DAY 7 - Sunday
Today is the day I end up having fish for every meal. Never would I have imagined having fish for Breakfast but its part of the Buffet at the Haven and its fantastic - a white fish fillet poached in coconut milk with maybe some chilli and lemongrass. Amazing. I'm pretty sure I also had the made to order pancakes with the Raspberry puree. I'm drooling just remembering this meal.
I have a swim, and do some window shopping while R stays in the room with a headache. The only memorable part of this morning is a shopkeeper asking me if I was pregnant! Less of the pancakes for breakfast for me!
Fish meal #2 is Lunch at Pantarei Greek Restaurant. Again their fish is amazing - grilled with a kind of parmesan sauce, as well as some Calamari, Greek salad, and a really weird deep fried and battered saganaki. Good value very nice food.
More swimming, shopping and resting.
We have a dress fitting today at Alta Moda, and on the way we stop at traffic lights and a small boy approaches the taxi begging for money. The driver explains what a problem the beggars are and how aggressive they are. He says that some have deliberately scratched his car if they don't get money. As we turn the corner to Alta Moda, we see a huge billboard telling people not to encourage the Beggars by paying them.
Our driver waits while we have our fitting and drives us to Taco Beach in Jalan Kunti. We didn't realise how close it was to The Haven and that we could have walked there anyway, but dinner was nice, and super cheap. We shared a Nachos which came with 6 side dips and each had a couple of tacos. Its a tiny place, very informal but nice enough food. We absolutely plan to walk along Jalan Kunti next time - it looks like there are some interesting shops and restaurants there.
DAY 8 - Monday
Another day, another breakfast. Sadly no fish on offer today. More of swimming, shopping and relaxing. A cash top up at the rate of 10020 keeps us very happy.
R has requested an afternoon at Potato Head - we went there last year and it was impressive, but this year the novelty has somehow worn off. We maybe are a bit late arriving for lunch, there are no tables left and certainly no cabanas by the pool which was what we had planned. We sit in a 'waiting area', being ignored by the staff, and feeling the sun creeping further and further up our legs.
We ask to move to at least some partial shade and eventually order drinks, and much later some food. A Burger, and taco's and a couple of drinks add up to over 600k, undoubtedly the dearest meal we've had, and nowhere near the best. We keep asking if there are any cabanas available, since we've well exceeded the required 500k spend, but they are all full. I give up waiting and go for a swim anyway, and finally they have a vacancy.
Again its in full sun, and downwind from the smokers. Given that we waited so long we are determined to at least enjoy a few minutes of swimming, but we eventually cut our losses, and get the bill. Its got someone elses drinks on it, so by the time we get that fixed, we are just dying to get out of there. Overall a really underwhelming experience for the price. We won't be doing that again, particularly when compared to the fantastic service we got at the Beach Club in Nusa Dua.
We get the taxi back to The Haven and traffic just within Seminyak is almost at a standstill. I think this time in the afternoon is particularly bad - about 4pm ish.
We clean ourselves up and head to the little Spa near the hotel for some massages - this is Massage #4 for me in 8 days (a good average i think), and they charge 100k for an hour. Both the ladies are great, and after chatting to them we discover that they only keep about 10k from each massage. We leave them a nice tip each which they totally deserve and promise we will come back next time.
We make ourselves presentable again, and get another Bluebird to JL Oberoi / JL Laksmana so we can walk along and browse before dinner. We look at the menus on display and the words 'Gnocchi with Blue Cheese' seal the deal. The Junction is a weird looking building with kind of shutters along the outside, but very cool looking inside and we get a table downstairs.
Upon further investigation, there are even better choices on the Menu, even though Blue Cheese and Gnocchi are very high on my list. R orders Scallops and Linguini with Leeks ($8.50!) and I get the Prawn and mushroom Ravioli with lemon cream sauce $5.90. The glass of Monkey Bay sauv blanc is dearer than either meal we order. The food is fantastic. The only downside to the lovely meal is the inconsiderate diners who insist on smoking right next to us, during the whole meal.
Another wonderful day gone.