179. | The smells and sounds of Denpasar

In my article “Flavors born on the beach”, I featured the flavors of Thailand.

Here in Bali, I thought a lot about scents.

I write about this and the words and feedback I received as a gift from my experiences here.

Let’s smell the air!

Denpasar – where I live now – doesn’t leave my nose without work.

Whenever I walk around the area, I always smell something exciting, pleasant or unpleasant.

In this country, traditions are also taken seriously. I have seen many times at dawn and in the morning, mainly women – walking around their houses and shops and carrying the day’s offerings on trays to the street shrines, or simply placing them on the sidewalk. These are the little bamboo baskets that I wrote about before. Usually the contents of the basket are food, sweets, a cigarette, a drink.

And often the incense is also in the basket.

I love incense, I have been using it since I was a teenager. I like exactly the kind that is used here. Not the kind that emits a cloud of fragrance, but the simple sandalwood scent. So I often encounter this familiar and friendly scent on a daily basis. It’s as if I hadn’t arrived in Bali, but an old scent had found me.

Then there’s the smell of laundries. I’ve already fallen in love with those moments when I pass by a laundromat in Thailand. The smell of clean clothes precedes it and even accompanies the area around the store for a while.

When I wrote in a previous post that here I get my clothes back from the laundromat wrapped in a bag, I also wrote that the reason for this is because the clothes are treated with some delicate fragrance and the bag retains this scent longer.

Since then I’ve realized what this smell is! Where I wash my clothes, they use a very pleasant rose oil fragrance. When I was a child, every grandparent had a bottle of rose oil for some reason. I have no idea what it was used for. But it was there. A few years ago, I wanted to buy it for myself in the spirit of this nostalgia. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find it. I got it here.

In the neighborhood where I live, there are a lot of people walking the streets. So the smell of perfume accompanies me every step of the way. In most cases, these smells are pleasant, but sometimes you can smell an intrusive smell like an atomic bomb.

Many shops also have a certain smell. Often the smell itself is enticing. The invitation of smell has not yet reached me: since I don’t need anything, I haven’t been to a single store, except for grocery stores.

Food!

Many places prepare food in small kitchens. These differ from traditional restaurants in that the food is prepared almost on the street. In addition, there are many mobile kitchens on the roads. The delicacies are prepared on motorbikes and small carts.

So you can smell the smell of the raw materials and the finished product at the same time. I like both, although the raw materials are sometimes strong.

They often grill on the street. Corn is being cooked, sausages are being fried, meat is being made edible. The embers of the charcoal make the cauldron of smells/smells of the street particularly pleasant. This smoke is always inviting. I have eaten grilled corn quite a few times. While I am waiting for it to be ready – and finally smeared with chili sauce, my stomach is often already growling or my saliva is flowing.

The ocean is at the end of the street.

You can almost always smell the characteristic smell of seawater there. If the wind carries this scent away, the freshness of the air captivates my senses.

The wind doesn’t always carry away the smell of garbage. That’s also part of the street. Although they clean it every morning and generally take care of cleanliness, there is still a lot of garbage on and near the sidewalk. Most of the time, the garbage is put out in bags, but sometimes large piles are only taken away after days. That way, it has time to mature and emit odors.

This unpleasant odor is not that typical, you only encounter it from time to time, but it is still part of everyday life.

There are a lot of cars and even more motorcycles on the streets. Despite this, I don’t notice that the exhaust stench burdens the streets. Maybe the ocean breeze has something to do with it?

The magic of words

I’ve been living here for four weeks, yet I’ve had as much joy as if four years had passed since I arrived.

I’ve collected some of my fondest memories that have come to me in the past few weeks.

I’ll start with yesterday and today.

Yesterday morning I started the day at the usual shop. I already know all four young speakers. When I got there (5:30 in the morning) there was hardly anyone on the streets. The sales guy was sitting on the street with his friend, but as soon as I got there, he immediately jumped up and led me inside. I bought myself a coffee and then asked if he would accept one too. He was so surprised that he asked: “Really?” I smiled and told him that I would and that I would like him to choose one for his friend too.

While he was heating the spaghetti he had chosen for breakfast (yes, again!), he suddenly looked at me and said to me: “Sir! I really like you!” I translate this in Hungarian as “I like you”. I thanked him for this and asked him why. He said, “You’re always so nice to us. And I miss my dad, and you remind me of him.”

I gasped for breath for a moment.

It’s true that it’s terribly fresh, because I only got it last night, but I’ll keep it on a top shelf because of its contents:

“Thank you for today Steve! It was a great help and super fun day! Everyone talked about you in the indonesian group and loves you 😍”

This morning I went to the Immigration Office to do a super quick errand. Seriously, preparing for the worst, I brought my only book. I could read 5 lines of it. On the way out of the office, I bowed to the security guard in the usual way and waved goodbye with folded hands. He greeted me with an ear-to-ear smile, then gave me a thumbs-up on both hands.

These wordless messages often find their way to me. It’s not the first time that my greeting or polite refusal has been immediately rewarded with such a reaction. I immediately receive respect and sincere appreciation for my respect. And what’s more important, I see, I feel how grateful people are that a stranger is addressing them with respect…

I’ve been to one of the oceanfront booths twice. Each time we had a few conversations with the man and woman working there. Courtesy, respect, kind words. That’s the basics. When I said goodbye for the second time, the woman suddenly said after me: “Darling, come back, I have something for you!” The word “Darling” rang so beautifully that I can still hear it now. I gladly accepted the drink holder, which is used daily here in Asia, but this word was much nicer to me.

I have been stopped by a taxi driver after I declined. He asked me how my evening was. I told him that it was good – as always – but why did he ask. He said that he saw me always smiling when I walked down the street and was curious about the reason for this. I told him that it was nothing special, I was simply happy.

It has also happened twice that a stranger simply said that he liked my hairstyle. LOL.

What these words give here is not a lesson, because I have known how to do this beautifully for a long time. These words are proof that I knew it well.

I treat everyone with respect, even if they don’t, and this creates respect around me.

Buy me a coffee?

If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.

Buy a coffee for Steve

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