Kebo Iwa another heroical legend in Bali

ONCE upon a time in Bali, a man and his wife were praying. They have been married for a long time but did not have any children. They asked God to give them a child. They prayed and prayed.

God finally answered their prayers. The wife, then, got pregnant and they had a baby boy. They were very happy.

The baby was extraordinary. He was very much different from other babies. He ate and drank a lot. Day after day he ate more and more. His body was getting bigger and bigger. And by the time he was a teenager, his body was as big as a buffalo. People then started to call him Kebo Iwa.

Because of his eating habit, Kebo Iwa’s parents spent a lot of money to buy his food in large amount. They finally went bankrupt. They gave up and asked the villagers to help them provide the food.

The villagers then worked together to cook and build a big house for Kebo Iwa. He was like a giant. He could not stay in his parents’ house anymore because of his big body. Sadly, after a few months, the villagers also could not afford to cook him the food. They then asked Kebo Iwa to cook his own food. The villagers just prepared the raw materials.

Kebo Iwa agreed and as an expression of his gratitude to the villagers, he built a dam, dug wells, and he also protected the villagers from animals and people who wanted to attack their village. He did those things by himself.

Meanwhile, the troops of Majapahit were planning to attack Bali. They knew about Kebo Iwa. And they also knew that they could not conquer Bali with Kebo Iwa there. Kebo Iwa was more powerful than they were.

Gajah Mada, the Maha Patih (Chief Minister) of Majapahit then planned something. They were pretending to invite Kebo Iwa to Majapahit to help them dig some wells. They said that Majapahit was suffering from a long dry season and needed much water. Kebo Iwa did not know the plan, so he went to Majapahit.

When Kebo Iwa was busy digging a very big well, the troops covered the well. Kebo Iwa had difficulty in breathing and buried alive. He died in the well.

After the death of Kebo Iwa, Bali was conquered by Majapahit. Until now, people still remember Kebo Iwa because he had done a lot for Majapahit and Bali. The stone head of legendary Kebo Iwa can be found in Pura Gaduh temple in Blahbatuh. ***

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Tirta Empul a The Balinese Fountain of Youth

An early center of Hinduism on Bali, the country town of Tampaksiring is located just 14 kilometers northeast of Ubud and one kilometer south of the sacred bathing place Tirta Empul. A number of important religious sites – Pura Gunung Kawi Sebatu, Pura Sakenan, Gunung Kawi - are found in this mountainous area near the life-giving source of the Pakrisan River northern Gianyar Regency.

Built under the rule of Sri Candrabhaya Singha Warmadewa in the 10th century, the Tirta Empul temple complex was completely restored in 1969. Most people include Tampaksiring in a day trip out of Ubud, taking in the monumental Gunung Kawi two kilometers downstream on the same outing.

The impressive buildings, pools and fountains of Tirta Empul are on nearly every tour group’s itinerary of central Bali. On busy days fleets of tour buses visit the site, which is open only during daylight hours. From the parking lot, the visitor walks unimpeded into the majestic outer courtyard under a spectacular banyan tree, then climbs through the main gateway into the temple compound proper.

While visitors are spoiled for choice of temples in Bali, Tirta Empul’s atmosphere is quite distinct from your usual run of temples and holy sites on Bali. We immediately savored the serenity of the place set against a backdrop of hillside lawns and surviving forest. Though crowded with perhaps as many as 200 visitors, it was still a pleasure to walk around.

Seeking protective blessings and deliverance from illness, people journey from all over Bali to bathe in these sacred cleansing springs where worshippers pray in two divided pools as water gushes out of a row of stone spouts. The buildings, the 20 small sugar-palm thatched shrines and the elaborate carvings adorning the lichen-covered walls surrounding the pools are beautifully decorated and well maintained. Seeing it on a rainy day adds even more mystery to the site.

Looming over the complex, across a whole hilltop to the north, is the opulent Tampaksiring Palace built by Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, during the early years of the republic. No hawkers are allowed into the temple area, but when exiting we had to run a gauntlet of souvenir sellers that wind maze-like back to the parking lot. On this morning the stalls were quiet and many were closed, so the market made for half an hour leisurely shopping.

Layout
Tirta Empul conforms to the basic structure of most Balinese temples, divided into three main courtyards: the front, middle and inner sanctum. The first courtyard with a souvenir shop and two cafes is almost completely taken up by a giant koi pond with enormous well-tended gold, white and speckled fish swimming blithely about.

On the right as we entered the second courtyard, a short flight of steps led to two rectangular bathing pools, one for men and one for women. Ladies wore all of their clothing while the men wore just their t-shirts. According to tradition, the waters from the pool’s 15 figurative spouts are believed to offer a wide spectrum of curative properties, cleansing from evil and spiritual purification.
A pregnant lady and a newly married Balinese couple in traditional attire were among those seeking the water’s blessings. Widely thought to possess magical powers, the water is also used as an antidote for poison and black magic. The legend goes that the spring was created by the god Indra, who pierced the Earth to tap amerta, the restoring waters that brought life back to his army, which had been poisoned by the demon-king Mayadanava, the chief architect of the netherworld.

The Balinese use holy water as an essential part of almost every ritual. Their Bali Hindu religion is in fact called Agama Tirta, or “The Religion of the Holy Water.” Tirta Empul’s water is looked upon as the holiest on Bali. People were collecting the water in bottles to take home. Regular ceremonies are held at this sanctuary, particularly during Galungan, when dance clubs from the surrounding area bring their sacred barong masks to be purified.

The gin-clear natural spring at a higher level is the source of the water that shoots out of the spouts. The water, which bubbles up at the bottom of a large pool, is so transparent that the black sand and layers of flora growing on the bottom clearly visible, as are a number of fish and eels. Because it’s believed that the spring possesses the elixir of immortality, it’s surrounded by a high wall to prevent it from being profaned.

Tirta Empul Temple was built in 926 A.D. during the Warmadewa Dynasty (10th to 14th centuries) on the site of a large freshwater spring. In ancient Bali places for bathing and fetching water were very common, and elaborate fountains and bathing places such as Tirta Empul have long been considered sacred and the object of pilgrimages.

An inscription in Old Balinese found in Pura Sakenan in the village of Manukaya, north of Tirta Empul, states that two ponds were formed here in A.D. 962. When the badly worn inscription was finally deciphered by Sutterheim in 1969, it described in detail the ritual cleansing of a holy stone during the full moon of the fourth month in the Balinese calendar. For more than 1,000 years villagers from Manukaya carried the stone to the spring for purification rites on the precise day each year of Tirta Empul’s founding, never knowing the origin or the reason, only that it was customary law (adat). The fact that the stone was so badly worn lends credence to the fact that this bathing ritual took place. Since none of the villagers then knew what the old inscription read, the date of the temple’s founding must have been handed down orally through 33 generations of invasions, dynastic changes and natural disasters.

Istana Tampaksiring
North of Tampaksiring, a road branches to the right for Tirta Empul while the main continues climbing straight ahead to the hilltop retreat built by President Sukarno in 1954. Officially known as Istana Kepresidenan Tampaksiring Bali, we turned in at the sign before the entrance and immediately faced a formidable vehicle security barrier. At the guard post to enter this still-functioning government facility, we were told we had to send a request letter to the Department of Education (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional) in Yogyakarta. After taking down the address details, I had to content myself with roaming the huge parking lot, trying to get a glimpse of the interior over a high wall.

I had visited this splendid presidential palace in the 1980s, mingling among a horde of Japanese who have always been fascinated by Sukarno’s life and the memorabilia he left behind. With its large, well-kept lawns, its two main areas connected by a footbridge, the istana is a classic example of the first truly Indonesian national architectural style. The sprawling, one-story buildings feature grooved plaster columns and the geometrically hard lined look of the art deco era. Sukarno is said to have designed the whole complex himself, a sort of architectural amalgam of ranch-house, Javanese pendopo and social realism that he had picked up during his engineering training at ITB in Bandung.

Sukarno was half Balinese and he visited the island frequently, usually staying in this government rest house. The palace purposefully and rather incongruously overlooks Tirta Empul, known as the Balinese Fountain of Eternal Youth, as if it were the dictator’s intention to prolong his “President-for-Life” status indefinitely. Although it serves as a conference site, few overnight guests stay at the palace where it is said Sukarno’s ghost still roams.

On the palace grounds are four complexes: Wisma Merdeka, the personal residence of the president; Wisma Negara for friends or guests of state; Wisma Yudistira for use by the press corps; and Wisma Bima for the presidential bodyguard. There’s a lovely pendopo for dance performances and a small aviary, which once held hornbills, eagles and peacocks. Completely restored in 1957 and superbly maintained ever since, all buildings are in mint condition with some of the original furnishings intact.

The palace provides an excellent view of the whole Tirta Empul sanctuary. The story goes that the president, renown for his womanizing, could look down through a telescope upon the naked women bathing below. For years it was rumored that Sukarno’s daughter owned one of the warung in the temple’s souvenir market.

The Soviet Premier Khrushchev once watched a legong dance on these palace grounds at a time (1965) when Sukarno’s government had incurred debts of US$2.5 billion, half on loans for purchases of military equipment from Russia. After Sukarno was toppled in 1967, the palace became once again a government rest house and museum, open only to the public by formal application.

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NGABEN unique cremation tradition in Bali

The most striking ritual in Balinese society that we can see now is Ngaben, weather it is followed by a cremation of real body or corpse or not. The complex and time, energy and fund consuming ritual has come to the view of society as the bigger burden of their life. This type of exaggerated ritual must have started from royal palace that much possible started from 13th century, then followed by the common people. It is probable also that the priest or pandita have given the hope to the people that by doing such as exaggerated ritual a promise of Sorga or good life after death. Other reason it would have been the chaos of castes where each group claimed or traced their progenitors to high person of the past by showing that they performed the great ritual. This is a fact when a certain family can only use tower with only one roof, 3 roofs, or even 11 roofs. This is to show the social status of the dead and his family as the high class descendants.

If we trace back the very root of this ritual has actually already existed among the ethnics of the archipelago. Dayak people in Kalimantan has the tradition of Tiwah, in Toraja has the tradition of hanging graves, Sumba has the megalithic burials and others. During the prehistory, the treatment of the dead is shown by the complex burial stone coffins such as sarcophagus and clay jars. All of these ancient burials followed by the indication of ritual, which might at the simple form. And from this tradition originally practiced by the people then got the influence of Hindu and Buddhist. The concept of original burial and dead person treatment has some similarities with the new comers, with the degree of similarity the two concepts were easily mixed up and become a tradition with more elements involved in the completion of the ritual. The old concept of ancestor worship now added with concept of gods, where human soul can reach the state of divinity by treating the dead with certain ceremony. In Bali some of villages still practice this tradition such as Tenganan, Trunyan, Pedawa, Sidatapa, Tigawasa and Sembiran, called the Bali Age villages, they burry or place the dead at the cemetery but do not introduce the ritual of ngaben. It was only the year of 2000 that Trunyan village and Pedawa villages imitated the lowland villages to conduct the ritual of ngaben in a light different procedure and materials used. It was lack of knowledge of Hindu Assembly that allowed them to change their traditional which will affect all their life to perform an exaggerated rituals, and will causing also the set back of their society, unless economically they can keep pace with the growing need of the modern life.

The concept of unity between human soul and the god lately added with the doctrine that the unity can be intentionally made with ritual, not only those people who carried his life with good ethic of religion. Even this doctrine in the course of history become more higher compared to the real ethic itself. This new doctrine called " penyucian atman " laterally means soul purification. It is put forward that the purification ritual will returned the elements of the body into " Panca Maha Bhuta " or five elements of the universe. It is hard to understand why the doctrine of atheistic like Camkya philosophy of cosmology in India become incorporated in a theistic concept like Hindu in Bali. According to Camkhya, the universe is formed by 5 elements, the pertiwi ( earth ), the apah ( liquid ), the teja ( heat or light ), the bayu ( wind ). and the akasa ( universe medium ) The doctrine of ngaben translated this 4 elements as the body part of human being. Eloquently described that composed the body called " stula sarira" This stula sarira consist of " tri sarira " or 3 bodies, one is the body ( panca maha bhuta ), spirit, and soul. The spirit is translated as those soul which still not yet reach its divine state, and can still visit their family or stay some where on the world but by human being it can not be seen. This is the function of ngaben that purify this spirit to reach its highest state as atman ( soul ).

During the course of history this this ancestor worship incorporated into Hindu tradition called " manusa yadnya" or life circle rites, which was practiced in India thousand years ago with the name of " Samskara" and now enthusiastically practiced in Bali. Ngaben is the last order of the manusa yadnya, when a human being left the worldly life, called pitra yadnya, basically means the ritual to the ancestor. Pitra originated from Sanskrit " pitre". The worked father of Sanskrit is fatar which might correlated with pitre means ancestor. If we see current burial until ngaben there are steps of ritual that must be followed or at other areas have other tradition that is still showing the similar process, except older Balinese villages mentioned above. In most cases, when a person is died, the corpse is bathed and dressed in symbolic ways, given the holy water for purification then buried at the cemetery. Some banten ( offering ) to the goddess of the cemetery are made to request good way and place to the dead. It is believed that the goddess of cemetery, the Dewi Durga who reside at Prajapati temple is on control of the cemetery. After this burial ceremony, the family wait for another years to conduct the ceremony of ngaben and memukur together with other families who also have the member dead. This mass ceremony was expected to get cheaper cost and energy. But later this type of mass ngaben and memukur also become an expensive work, which has gone astray from their first objective. With this situation some villages initiated a much more simplified ritual by taking at once when their family is dead making the ritual of ngaben and memukur at a time. This is also expected to save cost and time. The banten of ngaben and memukur are so complicated, and without clear reasons back ground, various symbols are also made from the small tower, music instruments, symbol of the ancestor, real tower, symbol of the dead, and dozens of symbols. All of these objects need banten for symbolically bring to life, purification, and put them dead again. At the village where direct cremating of the corpse is permitted, still symbol of the dead is made. At the highland areas where cremating the corpse is not permitted, they cremating the symbols.

The symbol is given a complicated process again. It is brought to the cemetery, as if the symbol is united with the body of the dead with various type of banten, then brought to the ngaben pavilion to get daily banten until the departure again to the cemetery. On the day already fixed all these symbols again brought to the cemetery with tower then cremated at the cemetery and the ash were brought to the river with various bantens, while new symbols appear again to be put on the memukur pavilion. Until the day that will be determined this symbols again cremated and the ash put in young coconut which later will be thrown to the sea. Indeed this process is followed again by a complex banten. Most of the ngaben during a trip to Gowa Laway to perform a ceremony of memukur with dozens of banten types, then visited Gowa Lawah, Besakih, Pura Dalem Puri, Goa, and to the house of the Brahmana ( Griya ) then back to the village. Again in the village a ceremony of enthroning like a god. This is not yet finish in total but still some ceremony with banten to symbolically cleaning the whole village from all superstitious dirts after the big ngaben and memukur rituals. An under developed villages in Bali can work for months to complete all this ceremonies and not rare after the ritual a family drained out of wealth, sickness, or even quarrelling with relatives. This view only for a general type of the ceremony, and variations can be found throughout the island.

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Legend of Balinese Leak

 Leak was a human who is practicing black magic and have cannibalistic behavior. It is said that Leak is flying around try to find a pregnant woman in order to suck her baby's blood or a newborn child, to complete her magical skill. There are three legendary Leak, two females and one male. Leak with the great magic skill can transform into Rangda, queen of black magic. Leak is said haunt the graveyards, feed on corpses, have power to change themselves into animals, she even take the form of a monkey with golden teeth or a massive rat, a ball of fire and even a bald-headed giant. It is said that she have an unusually long tongue and large fangs.


 In daylight she appear as an ordinary human, but at night her head and entrails break loose from their body and flying around. Her powerful enemy is Barong, a character in the mythology of Bali. He is the king of the spirits, leader of the hosts of good. Barong and Rangda exist in the natural order of the cosmos and represent as Good and Evil. Both Barong and Rangda are cemented in Balinese legend.


The legend of Leak in Bali refers to a horrible black magic inspired drama with the key figure of Calon Arang. The story written in a manuscript describing that during the reign of Erlangga in 11th century there was a widow called Calon Arang at the village of Girah having a beautiful daughter. Her daughter name is Ratna Manggali, who has reached her adultery, but no one among youths from the village and surrounding had the courage to approach the virgin. This is because her mother is known to have black magic knowledge, and practiced it maliciously, and with her bad attitude causing many people were dead even hatred was increasing among the people, yet this is used as a temptation to her thirsty black magic need.


 Her bad reputation at last reached the palace, and some soldiers took initiative and asked permission to the king to punish the widow. The soldiers headed to the village of Girah and found her sleeping. One solder drag her by her hairs, but unfortunately she awaken and once she was startled she glared with her 2 wild eyes emanating fire shooting and burnt the soldier, the other took a hundred steps of flee but again her blitz eye fires burnt them except one solder survived the malicious black magic fur. This soldier then reported his horrible experience to the king, and made the king totally upset and run out of reason to overcome the problem. Calon Arang know that the palace involved in this scandalous act of murder trial, and she become uncontrollably angry and spread her magic malicious power causing great epidemic.

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Trunyan, eternal mysterious cemetary of Bali Aga

Trunyan is a small village at Bali island, Indonesia. This island is home to the vast majority of Indonesia's small Hindu minority. 93.18% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism (A Shivaite sect). Bali is also the largest tourist destination in Indonesia and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metal working and music.

Trunyan is an ancient village. It is located at the eastern shore of Lake Batur(Northern Bali). Trunyan is also a Bali Aga village. Bali Aga village is a village which inhabited by descendants of the original Balinese. Bali Aga are a unique ethnic group that still live and practise a way of life that pre-dates modern civilisation. They have pre-Hindu way of life with ancient, neolithic customs and a conscious avoidance of outside influences. The Bali Aga village are shut off by a solid wall surrounding the entire village.

The name "Trunyan" was derived from two words, "Taru" and "Menyan".Taru means "tree" and Menyan means "nice smell". Menyan Tree, is a tree that is believed absorb a bad smell and produces fragrant smell. Trunyan people has an interesting culture. Unlike the Balinese people, the people of Trunyan do not cremate or bury their dead. They just lay the dead bodies out in bamboo cages on the ground to decompose (under Menyan tree). Their dead bodies are simply covered by white clothes. Trunyan people has 3 cemetries ("kuburan" in their language) at Kuban. One is for the normal dead, second is a cemetry for the children, and third for abnormal death such as fall from the tree, or certain sickness which is considered very dangerous. They also believe that there will be a disaster in the village, such as an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or a land slide, if a woman comes to the cemetery while a corpse is being carried there. Thats why, The women of Trunyan are forbidden to go to the cemetery when a corpse is carried there. This village is also well-known for its Pancering Jagat Temple. but, sadly visitors are not allowed to enter.

Trunyan people has two 'castes', the Banjar Jero ("inside" banjar) and the Banjar Jaba ("outside" banjar). The Banjar Jero are the descendants of rulers, so they are the upper castes. While, The Banjar Jaba are the descendants of the people, who were ruled by the Banjar Jero. Their castes are not based on the Hindu ideas of purity. This caste system is an important example of when outside influence actually did affect the life of the Trunyan people

In the past, tourist were recommended not to visit Trunyan village. But, today Trunyan is a real tourist trap. Getting to Trunyan village approximately for about two hours drive north-east of Denpasar (the capital city of Bali province). Then, we must accros Lake Batur by boat. It takes about half an hour in the calm waters.

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From small unglamour village in Bali to glamourous Hollywood

10.000 BC the Movies, supported by Sari Rambut for wigs and visual effects

A small, hidden village near Ubud is not where you’d expect to find a shining slice of Hollywood glamor.

But in Abuan, Bangli, a 30-minute drive from Ubud, Orlando Bassi is making wigs for the entertainment world

If there is one thing Bassi knows, it is the best hairstyle for a face. He can also tell at a glance if someone’s “hair” is not their own.

The spacious factory at the end of a picturesque lane winding through paddyfields is bustling with activity. Dozens of young women sit side by side, their fingers flying as they knot all sorts of hair for all types of wigs: Traditional horse-hair wigs for judges in London, genital hair for sex puppets made from ox tail, and wigs for Hollywood actors.

Next door, male workers shape synthetic materials into body parts, including bloody fingers and noses, for the company’s production of 3D masks and other props.

What started in 1990 as a small workshop with six employees on the floor of a traditional Balinese house in 1990, today is an international business venture with more than three factories and 160 local employees producing costumes and props that are sold to theaters, movies studios and professional make-up artists throughout the world.

The factories are operated by the parent company Sari Rambut, arguably Bangli’s biggest employer.

With a hurly-burly mix of languages, Orlando Bassi swirls between his employees, checking finished wigs and artificial noses, and coming up with new ideas on the spot.

Despite the picturesque location, the offices and work area do not look very Balinese.
“In that matter, I’m still Swiss,” Bassi says. “Everything has to be clean and in order. My employees sometimes don’t understand me.”

The 42-year-old Swiss set up his venture in Bali 15 years ago, after trying to establish wig businesses in Korea and China. When he finally traveled to Bali, he met Nengah, a Balinese who was to become his business partner, and who assisted him building up the business to become the wig producer and exporter it is today.

Nengah and one of his friends went to Switzerland for training before returning to pass on their knowledge to local employees: How to knot not only human hair from India and Russia, but also animal hair or synthetic hair, all of which are used to reproduce different hair styles.

“Today we have clients from all over the world. Many of them travel to Bali to make their orders on the spot,” Bassi adds.

Among his clients were the stylists from the recent Roland Emmerich blockbuster 10,000 BC, for which 180 dreadlock wigs were produced from a mix of real and artificial hair, and from New Zealand film The Whale Rider, which used wigs produced by Balinese people.

The musicals We Will Rock You and Dance of The Vampires, place frequent orders, because their wigs as they are in daily use and get worn out fairly quickly.

“The Indonesian film and musical industry is slowly increasing its orders,” Bassi says of his domestic film clients, “but it has still very limited budgets.”

One local film, The Shaman, starring Oku Antara and Piet Pagau, used part of its bigger budget to kit out the actors in wigs and 3D masks produced by Bassi’s employees.

Each wig can take up to 80 hours to produce and costs between US$300 and $600.

“The most expensive wig we have ever produced was the one for Thierry Mugler’s TV spot Alien, which cost $4000,” Bassi says.

The wigs are mainly made to order, as they are tailored for every head and fit faultlessly for any kind of performance.

Bassi plans to open a school in Jakarta for special effects to help him lower the prices for his products and to ensure there are people in place to work on film sets.

“We are still checking if the courses can somehow be made affordable because all the makeup utensils, which we import from the US, are very expensive,” Bassi says.

Ever since finishing his professional education as a hairdresser at the age of 18, Orlando Bassi has been pursuing his goal of finding a way to make products for professional stylists.

“We were young and convinced that there was huge potential for high-quality and at the same time affordable wigs,” Bassi says.

LOTR also touched by Sari Rambut products

With his businesss partner and ex-boyfriend Giuseppe Abbate, he visited several countries before deciding to set up shop in Bali. Abbate now handles the Swiss branch of  the company, which serves the European and American markets, and visits Bali every few months to discuss product improvement.

Bassi settled in Ubud seven years ago.

“Switzerland is too boring for me,” he says. “I prefer the Bali way of living, with all its positive and negative aspects.”

Another dream of Bassi is to build a movie studio in Abuan to produce parts of movies himself – who knows which celebrities are going to find their way through the lush paddy fields of Bangli?

Source: Jakpost

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Salak Wine, Unique wine from Bali Indonesia

Have you ever heard about Salak Wine?

There are several varieties of salak grown in various parts of Indonesia.

One of the most famous is Bali’s “Sugar Salak”, known for its juicy sweetness. This is the Holy Grail of salak, fetching top dollar at the market and best served fresh from the palm.

But many salak varieties are better for a bit of human resourcefulness, such as salak chips and sweets, or even as wine.

Fifty-seven-year-old Nyoman Warta says he has “been growing salak all my life. This farm has been handed down from our ancestors for generations. We started making wine from salak a few years ago and it is selling very well,” says Warta, seated on his home veranda overlooking salak fields that roll away down the hill in a mist of green.

Salak wine, he says, is sweet and dry with an alcohol content of 13.5 percent, similar to wine made with grapes.

The process is simple, with mature salak cleaned, chopped and placed in tanks with sugar and yeast to ferment. “There is a two-week fermentation period, then we press the wine and place it in a tank for the sediment to fall. That takes about six months with filtering done monthly,” says Warta of the wine that takes on a honey gold color over time.

Like the Werdhi Guna Food cooperative, Karangasem’s salak wine industry got its start with local government assistance.

“The local government funded the fermentation tanks, filters and other tools for the wine-making process,” says Warta, who can produce 1,000 bottles of wine per month that sell for around US$10 per bottle. It takes 4 kilograms of fresh salak to make one 750-milliliter bottle of wine, says Warta. When in season, fresh salak can fall to just 10 cents a kilogram, so through wine-making farmers can earn several dollars for 4 kg of fruit versus 40 cents — or the difference between viable and non-viable farming.

Salak wine is only produced in the Sibetan area, according to Warta.

“People have been farming salak here for a long time. Perhaps it is the soil and climate that is perfect for salak. The taste of Sibetan salak is famous and now to be making wine from this fruit is good for the farmers, because in season the price of salak falls sharply. Selling our salak as wine is value-adding so farmers can make a better living,” says Warta of a centuries old farming tradition that with smart marketing and government assistance looks set to continue into the future.
Source : JakPost

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