1st stop, ducks. There were big ducks, little ducks, super fat ducks (called 'entok'. Don't ask me what it means. Apparently it tastes the same, just fatter). All looked the same to me. My maid IbuI, seemed to do this weird squeezy, pokey thing and would reject some with a scoff and accept others for further consideration. These were live, flapping ducks, mind. They would then be presented to the totally useless money banks (that would be me) for perusal. The vendor would gleefully ask me to personally 'feel' the duck to see how fantastic the meat was. Uh. No. I could see them wallowing in their own poop. No feely for this missy... In any case, 2 ducks set me back Rp80k (about USD8 / RM25). I also bought 3 kampung chickens (free range chickens) for Rp135k. Cue the whole, 'Pegang aje Ibu. Bagus s'kali!!' (Hold it madam. Very good!) again. As I said just 2 minutes ago, NO HOLDING!! Or touching, or pulling of feathers. I ran off when I saw the guy whip out a machete the length of a saber to do the nasty. I insisted on taking home meat instead of a live animal lest my little sunshine decides to adopt dinner. Left D and I supervising the sectioning. My only request... Keep the duck livers. I want to make pate.
Ibu I doing whatever it is she does to get a good duck...
The fowl (foul too!) defeatherer. Birds are dipped in boiling water and tossed in this device. The little rubbery protrusions spin around and smash all the feathers off. Perhaps also adding a tenderizing effect? Out of the holes ooze icky blood and pulverized feather. Note to the curious, don't stand within 5ft of the thing, you'll get covered in the stuff. After that it was spices, fish (1/3 the price of Hero!!) a wok (yeah, mine's not the right size apparently), some weird looking round, green eggplants for sambal, some tempe, and we were done. Tried to get a photo of the ginormous rat that was slinking around the fish seller, but it ran up a pipe before I could whip out my camera. I would say it was the same size as the rat that came by our place for a visit last week except it's fur was more, well, ratty. Perhaps the food it steals in the market is not quite as good as what is finds in the compound...
The fish alley. Thank God for Crocs and a recent dry spell. Merely somewhat 'pongy'... But the ground was still a little fish gutty... No nice shoes here.We walked past people selling hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, eels... The was a man challenging people to beat him at chess in 3 moves. He had the king and a castle, the opponents virtually the whole board. It was something along the lines of if you won, he paid you 10k, if you lost, you'd pay him 10k. I wasn't going to pay someone to humiliate me, so onwards we went.
The chess player waiting for his marks...
The coconut grating machine. Watching them do it, I would suggest anyone who wants to eat grated coconut from the market makes sure that it's cooked very, very thoroughly. Goodness knows if the machine is EVER washed...On the way home, IbuI and I were animatedly discussing the market when we realized that Mr.D was rather conspicuously quiet. Turns out he was amused at us raving about the market because he had only taken us to the periphery of the market as he felt the main bit was too hot and too crowded! What a man!! Sounds like something MY man would've done. Well, IbuI and I were not stinting on the abuse we heaped upon his head! So much more stuff to buy! We probably missed it all! Next time, we're leaving him with the car!! His point was that everything inside can be found outside. Why go in? But, but... What if there IS something different?? 'Nggak lah, Madam. Semuanya same aje...' (Nah Madam. It's all the same) Grrr... Even sounds like something 'Mister' would say.
All in all, I'm hot, sticky and tired. The distances weren't far, but dodging hand-drawn carts can be a rather athletic experience. By the time you hear, 'Permisi!!' (Excuse me), the cart can be practically on top of you. Couple of times, torn between the options of getting run over or cozying up to a bucket of slithery, slimy eels, I opted instead to stand with one foot parallel to the path (so the cart didn't lop off my toes!) and the other suspended over the bucket of eels. Lots of strange looks, but they saw my camera, so most just ignored me.
All in all, a rather interesting experience. Next time though, I will stand 10ft away from IbuI and pretend not to know her. I'm sure (and she agrees) that despite the prices being rather low, they were still artificially inflated when the sellers realized I was the person actually paying. Somehow, they can always spot an expat at 10 paces.
2 comments:
This IS really interesting and fun to read....don't bring me there on my next visit.
It's quite fun :) Very interesting. People aren't quite as poor as you'd imagine based on what we know they earn. There are a lot of levels of products available depending on your capability to pay. So although some may be poor compared to our lifestyles, I saw everything from food to toys at incredible affordable prices. E.g. squeaky duck toys at Rp2000 (less than RM0.80). Rp2000 for a whole bag of round eggplants. Rp3000 for a grated coconut.
And everyone was sooo friendly. I understood what they were saying, so I know they were amused by me taking photos, but everyone was really, really friendly...
It's an experience ;)
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