Ok, so I didn't post yesterday and it's largely because a post where the total of the days activities can be summarised as follows:
Woke up + ate breakfast (banana pancakes) + went back to my room to read more of "The Hunger Games" + fell asleep + woken up by Rachel, Maya and Kiran at past 3 pm to go swimming wouldn't be a massively interesting entry!
Swimming was fun though - I was supervising a very adventurous and fearless Maya who was determined to push my five foot three and a half inches stature to the limit when throwing herself into the deep end! Even when she managed to jump in the shallow end by herself when we weren't looking for a split second and her head went under the water she didn't seem to care! After swimming we got changed and then Made picked up Maya on his scooter and Rach, Kiran and me went to grab some dinner at Devilicious. Kiran did a bit of sleeping, but then woke up and got very excited again, especially when we went back to the hotel room! I had a yummy Laksa curry and Rach had a burger! Western food becomes a novelty when you eat Indonesian food as standard.
After Made had picked up Rach and Kiran I headed out to pick up some Wifi and grab a Bintang at Arts Cafe and look over emails and Facebook. It was reasonably busy and friendly and there was a live band who were ok at playing covers, my only grip was that they played "Imagine" when they had a request to play The Beatles!
This morning I got up again and had breakfast (vegetarian omelette) and then headed back to my room to finish "The Hunger Games" which I did, eventually, but my mistake was reading whilst lying down and so I ended up having another nap until about 2pm (let's blame the jet lag finally catching up on me perhaps?) I was planning on a massage, but Rach had messaged to say they'd pick me up about 4.30pm, and I had left it too late and there is nothing worse than trying to rush relaxation! So I wandered along the lower end of Monkey Forest Road and had my first successful attempt at haggling and bought a much needed fan for 40000 rupiah, down from 55000 (only saving about £1, but at least I felt I was doing the right thing!)
I then bought a red vest top for 75000 which was already on sale (about £4.50) as I've realised that whilst I have bought lots of clothes with me,there is a distinct lack of tops! Grabbed some lunch (only 32000 rupiah for iced tea, Nasi Goreng and fruit plate - about £1.92!) and then Made, Rachel, Maya and Kiran picked me up outside the hotel at 4.30pm to meet up with their friend Stephanie and be able to take some photos in the sunset light for THE SLING DIARIES. The blog entry is here if you would like to take a look Sling Diaries.
It was a bit of an ordeal to get there as one of the roads we wanted to take was closed, so we doubled back on ourselves back into Ubud, and then got to the other side of where it was closed and realised it wasn't the road we wanted it! It was a race to get the photos before the light went! At least we didn't end up like this truck that fell into the rice field (it did get out again)!
Fortunately we managed to pick up Stephanie in time, get to a pretty rice field and take some lovely pictures of Rachel with Kiran in the sling.
We then went for a lovely chilled meal at a Warung and I had very tasty (and quite spicy!) fish. Maya and Kiran used the opportunity to dance with their Dad.
Then we went back to transfer the photos from Stephanie's camera to Rachel's Macbook. After a few technical hitches we managed, but it gave us a good opportunity to meet her MASSIVE pet rabbit who was lovely. Kiran and Maya thought so too.
Stephanie has a very useful website for anyone thinking about travelling to Asia here which covers places beyond Bali.
Made then drove us back to Ubud and dropped me off and I'm currently at Bar Luna catching up on Facebook and drinking a Bintang listening to a very good live band called Papyafil . The leaflet on my table has this to say about them:
Mike (strings/voice), Enti (bass) and Defris (drums and percussion) are Papayafil, a band, like papaya which is easy to digest and a symbol of the tropics bearing an exotic flavour that can be heard in their music. After several incarnations, one as Cozy Republic and several musiciam changes, Papayafil was recently launched with their current line up of musicians in 2009.
The band includes the musical influences of each band member: reggae, folk, blues, funk, soul, rock and some spice from traditional and world music.
They really are pretty good. Here is their Facebook page
Just like a kid at Christmas, I didn't end up being able to sleep until about 2am last night as I was very excited to be here.
This is the gorgeous view from my room window.
Breakfast was served between 7am and 10am so I set the alarm for 8am and made my way down to the dining area. Breakfast was simple - pineapple, papaya, watermelon and orange (with a green skin) and an egg sandwich, but it was all very tasty and served in lovely surroundings.
The guy cleaning my room came over and returned my key asking me
"How long are you staying?"
"12 days"
"12 days here? That is too long"
Certainly customer service honesty there - either that or he was trying to sell me a tour!
Rachel then messaged to say that she was coming over and arrived with Made and the kids. Maya was very excited about her belated birthday presents including Hello Kitty balloons and a Hello Kitty book and Kiran was happy to just try and bite the balloons. Maya was very keen to go swimming so we wandered down to the pool and Maya was very happy and confident in the water and trying hard to get Rachel to go towards the deep end!
We went back to the room and got changed (Maya into the green dress my Mum bought her which definitely fits and will do for a while!) to head out for lunch and Rachel put Kiran in the sling which looked very comfortable. I can definitely see why these are favoured from walking along Ubud streets that are uneven with holes - Maya found some of them pretty tricky to navigate with her little feet.
We went to Three Monkeys Cafe and I had a Nasi Goreng which was beautifully served and very tasty and Rachel took the advantage to have some western food and had a Greek Platter. It was all very tasty and there were some lovely patient waiting staff who brought out some fish food so that a mischievous Maya who had been carefully throwing decorative stones into the pond could feed the fish instead!
Maya and Kiran were both pretty sleepy at this point and so I carried a sleeping Kiran back to the room and Maya went in the sling with Rachel. They didn't do a great deal of sleeping, but we sat outside my room on the porch playing with toys and drinking Balinese coffee and persuading Maya that she didn't want to go running off down the steps as there was a big snake down there (she doesn't actually appear to be afraid of anything, so this was not as successful a deterrent as you would imagine). I am in much admiration for Rachel being able to look after a very spirited 2 year old who is not afraid of anything (real or imaginary) and a very happy baby boy who launches himself towards perilous drops off the side of the steps given half a chance, I would be totally exhausted, but Rachel seems to be taking it in her stride and Maya and Kiran are both happy and lively children. (Kiran has the most amazing shy grin that he does when you smile at him - it's gorgeous!
Made came and picked Rachel and the kids up and I went for a snooze and watched the end of Eat Pray Love and then headed out for dinner at about 8.30pm. I went to Bumi Bali which was totally empty which worried me a little, but the food was lovely - I had a special for 130000 rupiah (about £8) which was a starter of cramcam - spicy chicken soup, duck with rice, vegetables and satay sauce and then for dessert - Godoh - banana fritters. They weren't massive portions, but I was totally stuffed - the hot weather must be a good appetite suppressant! I had a glass of Balinese rice wine too which was nice, but did taste a bit like the tea and raisin wine I attempted to make under my bed when I was 14. I went into Bumi Bali as they seem to have Yoga classes, cookery classes and also some very good deals on spa packages - traditional Massage, facial, hair cream bath (!), manicure and pedicure with polish for 4.5 hours in total and only 320000 rupiah plus 15% tax - about £22!
I then went to buy some more provisions in the form of drinks including grape juice and a couple of cans of Bintang (avoided the Tebz - tea & soda which does actually look like something I should make myself try!). I popped into the restaurant attached to my hotel for a coffee (was contemplating venturing solo into a bar, but they were either full to the brim and very loud with live music or completely empty - neither of which appealed to me in my still sleepy and jet lagged state of mind. Will do something more exciting tomorrow, I have promised myself)
Sorry there are no pictures on this blog post, after a very successful first night of internet, it's been much more intermittent and temperamental today and also I forgot to transer my photos onto the netbook (the lead is back in the room, I'm in the breakfast area sat next to the wifi router!) I'll update the post when I have better wifi connectivity!
Update - pics are all on now!
