Bali & Lombok Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Author:Lonely Planet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lonely Planet

5Eating

Apneista CafeB1

19Cafe GaramA1

20Warung EnakA1

6Drinking & Nightlife

21Wawa-Wewe IC2

WORKING IN THE SALT BRINE

For a different day at the beach, try making some salt. You start by carrying, say, 500L of ocean water across the sand to bamboo and wood funnels, which filter the water after it is poured in. Next the water goes into a palungan (shallow trough), made of palm-tree trunks split in half and hollowed out, or cement canisters where it evaporates, leaving salt behind. And that's just the start, and just what you might see in Kusamba or on the beach in Amed.

In the volcanic areas around the east coast between Sanur and Yeh Sanih in the north, a range of salt-making methods is used. What is universal is that the work is hard, but is also an essential source of income for many families.

In some places the first step is drying sand that has been saturated with sea water. It's then taken inside a hut, where more sea water is strained through it to wash out the salt. This very salty water is then poured into a palungan. Hundreds of these troughs are lined up in rows along the beaches during salt-making season (the dry season), and as the sun evaporates the water, the almost-dry salt is scraped out and put in baskets. There are good exhibits on this method at the Museum Semarajaya in Semarapura.

Most salt produced on the coast of Bali is used for processing dried fish. And that's where Amed has an advantage: although its method of making salt results in a lower yield than that using sand, its salt is prized for its flavour. In fact there is a fast-growing market for this 'artisan salt' worldwide.

Visitors to the Amed area can learn all about this fascinating process at Cafe Garam. Many of the staff here also work in salt production (ask about tours) and you can buy small bags of the precious stuff (10,000Rp) for a tiny fraction of what it costs once it reaches your local gourmet market.

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