivate myself and some pals to have a nice day out riding around the mountains on motorscooters: see map. We started out early and as you can see it wasn't the most direct road by any means and if the truth were told it got cold as feck! No kidding, I must have lost kilos shivering on the bike (note to self - buy coat just in case) through Besakih and Kintamani but God was it beautiful! Upon arriving in Bedugul the farmer and his entire family where waiting for us to arrive (only wanted 5kg strawbs) and treated us like visiting royalty - if you don't get out much you forget just how fecking nice these people can actually be without trying. Upon examining the wares I found that they'd really outdone themselves and given me a grand bunch of berries (A grade) and then showed us around the homestead where old grandad and his missus lived and the brothers (3) did the farming and the wife of one of them did most of the work (normal). Grandad was this little bent over old pile of string and bones with one tooth left in his head which he smiled at us at every opportunity, Ma looked tired. We ended up taking the strawberries for IDR 40k/kilo (5 thou less than I asked for) and 4kg of the freshest red beets for IDR 15k/kilo and they threw in a freshly dug bunch of coriander WITH the earth that it grew in cause they reckon it won't grow down on the coast without that - makes sense since I've been trying to grow if for 10 years without a lick of success. Now down on the coast you can't get red beet for less than IDR 35k/kilo for old dried up and shrively roots and the strawbs are unobtainable in the East due, I'm told, to the transport - they don't react well to roads. I can attest to the truth of this last as on the way home got knocked off the bike and most of the berries turned to mush as did my foot. No problem, wanted to make jam out of most of the berries anyway and won't be using the foot for a while either as I'm spending quality time in my bed recuperating. It was worth it. You should try it!

Markit

harryopal wrote Bad luck about the foot. I take it no broken bones. Any cuts? infections are so easy to develop in the tropics. Are the strawberries sweet? In Aus the supermarket strawberries always looked great but never sweet. For obvious reasons they don't want to transport ripe strawberries so rarely ever buy. Best ripe strawberries I ever had. many moons ago, were in New Zealand along with fresh cream. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Nothing broken just had a Nmax fall on it - wished I was on my pushbike instead. Strawbs were wonderfully solid and sweet - as you can tell from the photo they gave me a good mix of ripe and not-so for later enjoyment. At the moment you can't move for people selling berries up on Bedugul, must be season? Anyone wanting a contact up there to some lovely people with great wares, just ask. I do miss fresh cream, but my waistline doesn't.