Friday 19/10
Looking back at my diary at this point, I notice my notes becoming sparse - with the last few days of our holiday flying by way too fast, we settled into our routine - breakfast and yoga then shopping, lunch, swim (and maybe a nap or massage or both) then dinner.
Today I grabbed a light lunch of black sticky rice at Casa Luna lunch while pounding the pavement and then had another swimming afternoon. Cafe Havana again for a quick dinner before getting the scheduled salsa lessons (free every Friday at 5pm). All the staff were involved and another 8 randoms including one expat Jen who features in the Ubud writers book and the lovely Kim from Perth (both excellent dancers). We got thrown in the deep end, doing progressions and all sorts of turns and generally having a great time. There was even an airconditioner to stand in front of to cool down a bit before embarking on the next whirl.
Saturday 19/10
Yoga again, then some reading and (not much) journal writing until lunch, when we went to Murni's Warung, just down at the bottom of the gorge. The menu looked good, the food was well presented but it just wasn't tasty and the meat was tough. However they redeemed themselves with the palm sugar sago pudding - if you like sago, it is certainly worth a try (maybe as afternoon tea so you don't need to force down a main course).
Then we got a massage at Trinadi Salon on Jalan Bisma - good massage but with no airconditioning it was just too hot to enjoy properly.
H had wanted to try the Jazz Cafe so we went there for dinner. Nice food, not remarkable but the singer in the band was - she out-Janiced Janice Joplin, great voice. Fully airconditioned for a change, it felt kinda weird being so cool!
Sunday 20/10
No yoga this morning so I'd booked in a silver jewellery class at Chez Monique. There's lots of reviews on Trip Advisor so I won't go on, but it was really good, and I want to go back and do it again - not only because I enjoyed it but also because my first jewellery attempt, a simple disc pendant, didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to - next time I'll have a design ready made. H is an amateur toolmaker (makes model steam trains from the ground up) so he did much better. The tools were all pretty basic but it was so interesting to do - and makes me realise that all the jewellery I'd seen and bought was all hand made. Amazing.
Lunch at Bridges - yum, yum, yum. The only thing wrong with having lunch here is that when it's not dark, you see all the plastic bags that have been washed down through the gorge, caught on trees. People, if you have a dog or know someone with a dog - take your shopping bags home and use them as poo bags, don't leave them in Bali! I know the locals chuck them as well, but at least we can do our bit!
But the food was gorgeous and apart from a group of Japanese we were the only people in the place.
After a snooze and a swim we went to Lezat on Jalan Sukma at the invitation of Jen from Cafe Havana the other night. Good band and Jen sang a couple of numbers (she can actually sing, it wasn't karaoke) but we exited when the reggae started and went home to pack. Do not want to go!
Monday 21/10
We managed to fit in one last yoga lesson and the gods arranged for the almost ever present humidity to drop enough for us to get a clear view of the volcanos while we were doing it. Just beautiful.
Then we went back to the Ibah for our final packup and checked out.
I'll pause here to summarise Ubud - of course we ended up really loving it. It's so much prettier than the coast and really feels like somewhere people live, rather than just existing for tourists like Legian/Seminyak. It's situated in some steep gorges and its much greener with lots more trees. The Ibah added to the slight feeling of fairytaleness with its lovely grounds and architecture.
To come back to earth with a bump, shopping is nowhere near as good though -MoFoRo has about the best range. The Ubud market has been mostly ripped down, although an abbreviated version still exists at the eastern end. I found people much more willing to bargain here - actually probably paid a bit too much for some things as I wasn't expecting them to drop the price so easily. Ah well, we're only talking about a couple of dollars.
It's a lot quieter with most places winding down around 10pm so if you're not that much into late nights it's good.
So where was I? Yes, we're at that yucky stage when you know the next night you spend won't be in Bali, and the next day, you'll be at home. And it always happens far too soon!
We had arranged with Agung to take us down to the coast at about lunchtime because thanks to some helpful advice on BTF, I had booked us into a cheap Harris hotel in Tuban so we could do a bit of last-minute shopping and have a swim and a shower before the night flight home.
After the usual long drive down (with Agung helpfully suggesting all sorts of stops on the way - he was such a salesman!) we turned up to the hotel - to find I'd somehow booked the wrong Harris. This one, rather than being in Tuban and 5 mins from the airport, the beach and the Discovery Mall, was on Sunset Road and at least 20-25 mins from anything, especially through the heavy traffic. Sigh. We couldn't swap the booking so made the most of it - they have one in Jakarta as well so I suppose it could have been worse. It was quite a nice hotel and very good value for about $50, but no Balinese personality at all.
We got a cab into Legian - one transport guy wanted to charge us 100,000 to get there so we opted to get the front desk to call a Blue Bird taxi and it cost us 25,000. I've had it up to pussy's bow with these rip off transport chaps (except our Agung of course)!
Lunch at a mediocre cafe playing Rod Stewart repeatedly - should have gone back to the Kopi Pot, the food was much better and we wouldn't have ended up with Rod-inspired indigestion!
We did a bit of shopping around the Kuta Square area but I honestly can't see why anyone likes Matahari that much - I tried hard but I couldn't find one thing I really wanted to buy. However there was a bookshop that sold Balinese street directories! I love street directories (runs in the family; Dad likes the phone book) and I have got a lot of use out of this one for this JBR. I can only imagine it will drive the transport guys mad next time - get some of my own back!
We also dropped into the supermarket at Matahari to get some nibblies for the plane and lo and behold met up with Kim, from the Cafe Havana. Who'da thunk? It was nice to catch up with her - I was pretending that we all lived there and were just getting in a quick chat while doing the daily shop. I wish!
H wanted to do some PC stuff so we grabbed a cab back to the (distant) Harris. I noticed that it was just up the road from Carrefour (yes, it was that remote!) so I got the cabbie to drop H then take me there. My general feeling of blues at this being our last few hours in Bali must have influenced me because although it was huge, there wasn't anything I really found I wanted to buy - and believe me my rupiah were burning a hole in my pocket. I wandered around for a bit, got a few bottles of water, checked out the Periplus bookstore downstairs (street directories much cheaper!) then walked back to the Harris, deciding that I'd stick to the Bintang supermarket next time.
After a bit of luggage adjustment, suddenly it was almost time to go. We got a quick bite in the restaurant (they were great, rushed things along as we had left it pretty late) then we had a bit of a tussle with the front desk staff on check out who wanted to charge us for taking stuff out of the minibar. So why did I carry 2kgs of water home from Carrefour if I was going to take it from the minibar? In fact, now I think about it, we actually left a few things from the supermarket in the room! Anyway finally they decided against charging us (I would like to see their faces when they realised they'd stuffed up although they probably couldn't have given a toss), and we flew into a cab and dashed to the airport. Knowing we were late, the cabbie screamed along at an unprecedented speed for Bali - at one point we raced along some blocked off roadworks to save some time! We slid into the airport on two wheels and I chucked almost all of my remaining rupiah at Fangio then we unloaded and belted in, right on time. Of course with business class we had heaps of time again and so we relaxed and calmed down in the Premier lounge (free with business class). Unlike the other lounges, this one is quite decent with good food and clean loos. Pretty big too.
Note that you can bring liquids through the first security but not into the actual departure lounge at the gate.
So the time came to go down to the gate - which is when H realised he'd left his phone somewhere in security. I bolted to the gate, preparing to hold the plane but he got it back in record time and so I didn't need to hurl myself onto the tarmac. We had to catch a bus there - it felt like the plane was parked somewhere over near Benoa Bay (actually looking at the street directory that's not far wrong) but finally we sank back into our big fat business class seats. But don't throw daggers yet - we also had a really talky old lady who obviously couldn't sleep and kept yapping at the flight attendant all night - good clear voice too, I could hear right through my earplugs.
Also I now know that I can't sleep much better in Virgin's semi-business class than I can in economy, even with my own comfy pillow from home. Hello Garuda for next time, they have flat beds.
Ach it was cold when we got back to Sydney! It's so quiet. And ordered. And dull! Still it's nice to know that Bali will always be there - and that I actually love it more now than I did when I first visited 25 years ago!