Tuesday
Breakfast was delicious again, I can't remember exact what we had, but scrambled eggs, french toast, coconut and carrot cake ring a bell.
We decide that we can't justify another entire day spent doing nothing and enquired yesterday about the guided walks run by the hotel. When we worked out that this was to be a 3 1/2 hour marathon starting at 8am, we decided we'd do a DIY walk ourselves using the hand drawn map provided by reception which looked fairly reliable.
The hotel is at the end of a 2 km driveway, so we walk up the driveway along the main road for a bit and then wander through one of the local villages. We are a little stressed out when two older women approach us, one on each flank bearing sharp looking machetes. They were wearing frowns and near shouting at us in Balinese. I'm thinking that we must be trespassing, Duchy is thinking that maybe they were offering to trim my ear hair, (hence one on each side!) I fall back on my minimum Indonesian and stutter, "jalan, jalan, selamat pagi, terimah kasih", which seems to appease them. They drop their machetes, smile and let us pass.
We wander along following our trusty map and find ourselves in the middle of rice paddies and on an every decreasing path. The locals are shouting at us, and laughing at us too I secretively think. All is good until a snake shoots across the path in front of me. Not a huge stress for me as I am wearing sensible walking shoes. Duchy however is wearing that trusted footwear of all womankind, the flip flop (or thong in Australian). It brings back memories of scaling the heights of Ben Nevis as a youngster with the family and mum bringing up the rear in her thongs/flip flops. Is she the only woman to have climbed above the tree line in thongs? Quite possibly. Anyway I think I may have to rename Duchy, "Sporty Spice" as she didn't complain when we reached a dead end after two hours and were left staring down a steep valley. Possibly quite close to our hotel, but there's no way we are wading through rice paddies, so snakes or no snakes we about turn, much to the hilarity of the local rice farmers who now suddenly speak perfect English and start directing us along the right rice paddy paths so that we eventually make it back sans snake bite. Sporty and I spend the rest of the day around the pool with even Sporty getting in for a cooling dip.
Sporty asked the pool attendant if the local snakes are poisonous, to which he replied "yes please, we have big snack menu, spring rolls, popcorn", etc. Too hard to explain what we meant and didn't want to hurt his feelings so we just went along for the ride (while I laughed myself stupid into my towel!)
We have to get out of the hotel tonight so we get a car into Ubud, we had decided to just go for Nomad, but it was busy with a big line for tables and we weren't that hungry after our pizza and club sandwich lunch around the pool. So we had a wander down Monkey Forest Road and found ourselves at a trusty favourite - Laughing Buddha Bar. A favourite mostly because you can sit right at the front and watch the street go by.
I love doing this but the only downside is that Steve (aka Nyonman) wants to chat to us and make friends so that we will use his transport service to get home later. He must have some kind of deal going with with Laughing Buddha guy. Wasn't too much of a drama and we knocked back a few binnies and a couple of spring rolls and calamari to wash them down with. We couldn't let 'Steve' down and agreed a reasonable price for the trip back, during which we had to hear his tale of woe, which included but wasn't restricted to:
Living with his mum
His broken hand
His broken heart ("no money, no honey")
His desire to setup an orphanage (not sure whether in Bali or Tasmania, couldn't work that out)
His "spicy speaking" boss, who didn't like him
His lack of education
etc etc
By the time we got back (it was only 15mins drive, but he managed to pack a lot into it) I wasn't sure whether to shoot him, shoot myself or give him all my money. Whew, we needed ice cream in the bar to get over it. Seriously though, I genuinely don't know how much to feel sorry for him as I do appreciate that many have it very tough over here, but they don't complain about it.
Sporty was just talking to a waitress who is up every morning at 4am to feed 17 people, 4 dogs, 70 chickens, 2 pigs and 4 cows. She then comes to work for a 9 hour shift (but said it wasn't a very long day!) Tell you what, I know that I'm married to a real hard worker, but it kind of blows your mind hey!
Wednesday
So it's our last day of hols today. Everthing gets depressing from here on in. The local monkey family are parading up and down the path to the pool acting like they own the place, which in a way they kind of do really.
Breakfast is fab again, poached egg with hollandaise and bacon, crepes with caramelised banana and Chantilly cream etc etc. The coffee is good but a little hit and miss which is a little surprising as today the barista is the coffee guy that grows and roasts the beans for the hotel up in Kintamani. He looks like he has a permanent coffee high this guy and the name of his company is FREAK which stands for Freshly Roasted Enak Alli Baba Kintamani. Actually I made that up, but the acronym stands for something along those lines. Coffee has been great much better than the dodgy "once brewed for the whole day" American filter rubbish.
We've packed, had a sleep, a late lunch and now I'm trying to write this but a creme brulee with white chocolate ice cream keeps getting in the way. Eelke and Ray (the two chefs) came over to say good-bye and give us a little gift of home-made bikkies. They've added a very personal touch to the stay here.
The Duchess of Fife and I have had a great time and will look forward even more to our next trip now. I'll stop trawling the balitravelforum for a couple of months and then I won't be able to resist starting to plan our next trip I think. Selamat Malan and thanks for reading!