Custom made Delights. A Change in Plans. Salamat Tingal.
Day 5 Relaxing morning then back to Leon Tailor to pick up the clothes we had made. Changed some money next to Bintang Supermarket (rate 9925) first and then did a bit of shopping around the area.
My slacks were perfect and at 650k for two pairs a bargain. SiLs skirt needed some minor adjustments but she was pleased with it. We went over to the national place for a bite to eat specifically because I saw they had black rice pudding on the specials board. I love this and was having a very hard time finding some. Turns out they didn't have it. So why is it on the specials board I asked? No answer but I noticed it was shortly erased.
Grabbed a taxi and it turned out to be unmetered - the first one. Driver said 50k to the Ivory. Me: Wah! 30k! Alright, off we went. The young driver was from West Timor and lived with his brother who was a motorbike mechanic. Prior to that he worked in Jakarta. We were having a great chat about Jakarta, the traffic and crowds and so on, when he pulled up at the Oberoi. Oops! It became clear he didn't know where the Ivory was - this one? Next one? Fortunately by this time we did - keep going, turn here, no, keep going - directions interspersed with more stories of his family and working in Bali. When we finally got there I gave him 50K anyway as he was so pleasant and tried so hard.
Day 6 As well as suffering from the heat and humidity I'd been fighting a stomach bug that I brought with me from Perth. After a bad night I knew there was no way I'd be able to go to high tea at Biku or sunset at Tanah Lot. We reluctantly cancelled and I hung out sleeping, watching DVDs and drinking the charmingly named Pocari Sweat which tastes a lot better than it sounds. Just the thing for a bit of dehydration. A bit of pool time and a short trip to Seminyak Square was all I could manage. Changed some money across the street (rate 10700) as SiL was going to pick up the leather bags and a few other bits and pieces. Hers was beautiful I must say - sort of a silvery-blue/grey leather and excellent workmanship. Hard to describe but really nice.
Day 7 Time to go home already - how did this happen? The Ivory Spa has a happy hour from 10-12 so I had a very nice green tea body scrub and massage for 250K. Packed, ate lunch at Honeybees and headed for the airport....the Virgin flight again left on time, was about 2/3 full and arrived early. We were through customs at Perth in about 20 minutes which may be a record.
A couple of notes: Public Internet access was hard to find (though Wifi hotspots were abundant I didn't bring my notebook and don't have a smartphone). I found two places, both hot and dirty with slow connections, but cheap. So the whole week I only checked my e-mail twice which wasn't a real problem, it was a holiday after all.
I went to Ketut's after seeing it mentioned here so often, but wasn't really impressed with the choice. Maybe I was in the wrong place as it was fairly late in the evening and a number of places were closed. I had much better luck at Miss Debby's out the back and got some really nice ¾ pants, tops for me and several bintang singlets for my husband for about 320k.
I'd planned to visit Seminyak Language School (near the Bintang Supermarket) but forgot and then got sick. Very annoying as I'd like to do a language program in Indonesia and I'd prefer Bali to Yogyakarta from a holiday standpoint.
Don't know why it was so hard to find black rice pudding - if I'd had internet access I'm sure someone here could have told me where to find some.
Already planning the next trip for June 14!