We have promised Snubs that today we will visit the Safari Park, and Muchie's best mate 'O' and his wife 'C' arrive from Melbourne this afternoon to join us in the lead up to The Event.
While other kids are crazy about Ben10, Toy Story 3 or Transformers, pretty much the only thing that floats Snubs' boat is animals. Admittedly this does include dinosaurs, but as they're pretty hard to track down apart from the odd crocodile or lizard and the obvious similarities between a rhino and a triceratops, the Safari Park is the closest thing to heaven a three year old animal lover will find.
We have arranged for Kadek to come and pick us up from Peneeda so that we arrive at the Safari Park at 10am , and to pick us up around 3pm after he has met O&C at the airport and dropped them back at Peneeda.
Before we leave I dash across the road from Peneeda to the 'So Clean' laundry to pick up the washing I was supposed to pick up yesterday. It's nicely packed and ironed and I take it back to the room to put away, knowing that Munch is running low on clean t-shirts. It turns out that 'So Clean' in fact means, 'Not At All Clean', as almost every piece of laundry has exactly the same stains on it that were there when I dropped it off - so much so that I questioned whether or not I had unwittingly asked for an ironing service only. This is the first time in Sanur that I have seen 'laundry by the kilo' advertised instead of by the piece, so I chalked this up to my bad decision and vowed to find somewhere else close by - there is little value in complaining about these things, this is true for most of southeast asia, (with the notable exception of China), where any form of confrontation or blaming is usually avoided at all costs. I find it's best just to cut my losses and move on.
There are no queues at the Safari Park when we arrive and we pay for our tickets and sail into the first few sections along with a few others who are around and take the short bus ride to the main park. We discover that it is piranha feeding time very shortly - so we make our way to where there are some tanks of fish and round the corner to find a very big crowd of people in front of a small tank full of the bitey little critters. Not much hope of seeing anything here! We linger for awhile as Snubs repeats 'fiss!' 'Look! Fiss Mummy!' ad nauseum and Mookie nods off to sleep in his pram.
The feeding session begins just as we are about to leave, and the spectacle consists of a zoo handler giving a short introduction about the piranha and then invites a 10 year old boy in the crowd to launch a defrosted size 11 chicken tied to a string into the tank. With a giant splash the feeding frenzy begins, and in 3 minutes the entire chicken is gone.
The crowd dissipates and everyone moves on to the next attraction - the Animal Education Show. On the way we spy a small bale with people queuing for photos with a baby orangutan - 50k for a ticket to use your own camera. I've read the various reports on the forum about the animals being drugged etc...but this little guy looked active enough to me. A true celebrity - he just got up and walked off to stretch his legs or grab a drink whenever he felt like it - bugger the waiting paparazzi!
The animal education show was brief and interesting - with enough happening at the right speed to keep even very young kids entertained. At the conclusion of the show, we visit the elephants being bathed in a small pool and pay 50k for a big bunch of carrots for Snubs to feed to a baby elephant, while Munch takes a photo. Snubs nods enthusiastically as we approach before he completely loses his mind in fear and throws the carrots vaguely in the elephant's direction while he runs in the other. We have a great picture of an airborne bunch of carrots. The iPhone 4S retina camera does a very decent job at high speeds.
The rest of the early afternoon is spent wandering around from attraction to attraction - we took the safari ride to see more animals, and Snubs thoroughly enjoyed himself. Mookie slept pretty much the whole time until we stopped for lunch at the Uma restaurant.
Anyone who has visited Melbourne Zoo in the last few years would agree that it is an absolutely top class set-up and that they do a fantastic job in creating amazing habitats for animals and an excellent learning environment for visitors. One thing I've never understood though - is why the group of people who manage the zoo would be prepared to go to such great lengths to aquire the very freshest bamboo leaves grown only on the northern slope of a remote Chinese mountain and hand-picked by dedicated Buddhist monks for their asian elephants, and yet they see no problem with subjecting the paying public to Chiko rolls, cold pies, soggy chips and charging $15 for a curried egg sandwich. It makes no sense, and yet we go back year after year to look at the animals and then consume a month's worth saturated fat and sodium in one fell swoop.
This being my impression of what mass catering looks like - image our excitement when we enter Uma Restaurant and are presented with 6 or 7 different 'stations' where you can order off a chalk board menu and they cook it to order within a few minutes, at extremely reasonable prices. We've not had a huge amount of luck with our commitment to trying new restaurants - but the food at Uma was suprisingly great. Snubs and Mookie had a Cap Cay, Munch the garlic butter prawns, and I ordered a mie goreng - all cooked fresh to order and served with rice - the serves were so generous we couldn't finish it all. It was fresh, tasty, reasonably priced, and despite the large size of the place - not a bad environment to eat in. For the less adventurous there was pizza, steaks, bbq'd food, desserts and a 'western food section' with hamburgers, chips etc. What more could you ask for? The dishes we ordered were around 45-60k each, so really not too different from what you would pay at a restaurant in Sanur.
Fuller than a fat man's knickers we waddle across to the water park -armed with our swimming gear thanks to the advice from the forum, and spend a couple of hours splashing around and cooling off. The top pool is perfect for toddlers and a great setup, and a brilliant way to finish the day.
Kadek calls to say that O&C are at the hotel safely and that he's on his way to get us, and so we pack up our gear and meet him out the front for the short trip back to Peneeda.
Munchie gets the boys down for a late nap and I find O&C at the restaurant on the beach settling into their very first cocktail - so good to see them again! C mentions that they have no idea at all what to get Munchie as a 40th birthday present, and my mind turns to the Barong - I'm now wondering if it might be affordable if we all pitch in. And so Operation Barong begins... at the same time we have a mission planned for Monday to finalise the plans for The Event, including finding somewhere beachfront for cocktails, and choosing a restaurant to book dinner that meets Munchie's ever-growing list of demands (more on that later). He is a Scorpio, so resistance is futile - he will have what he wants.
None of us are super hungry so we settle for a liquid dinner and play cards outside our room. O introduces me to the concept of a pinch of salt in my V&T (even better in a G&T as I was to find out later) - never underestimate the power of seasoning! It really enhances the flavor of the tonic and the lime, and at a stretch you could even argue for the added benefit of helping to replace lost electrolytes.
Out of the corner of my eye I spy a little face with big googly eyes peeking out from one of the rafters. In my excitement (and yes, possibly a tiny bit over-refreshed) I squeal 'GAAARRRYYY!!!!' the noise obviously scaring the bejeesus out of Gary who beats a hasty retreat into the roof again. O&C have already been briefed about our roommate, and although they didn't catch sight of him that night, they were still pleased to hear he'd finally come home :)
Sampai nanti...
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