More Ikat

It's another ikat day. We've developed a spoilt taste for it. Must be handmade, must be natural dye, must be bought more or less from the woman who made it. Should be useful.

In an early morning market otherwise only for its fresh donuts, we are assailed by an English speaking woman who insists we visit her in the next village in her "traditional" house.

Cross river, cross gravel, through bananas and palms, we wind our way. She's on the road waiting for us. Turns out Maria's family have been head of the village back 14 generations, and the house is its centre. We turn up in the middle of nowhere, are shown in for our own private exhibition, and then pursue the ikat. Spoilt is as spoilt does. This piece is beautiful. The dyes include indigo, teak bark, coral and macadamia nuts. We buy buy buy.


On down an ever worsening road plunging downwards to the sea, to a village where the guide book promises you slashed tyres if you don't buy. We envisage tour buses, young men smoking menacingly and flicking chains from their mopeds. As it is, not much evidence of mass tourism. And it's a gang of betel chewing old women who assault us, threatening from the shade of a large grave and possibly more scary than boys on bikes. We're grateful that one of the pieces is both stunning and affordable. We leave hastily clinging to our prize before they change their minds.