During the summer of 2019, I enjoyed my last ‘student’ holidays. This is the reason I decided to visit Indonesia for a month with my 2 best friends.
It has been an amazing trip, the most amazing one I ever did. Discovering great places and amazing people.
Even though in my opinion, the Google Maps community is not as well developed than in other parts of the world, the app still made us discover some magical places.
It is one of those magical places I want to introduce you to; Terang Bulan Bali Barat in Banjuwedang, Bali, Indonesia.
We discovered that place during our last week of holidays.
Martabak (basically a fried omelet) & Terang Bulan (desert) is a specialty we discovered via locals at the very beginning of our trip, we immediately fell in love with it. It is sold by a sort of trailer, and sell 90% both (Martabak & Terang Bulan) so that people can enjoy their main dish and desert at the same place.
That explains why we used Google Maps as much as possible to look for “Terang Bulan” in the search options. It could not always help us find what we were looking for but using Google Maps + asking locals and you always have a 100% hit.
Let’s go back to that night of 30th of July 2019. My friends and I were once again hungry and wanted to eat during the last week of our trip again a nice Martabak.
We were on our own in the hostel except of the owner, Bli Kadek. Bli Kadek has an amazing life story so if one day you have the chance to pass by Banjuwedang I would recommend you to stay at his place (Backpacker Bali Barat)! The stay and surroundings were lovely.
(Bli Kadek in the center)
We asked him if he knew a good place to eat Martabak in Banjuwedang, unfortunately he was not a big fan of it so did not really know.
This is when Google Maps helped us out, we immediately found a place to eat not too far away from our hostel. We did not know what to expect because it had never been reviewed!
Ali, the owner, was working with his son and was really happy to see tourists come to his place. It does not happen often he said.
We ordered, Ali had extra focus preparing our food. We enjoyed the food next to his cooking trailer, while eating the most amazing Martabak we ever had, we discussed our love for Indonesia, Indonesian people and Indonesian food 
We promised him a 5 star note on Google Maps because of the fun and delicious night we have had. He knew he was registered on Google Maps but could not get any reviews, Ali was super happy so we would give him one.
Then Ali wanted to use us for this “marketing” and took a picture of us together and posted it online, he hoped it would attract more tourists to his place.
We will never know if this has contributed to his business but I often think back to that night we have spend there with passionated people like Ali and his son.
Happiness is really to be found in the smallest places and at random times, but destiny always make things happen.