We arrived at around
9:30pm after a big day for a feast of local food (our feasts aren’t massive
feasts either). The market runs from 5pm until 2am and you find the later in the night you come the more and more locals you'll see eating at the local Warung's.
When we arrived we
quickly noticed that we were one of the only Westerner’s we could see, this is
when we knew we had hit the jackpot. We love all the places in Bali that are
barely touched by tourists as it allows you to experience Bali in a way that
only the locals do.
There’s two parts to
this market- a strip of local warungs with Indonesian delicacies lining the
street. Then across the road (where we decided we would explore) is a little
alleyway type market between the buildings.
We have never seen so
many locals down here both stallholders, families and locals doing their
shopping in the one place. It was a really nice feeling knowing we were doing
what the locals do.
(the entrance to the laneway like main market stalls)
Every second person
would look at us or touch the girls asking them questions in broken English.
Not in an intimidating way at all but more of a welcoming family sort of way.
The girls held us up many times as they would be chatting to a local or asking
them questions, it was amazing to see them learning from this experience.
Being a local place, the
prices are also very local. And tops you get out on the street in places like
Kuta are more then half the price here- fixed.
We did some shopping
here and snapped up some great bargains. The girls got (fake obviously) Gucci
tops that they picked out themselves and we bought some bits and pieces for the
house.
Then it was onto the
good stuff- food. This is what we came here for as we were told this was the
best place to try out the local dish they call “Babi Guling”. This is basically
a suckling pig with crispy skin and sides that are meant to compliment the
pork.
The place we picked to
eat Babi Guling was just as you walk into the main market on your right you’ll
see two food stalls with babi guling, we went to the second one on the right.
Ordering just one plate
of babi guling as we knew the girls wouldn’t eat too much of this as it is
spicy. We almost knew the lady had probably ripped us off as we paid $6 for two
soft drink and the babi guling and read online people can pay something like
$12 to feed a family of four. But we
didn’t mind and saw this as reasonable. But that’s ok we thought it was a
reasonable price to pay.
It was very flavoursome
with many different textures, the only downfall was some parts of the pork were
cold and just didn’t fit in well with the plate. And the skin had turned rubber
like and wasn’t crunchy like described on the reviews we had read (maybe due to
the fact we got there at (9:30pm when the market opened at 5pm). We are still
on the hunt for the best babi guling in Bali- as we know there is better out
there somewhere.
We were very surprised
to see Madi eat half of the dish by herself; there was blood sausage, pork,
sauce, chilli and all sorts in this dish. And our 6 year old could not care
less (just drank more). Hayley tried bits
and pieces but just wasn’t a fan (she is our picky eater).
Deciding that after our
massive plate of babi guling we were feeling the sweets, we headed on down the
pathway until we came to a lady with a stall on the left. She was selling mini
donuts for 10c each. We all picked the ones we wanted and continued walking
dropping a trail of icing sugar wherever we walked.
The Gianyar night market
has so many different things to offer from local food, fruit, vegetables,
kitchen items, clothing, toys, watches, perfume, cleaning products and you can
even buy all sorts of live pets here.
Location: Jalan Ngurah
Rai, Gianyar