Over a year ago, I watched a video about Dustin Humphrey on one of my favorite websites and made a mental note that, were I ever to find myself in Bali, I would check out Deus Ex Machina Canggu as anywhere named "The Temple of Enthusiasm" is probably worth a visit.
So after Uluwatu, we packed up our scooter and headed off Canggu knowing only what we saw in the video. And that it was on the coast.
We liked it so much that we stayed for three and half weeks.
Canggu's fruit shops began a morning tradition of giant bowls of fresh fruit, muesli and yogurt.
One of my favorite food finds in Bali has been the Snake Fruit. Once you pick off the scaly brown outside, the meat of the fruit (the flesh of the fruit? the fruit? what do you call the inside of a fruit?) is shaped like a cashew crossed with a garlic clove but tastes like an apple. It's delicious.
We stayed at the beautiful Rio's Guest House the first few days and took advantage of the shared open air kitchen outside.
Purple gated entrance which has ruined me because now I want all of my future homes to have purple gated entrances.
Canggu has the best of of both (Bali) worlds with black sand beaches and sprawling green rice paddies. It has a growing creative ex-pat population, so street art pops up around every corner as well as great shops and restaurants. Along with the Indonesian street food and warungs, there's many Australian/European style cafes which means very, very good coffee. Traditional "Bali coffee" is instant coffee sludge so good espresso is (for me) a very exciting find.
A very serious 8 year old shop keeper. You should've seen him chop up my coconut with a machete. Seriously.
Although we weren't in the market for custom motorbikes or surfboards, we of course checked out Deus ex Machina. The Temple of Enthusiasm was a bit fancier than I expected but it was a cool kind of community meeting place for travelers, resident ex-pats and Indonesians alike. With the shop, restaurant, movie nights, art gallery and barber shop it had something for everyone.
We returned there every Wednesday night for Movie Night where they projected films outside and everyone lays around on bean bag chairs, enjoying the free popcorn. My favorite was Cool Hand Luke. I looked forward to Wednesday every week because apparently even if you put me in an exotic, tropical environment I still secretly just want to go to the movies.