What is a nice refreshing drink that you must try when coming to Bali? Es Kalapa, of course!
They are sold in fancy restaurants, little warungs as well as at little stands that only sell this popular drink. It consists of Young Coconut Juice on ice, served with a little Honey syrup…They scrape the inside and put some of the fleshy white edible parts in your drink….Hmmm Yummy!
The other day, mom & dad when to pick up some Es Kalapa Bungkus (takeaway) at one of the little stands close to our house. It’s the same man who’s there everyday with his pile of coconuts waiting to be cut open and served.
In the scorching heat, they waited as the Bapak finished the order of 3 Es Kalapas for the client in front of them. The standard price is around Rp 3000 (less than $0.40) for one Es Kalapa, and this is what the previous client had paid.
Mom and dad patiently waited for their 3 drinks to be prepared, and packed into small plastic bags**.
**It is quite popular to have your takeaway food or drink served into many little plastic bags. Dad gets pretty frustrated with this, particularly for dishes with lots of sauce. We don’t know how they do it, but the Balinese tie the tightest knots which makes it sometimes impossible to open your takeaway without making a total mess. Ok, back to the coconut drinks…
When the Pak handed over the drinks to mom and asked for Rp 12,000 for the 3 drinks, she was a bit surprised cuz the previous client had clearly paid the lokal price of Rp 9,000 for 3 exact same drinks.
The Pak saw the hesitation in her eyes, and he proceeded to explain in Bahasa Indonesia that he had more juice in his drinks (Banyak!) compared to the standard places and that’s when he said: “Spesial Price… for you!”
Mom kindly paid the Pak, hopped onto the motorbike with dad, and they went on their way, still looking forward to sipping their cool drinks…
Although many people say that mom and dad look like Lokal Indonesian people, they definitely got the Spesial price for “Bule“ today (Bule = white person/foreigner)…Ah well, that’s what you get for not learning to speak the language after almost a year in Bali….
Little Sumo Girl 