Bale-Bale

At our house we have a nice terrace. It is facing East. Beside our house there is an empty ground, actually a field of somebody else. We are lucky that we don't have to face high walls of other people's house while sitting in this terrace. Now it is raining season in Indonesia. After the rain the air becomes clean. Mostly we can see Semeru mountain clearly from the terrace. This is my favourite place of this house.

When we planned to have a terrace in our house we also planned to have a bale-bale (a long wood bench) there. It is not as easy as we thought to find it. We liked to have an old Javanese one, that has a space in it. People used the space in bale-bale to keep rice.

We asked friends and other people if they know where we could buy such bale-bale. We also went to antique shops in Malang but they mostly have a modified one.

           

When we went to Surabaya we passed an old antique shop outside Malang. Yes, even the shop looks antique. It was almost 1,5 hours from Malang. But our desire was bigger than the distance so we went there.

Our visit was worth. They did have an old bale-bale. It is made of teak, had a space in it with two openings (board that can be opened and closed). It looks good and elegant. According to the shop owner the bale-bale is already 80 years old. The owner is a nice man who looks much younger than his age. He also speaks Dutch and he knows an interesting story of every item he has in his shop. That's why we stayed there longer than we planned.

Now the bale-bale stands in our terrace, a really eye catcher. To lay there comfortably we put cushions on it that are made special for this bale-bale. I am really happy that we have found and bought this outdoor furniture.

We already have good weather and good place to sit.  What we still miss is a barbeque, like these.

           

Maybe next time. Who knows?