Saturday
Our last day in Seminyak, we don't aim to do a huge amount today, drop the bike off and pick up our last lot of laundry, pack, lunch and transfer to Ubud. I get in only the third taxi used this trip to get home from the bike shop. He didn't want to put the meter on, but he relented when he realised that I was clearly about to throw myself out of his moving cab out the front of Breezes. He muttered to himself, "same price on meter". He wasn't best pleased so I tried chatting to him to cheer him up and we ended up on the subject of family. Turns out he has been married for three years and has a little one year old girl, but he wants boys. I asked if he had a good wife, he looked at me and paused for a moment and responded "I don't know yet". Thought that was hilarious.
I gave him the same money he asked for before he put the meter on which he was surprised and seemingly confused about, I hope I've helped in a small way to get the message across that most of us prefer the meter and to tip than to haggle over a simple cab fare.
We get to pack our bags and do a dummy run for our final pack. I'm glad I threw in the cheap spare carry on bag I bought at Matarahi's a few years back and everything all good, it weighs what it weighs, so no point mithering about that until next week eh.
We pass a very relaxing hour or two at Petitenget. It's a French styled cafe that I'd enjoyed a beer at earlier. Coffee is good, Laksa was good, Duchy's roast chicken was good as was the glass of bubbly needed to 'see off' our fun time as always in this part of Bali. (400k).
The drive up to Ubud seemed to take ages, traffic was bad, driver was clearly a fan of Mark Webber. We were glad to hit the driveway of Alila Ubud, both of us feeling car sick. I never get car sick and I was feeling well wousy, so I was mightily impressed that Duchy held her guts together.
The Alila had been recommended to us by a travel agent friend years ago and we'd never got around to going. This was our first trip to Ubud on our own though, so I remembered it when we were researching places to stay. Tripadvisor was a little variable on the place, but you can't go 100% on Tripadvisor I reckon. The thing that sold me, apart from the reasonable price was that the food was well regarded and I'd found a few interesting articles on the young Executive Chef, Eelke Plasmeijer.
(Warning, if you are not a serious foodie, I would recommend that you look away now!)
While we were checking in and trying to regain our land legs, the sous chef (Ray) and the Exec Chef (Eelke) come over to introduce themselves, and to talk to us about our cooking class tomorrow. Eelke is taking us, start at 7am (groan) visit to markets etc and then cook and eat in the hotel gardens. Sounds great and a very personal touch for them to come and say hi. After dumping our stuff in the room, which is modest in style, simple and clean in a very 1970's Scandinavia meets Bali fashion, we head to the bar with our drinks. We'd just got started on our Ginger and Basil Margarita and Eelke calls over and asks if we are into Coffee. He explains that they have just started to source their beans from an American guy at Kintamani who believes in using only freshly roasted coffee, after 2 days he comes back, picks up any used beans and restocks with fresh, he had just left so they had beans that had only been roasted an hour earlier. Would we like to try some on the house. Right on mate, hit me with it.
This was the start of what was to be a real insight into how this chef is using fresh seasonal local produce and doing so really well in the hotel's restaurant.
I had to have a dip in the pool it looked so good. It's rated as one of the top hotel pools in the world for good reason. It's an infinity pool that overlooks the river valley on which the hotel is perched. It's a truly amazing vista, viewable from most of the hotel including our room. I'm a bit stressed when I get to the pool as there is three rather large Germans doing 'no-ripple' laps. They are strung across the pool and clearly expect it to themselves. I inwardly groan as it always seems to be the Germans that 'set me off'.
I absolutely refuse to get up at 6am in order to put my towels on sun loungers. Yes I've done this before, the last time being a holiday in Turkey, the same holiday I recall that I managed to get Duchy to swim to a restaurant for lunch, yes that's right 'swim' to a restaurant. Getting a good hotel lounger was near impossible though and required ever earlier mornings to beat the Germans to it, but that was another time, a different continent and another story altogether.
So I dive in and do my best impression of a Spitfire as I duck and weave at some reasonable speed through the water thoroughly getting in the Germans way, and quietly thoroughly enjoying it. They are probably lovely folk, but I'd tried to smile and make eye contact with them earlier and they rebuffed me so they should just think themselves lucky that I didn't do a Lancaster impersonation in the pool and just run straight over them!
We had a fabulous meal that night, recommended by Eelke, it was the Seasonal tasting menu, focusing on fresh, local, seasonal produce but done in a traditional French cooking style. It became six courses with an Amuse Bouche of bloody mary sorbet, oysters and tomato consommé, followed by the Crab, Asparagus, Skate Wing, Pork and Chocolate courses. Several dishes were completed at the table, it was like food theatre. We spent
three hours in the restaurant and had to ask for the dessert to go to the room we were so trashed by the end. I won't go into details on the menu, look it up online if interested, but it was absolutely incredible and honestly put any degustation menu, such as Jacksons in Perth, to shame. The light as a feather bitter chocolate mouse with caramelised condensed milk ice cream, salt pyramids and peanut brittle was a heavenly masterpiece. I'm planning on ordering this several times a day around the pool over the next few days. The amazing thing is the prices aren't too bad, not the hotel prices we had expected. They are similar to the likes of Sarong, so not cheap certainly, but good value for the quality and experience.
Sunday
Damm it I've got full on 'man flu' and what a day to feel lousy, the alarm clock goes off at 6:15, even the jungle all around us still feels quiet. I drag myself out of bed with a little bit of coaxing and sympathy from Duchy and thankfully am able to enjoy that fabulous coffee and a still warm from the oven Bread basket (pain au chocolate, baguette, croissant and walnut bread - all made daily in-house) before we head off with Eelke and Yuri (restaurant chef, guide and driver) to a Bali market about 30 mins away. Apparently the markets are busiest around 4-5 am and it's a little quieter now. It seems almost solely women who 'man' the stalls and do the shopping. The women seem to do all the work in Bali including the bulk of the roadworks unbelievably. We were the only tourists in the markets and with some help from Yuri and Eelke we got to understand a little more about the different fruits, spices, local leaves etc used in their cooking. There are also huge sections devoted just to the bits that go into their daily offerings - the baskets, flowers etc. It must be a huge time and financial pressure for the poor in Bali to keep their 'gods' happy.
The livestock market we went to next was an even bigger eye opener, the chickens, ducks, geese and roosters for sale in cages, including the chance to try out a new rooster to see how good he would be at fighting. There were puppies (who were treated much like any other type of cattle quite distressingly. Duchy even noticed one puppy being handled by picking it up by one back leg, chicken style, not good.) And being a cattle market, cows by the hundreds!! It was of course a chaotic, free for all, assault to the senses, but very interesting slice of Bali life nonetheless. We head back to the hotel, stopping at Gaya Gelato for the best Gelato on the island (according to Eelke) which was darned good. A little place run by a couple of Italians that I'd probably never find again unfortunately. I wonder how many other gems like this are around that you would just not find unless you were taken there by someone "in the know".
We had a quick stop for coffee and Balinese doughnuts at the hotel and then were led up to the sculpture garden for our cooking class. Now at this point I must point out that my Home Economic class at school consisted of two classes focusing on cooking. The first was how to make a cup of tea, the second was how to make cheese on toast. From memory I stuffed some of my cheese on toast into my pocket to proudly show my mum after I'd walked home. I've not progressed a huge amount since, as Duchy is such a good cook and so we split our household duties up accordingly. So this is going to be interesting for me.
We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours, cooking some authentic Balinese food with the help of Eelke and Yuri and thought I did an ok job with the mortar and pestle. A family of monkeys wander past inquisitively and add to the local flavour (not literally of course) We ended up cooking eight dishes, some of which I'd never even heard off, let alone tried before. It was very special and even more so to then eat it on a table specially setup just for us. Tomorrow the plan is to do absolutely nothing at all.
PS tonight we have decided to have one of Eelke's special roasts, we've gone for the whole roasted free-range chicken served with French fries, buttered green beans, green salad leaves, and homemade Belgian style mayonnaise.