Thanks guys for your positive comments. I was a bit reluctant to post as I thought it was too boring. Caron, your response to my request for any information regarding the Sri Phala a few months ago helped me to decide to book it. Thank you for that, it's a delightful hotel & we will certainly be staying there again.
If anyone would like to see photos of the Sri Phala please email me and I can send some to you.
Peta
Day Two, Sunday
Time to stop and smell the roses. (or whatever that smell is!)
I'm awake bright and early, the damned body clock is doing it's job well, but needs retraining into holiday mode. I'm sure it won't take too long. I decide to laze in the bath and use the beautiful body shop products that Janne gave me for my birthday, my own little private spa. It's a nice way to begin the day.
Breakfast is included in the price and we've been wondering what it will be like. I'm pleased that it's not a buffet. I'm not a fan of buffets, either here or in Australia. The breakky is lovely, with a choice of eggs any way, served with sausages, vegetables, bacon and potatoes. Or you can have pancakes & cereal, and there are fruit juices and fresh fruit, toast and tea or coffee. If you want to go asian, there is also nasi goreng on the menu.
The big group of Asians (with one European couple amongst them) that are staying at the hotel are having breakfast as well, and we are a bit worried that we may have to wait for ages but luckily we have come in after their breaky has been cooked. They appear to be a pretty wealthy bunch, with a few very serious looking underwater cameras, and one very serious looking boob job amongst them. One of the couples have a very tiny baby and a toddler with them. It seems the toddler's name is Darryl.(???)
I have brought a bag of 'Kenny Koala' chockies with me (like caramello bears) and give them to our waiter Adit, and ask him to share them with the staff. I always feel a bit uncomfortable handing things out, but the big smile on Addit's face makes it ok. I hope they enjoy them, I had to protect them with my life to stop Glenn eating some when I got them out of my bag before breaky.s.
As we are leaving we start chatting to a young couple who have just arrived for breakfast. They too arrived only yesterday, but what dramas they had!! After travelling for 28 hours from Denmark, with a couple of stopovers they finally arrived in Bali only to find that Singapore Airlines had sent their luggage on a holiday to an unknown destination of it's own. They finally arrived at the Puri Santrian hours later only to find that there was no room for them, even thought they had a confirmation number after booking online with them. It seems that this is pretty common at the Puri Santrian, and the overflow usually ends up at the Griya, but they must have been fully booked as well as the couple ended up at the Sri Phala with us. They were a delightful young couple, and were still cheerful after everything that had happened. Mind you, they did say they weren't smiling too much yesterday. I hope they get their bags soon. We never did see them again. Maybe they went looking for their luggage!!
We laze around the pool and I start this diary. I hope I either learn very quickly to type much faster or say less. I think the saying less will probably be the more likely option. (I spent most of the morning typing)
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As it gets close to midday Glenn decides that he's getting a bit hungry, so we head off to find some lunch. It's amazing how you can eat a huge breakfast then lay around all morning doing nothing, then feel like eating again so soon.
We decide to turn left into the laneway at the back of the hotel and try to get to the beach this way. It ends up in someone's backyard, so back we turn. It was a worthwhile little walk as we've found a laundry just a few meters from the hotel.
When we get to the beach we decide to turn left and see what's up that way. Not far around the corner is the Ananda Restaurant., which looks very inviting, so in we go an take a seat right at the front with a magnificent view over the ocean. The tide is fully in now and the view is so totally different to yesterday evening's.
Our meal was very good, Glenn had Ayam Goreng Cay Cap and I had grilled fish with an avocado salsa. The fish was unlike any I have eaten before. It was quite a tough texture but tasted sweet and nice. The cost was Rp 81000 for our meals plus a diet coke and three very delicious and cold banana juices
While we were there we were entertained by a very overcrowded boat load of people arriving from Lembongan Island. Because the tide was so high the boat was unable to come in very close to shore and the poor people had to jump in to thigh deep water to get ashore. I felt sorry for the very little ones .. it was up to their armpits and quite a struggle, with bags held overhead. There were a lot of peole on board wearing red t shirts that were involved in some sort of butterfly race. I wonder what that is all about? I bet they weren't expecting to have to get quite so wet.
We sat and chatted with Nyoman, the delightful waitress, for a while before heading off for the rest of our walk. The path to the north is wide and newly paved, with an assortment of food carts along the way. It is a nice walk and we climb the pile of rocks to look out over the ocean. It's amazing to see that the sand is volcanic black, when just a little to the south its coral white sand from the reef.
We have seen a few young men stomping along carrying awkward looking tracking antennas and have wondered just what they are doing. Glenn says they are looking a lost cat. All is revealed when we turn into one of the roads that leads to the beach. There is a 'ham' festival on. We'd seen a big sign for it as we walked down the Bali Beach hotel road yesterday and were sure it was nothing to do with pig. It was all about ham radio, and there were even more boys wandering around doing serious business with their antennae. Lots of stalls and sellers that for once weren't really interested in selling to us.
We were looking for the source of the music from last night, and came across a little café that does karaoke. I was most impressed with the quality of the Karaoke, I thought it was very professional sounding. Glenn thinks we should go there and I can have a go at karaoke'ing.. I think not!!
We head back to the hotel after buying some DVD's at a little shop on the corner of the Bypass Road and Jl Hang Tuah. On the way we are delighted to find that there are some very nice looking little restaurants very close to the hotel and we will come back for dinner tonight. The happy hours at a couple of them make it even more appealing to return.
There is a good little store near our laneway so we buy more mixers and some water. The hotel is surrounded by pretty much everything we need and we couldn't be happier with the choice of hotels.
A swim and a bit of reading around the pool for the rest of the afternoon, then a few duty free drinkies on our 'terrace' makes for a very relaxing second day to our holiday.
It was nice to try to have a chat with Dewi the gardener. Earlier in the day I was taking some photos around the pool and saw him in the restaurant with vases of flowers and the biggest smile I have ever seen. I went and introduced myself to him and asked if I could take his photo. It was hilarious as every time I went to take the photo he would put on his very serious photo face. After a few tries I managed to convince him to smile and was rewarded with the beautiful smile I had seen from the distance. His English is about as good as my Indonesian, which is almost non existent, He is a lovely man, and we now pass pleasantries that neither of us understand whenever we see one another.
We decide to have dinner at the Oasis, the first restaurant down from the Bypass Road. They have a lovely looking outside area at the front. We are welcomed like old friends with handshakes, warm greetings and smiles. It is so good to be back in Bali. Dinner is great, Glenn having fish and prawn cooked in a banana leaf, me Nasi Campur. The presentation is magnificent with the food served on attractively cut banana leaves. The two cocktails each went down very well too!!
The cost for all of that plus two aqua's was Rp 190000.
All we have managed today is a walk around the block and lots of eating.
And time to smell the roses.
After a ridiculously early night we are woken up countless times by the karaoke place. Whoever is singing tonight can't sing for peanuts, and has the flattest sounding voice I have ever heard. I think the drummer is trying to do his best to cover it up. Luckily we were both able to go back to sleep after each waking, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. They finally finish up at some ungodly hour of the morning. We are a bit worried that this may be the go every night....