So again another blog entry to first be written out on WordPad as the
internets aren't quite working at XL Shisha Lounge - I can log on with my
Iphone and Blackberry, but not the Netbook - weird!
So today I didn't nap - hooray!
Probably a good idea too as I couldn't sleep until 2.30 am last night and
ended up watching Horrible Bosses which was...erm...horrible really. It lacked any particularly interesting
twists, and likable characters and probably the only redeeming feature was
realising that Colin Farrell had been playing a particularly despicable
character and looked nothing like his normal attractive self.
Breakfast was a Jaffle - basically a banana and honey toasted sandwich with
fruit salad again. Rachel, Made and
Kiran came and picked me up at 9 am and Made was our driver for the day. We went up towards Kintamani and found that a
lot of tourist viewpoint places are now charging tourists just to drive
past! We first of all took the opportunity to take pictures of the lovely rice terraces which really are beautiful.
We then stopped so Rachel could
grab some breakfast whilst we enjoyed the view over Mount Batur What I particularly enjoyed was that you
could see a piece of green forest surrounded by black ash from when the last
eruption had occurred and wiped out the vegetation around it.
Tourist prices are very different - we paid
nearly £2 each for a very basic coffee and Rachel had a banana pancake for
about £2.50 - in Ubud this would cost around half this. Made however as our "driver" went into
a special room and got buffet breakfast for free for bringing us there!
We stopped off on the way to buy some fruit from a really pretty fruit
stall. Rachel let Made do the
negotiation to get a better price and bought some mangosteens - which look like
tiny aubergines, but when peeled reveal something that looks almost like a
peeled bulb of garlic and tastes a bit like Mango. I really like them. I also got to try something that looked a bit
like a date on the outside, but almost like a passion fruit on the inside and
tasted like plum. Neither Made or Rachel
knew what it was called! A very sweet
little girl was also trying to sell us a basket in between hiding behind the
fruit.
Made then drove us to the Holy Water temple - Tirta Empul - Tampak Siring Temple and I put on the sarong that
I'd brought with me from home that I'd worn to Rachel's wedding in 2009 and
Rachel lent me a sash. The temple was
really beautiful and the water comes from a volcanic spring and you can see the
water bubbling up through the bottom of one of the very clear pools. There are several springs which you get into
and pray at each spring before moving onto the next. You can get right in, but even though I had a
change of clothes it did seem like it would be a bit of a hassle, so I opted
for dipping my hand in and splashing water on my face. We got accosted around the temple by some
excitable Malaysian ladies who were desperate to have their photo taken with
us...or rather Kiran! On the way out it
was quite sad as you have to walk through an area of shops and there are loads! Rachel could hear that they were shouting out
prices to the Indonesian tourists in front of us of 5000 rupiah (c35p) and then
"one dollar" to us! Rachel
bought a nice hat for Maya to make up for her staying at home. I felt almost guilty for not buying anything
as everyone was trying very hard and they had obviously spent time in building
up their wares for sale.
We then to grab some lunch at a place that one of Made's friends had
recommended and said did some Thai food.
It didn't do Thai food and whilst I had a good set meal with a soup
starter, Nasi Campur main and banana fritters with ice cream and gorgeous
caramel sauce, it was pretty expensive - 165000 rupiah and Rachel was very
disappointed with her soup that was tiny and 35000. Madea again went to the "drivers"
area and probably had a much better feed than we did! I did like my main course and my dessert was
particularly tasty!
We then went back to the house and I got to see Rachel's office and the new
kitchen. I didn't get to meet her cat
Queenie though which was sad as she's been missing for a few days - but she did
come back tonight hooray! Rachel then
dug out the wedding video which I'd not seen and was interesting. It brought back lots of memories from the
first time that I visited including Coddy's awful Abe Lincoln style beard and
me before contact lenses!
Rachel put
Kiran in the Halloween pumpkin sleepsuit that I'd bought for him and we took
some lovely posed photos of him next to a pumpkin that she'd picked up earlier
on our trip.
Made then dropped me off at my hotel and I got a well needed shower before
working out that I can Skype Coddy from an app on my IPhone - he showed me the
cats and I showed him around my hotel room and I decided on my next venue for
dinner - XL Shisha Lounge. A trip adviser review complimented it on having "lots of Pillows" what more
could I want!
I have also planned out a bit more what I'm doing for the next 5 days I'm
here (can't believe that it's going so fast!
Tomorrow I'm going to do a Yoga class at The Yoga Barn - I'm going for
the beginners class as I don't trust myself to know what I'm doing otherwise
even though I've been doing yoga for about 6 years! The class will be 110000 rupiah - about
£6/7. I'm then going to have a massage
somewhere good.
Then I hope to go to the Kecak fire dancing display at 7.30pm. On
Friday I will be doing a bike tour Banyan Tree Bike Tours - which I'm a bit worried about as I sweat
so horribly here just walking around that I'm going to be soaking wet by doing
any physical exertion! Hopefully it will
be ok - Rachel reckons it should be mostly downhill.
Then I'm trying to get booked onto a Batik
class - from I Nyoman Suradnya - hopefully Rachel will let me pay for her to come too as a thank you for
being my personalised tour guide/chaperone. I am then keen to go back to
Tjampuan with Rachel for a spa day - maybe we could fit it in on the same day
as Batik? Other than that what else do I
want to do? More shopping, maybe a day
at the beach? So much to fit in and so
little time left! I might just have to
come back again very soon!
I think you went a bit overboard on the saturation of these photos :p It's true we have so much stuff left to do and so little time left, arghhh! Maybe i should get a nanny to follow us round and look after the kids for the next few days :p
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but I was enjoying the novelty of all the colour - I quite like it really!!!!
ReplyDeleteI definitely think I will need to come back again soon, I'm going to keep my eye out for cheap flights next year... either that or persuade my company that they need an office opening in Bali :-)