Day and Nights 6 & 7
The pounding surf that had lulled us to sleep the night before has been replaced by the sound of...near silence. It's 6.30am as I wearily slide open our front door and step out onto the grass. The tide is way out this morning, and for the first time I can see the shallow break of the beach, which is all but a pond now, and the small waves coasting in about 50 metres out. In the daylight, the resort is everything it had promised in the dark of our arrival. A good white-ish stretch of private sandy beach, with a large rocky outcrop on the left framing one side, round to a similar but much flatter point about 250 metres to the right. Directly behind me are two small mountains, draped in lush greenery and low cloud cover. Inside the resort, rows of villas lean left and right beside me set back off the beach, while 3 cushion and curtain-fitted Bales have front row views of the wave action. A crew of 5 hotel staff are down on the sand in front of me, with rakes and brooms, rubbish bags and bins, busily collecting beach debris and coconuts, wrappers and plastic bags, anything that might spoil the guest's impression of a pristine environment. They all wave me a smiley good morning. So much for Lombok not being as friendly as Bali.
I wander back inside our villa, have a quick soak in the outdoor shower set amongst the palms in our very private nook and make for the restaurant. Breakfast is included in the admission price here everyday and it's an ala carte style so I can order anything off the menu I like. After Eggs Benedict, juices, more banana pancakes (addicted to these things) and tea have all come and gone, Mum arrives to find me smiling like a Cheshire cat. We don't even need to sign for it against the room - just order what you want until you do, or don't, resemble Jabba the Hutt. I then slide myself into the infinity pool directly in front of us and work off 20 calories or so while planning my Seinfeld day here. Nothing, followed by nothing, then a little more... nothing.
As usual though, Mum has other ideas. She suggests a journey into Sengiggi to have a look around at the places we'd cast an eye over in the dark, on the way to the hotel the previous night. So we get a taxi called (waited 30 mins - plan ahead for these) and go in. Sengiggi at this time of the year resembles a figurative ghost-town. We are the only tourists I see for 15 mins of walking around and though the touts and street sellers are sensing some rare business, they seem mostly too lethargic in the heat to approach us with any vigour. So we wander aimlessly about, buy nothing, and grab another taxi back to the hotel where we know what to expect. "That'll teach you", I say... "nothing means NOTHING" and smile knowingly. It will be the last time we leave the surrounds of Jeeva Klui before the airport ride home. (Note: there are plenty of things to do on Lombok in the north west, we just chose to ignore them all).
Lunches, swims, dinners, books, sunbathing, more swims, more food, all pass in a lazy haze of indulgent pleasure. We enjoy long stretches of not saying a word to each other for hour's - Mum posts herself in one of the Bales, composing iPad emails on the resort-wide free wiFi. Meanwhile, I'm exploring how dangerous this piece of ocean really is (answer: not even close to what it appears) and dowsing myself in the pool between beach sojourns. I meet 2 tanned German girls in the pool, with the 3 of us quickly realising we are the only single people in the entire resort. They teach me how to tumble-turn, and I show them a levitation trick using an empty Bintang bottle. Naturally, they had assumed I was the toy boy of a much older woman (my Mum) and I quickly realise, so would the rest of the hotel guests. Nevermind I tell them - I had mistakenly thought they were lesbians. We spend the rest of the afternoon dissecting the relationships we see before us, trying to guess who wears the pants in each and who's getting what from whom.
Happy hour arrives (5-7pm - 45000rp each) and I sink my first Ginger Martini of the session, with distant Agung crowned with cloud around it's head. The sun makes its slow passage into the Indian ocean ahead of us and cameras click madly all about. This is one of the worst times for sunsets in this region, but how spectacular those later ones must be, because my photos show a brilliant purple and aqua sky filled with streaks of carmine and rosy pinks. The count continues.. one martini, two martini, three martini, floor....... I'm shaken awake at 5am as our villa door bursts open from a huge storm coursing across the Bali Strait, blowing our room curtains horizontal. I leap to Mum's defence - these viscious b@stards will have to come through me first! Relax - just the weather.... bolt door...sleep.
Next day continues as the last - more of everything, all of it good. Make sure you try the restaurant's apple strudel dessert - probably the best I've ever had, but be warned, it's a long way from traditional. Eventually however we have to consider the fact that leaving and returning to Bali is our only option and so make plans to do that. Checkout is handled efficiently and many thanks spoken. Back at the airport in just on one hour (amazing run), we are soon on our Garuda flight back and before you know it, Jeeva Klui is 20 mins behind us and the muggy heat of the Denpasar airport claims us again. 2 days away was the perfect break.
Mum and her partner leave for Singapore on a 6.30am flight tomorrow morning - so it's an early night back at the villa.
.