Wake early again and treat myself to a bowl of Special K. Today is Villa day so I will not be leaving the villa until dinner time.
It's a quite day spent by the pool, working on my tan, a touch of swimming, a lot of reading and a bit of Skyping with family and friends back home. This is really a cruel attempt to make everyone green with envy and my success rate is high!
The pool a the villa is amazing and receives full sun for most of the day so the water is pleasant enough to jump right in without trepidation. The sun lounges are new and comfortable so all in all, I have a great day.
This evening I decided to visit Lala & Lili Warung on the walk into Ubud. It is a good sized cafe with comfortable chairs and a nice outlook over a pond. I ordered the vegetable spring rolls and a vegetable stir fry. Both were tasty enough.
Back at the villa I watched a few episodes of tv programs on the iPad & then it was off to bed.
Day 4
Up around 7am this morning for enough gourmet bowl of Special K. Just after 8am I met up with the driver that I had hired for the day down a Cafe Vespa. I had read a number of positive reviews about Kadek's services on the Trip Advisor forums so decided to contact him a few weeks ago to spend a day with him. We had a quick call yesterday and upon meeting up this morning, looked at few different options for what would be interesting to me. We initially made our way through Ubud to the Gardak Temple which is about 15 minutes out of town in the village where Kardek lives. On the way to the temple, he filled me in on the history of it, a story about a giant baby who built his home here so he did not frighten people. We climbed down moss covered, steep damp stairs to the bottom where you could examine caves have a general wander about. I was the only Western tourist there and apparently it is only really known to locals.
After a short time looking around, we jumped back into the shiny new Toyota and continued on about half an hour to the Kehen Temple located in the village of Bangli. The temple is a Hindu one, dating back to the 11th century and I spent some time wandering about taking photos while Kadek expained the layout of the temple and what the different areas were for.
A drive through endless rice fields followed, one breathtaking view after another as we wound our way up Mount Agung. We stopped in the middle of nowhere at a lovely resort called Mahagiri. The name means 'huge panorama' and they are pretty spot on. As you walk through the entrance and gardens, you emerge onto a landing that looks out directly at Mt Agung and an expansive area of rice terraces filled with little sheds. The view is spectacular and even though there was cloud covering the top of the mountain, it was still amazing. We stopped here for coffee and a couple of cold drinks while admiring the view and the quietness. I was the only guest there until1/2 way through my second soda water and the tour busses filled with some very loud groups arrived and we bid a hasty retreat back to the car. Further up the hill we stopped on the side of the road at a look out area to take a photo across the lakes between the mountains and then continued onwards through the hills. The roads are very narrow and naturally winding around the mountains and I sure as hell would not want to be driving these myself at night without any streetlights. We had a number of near misses ourselves with trucks flying around corners half on our side of the road.
We stopped for lunch at the Sari Restaurant which overlooks Kintamani and is 100% geared for maximum tourism with two floors of balconies looking directly out to the mountain. I was shown to a chair and offered a drinks menu and told that it was an all you can eat buffet. Being a vegetarian (well, a failed vegetarian who occasionally eats seafood) & knowing the buffet is rarely value for money for me, I requested an a la carte menu which was not a problem. I ordered a vegetarian nasi goreng and was asked if I would like a tuna fish satay. Why the hell not? Enjoyed a diet coke taking in the view but more entertaining were the tourists coming in and then arguing over which table they would sit at and trying to reorganise other diners so that they could all sit together and have the view that they desired. Quite hilarious to watch but even better were the number of female Asian travellers taking selfies of themselves pouting in a very seductive way with the mountain in the background with no shame at all as to how they looked. Great fun to watch! The meal was excellent despite the enormous number of people dining there so I was greatly impressed. The nasi goreng was followed by black rice pudding which had been highly recommended to me by Kadek. Not bad - not really to my taste buds but fun to try something local. Naturally, a meal with a view like this comes with a price tag so after parting with $16 I headed outside and found Kadek.
Down the other side of the mountain now, the scenery altered from terraced rice fields to mile after mile of fruit orchards. A number of fruit stalls were set up along the side of the road with the fruit decoratively displayed in pretty little piles in bowls. Much nicer than the dump of apples & bananas at my local Coles. We didn't stop but I have to be honest and say that I didn't even know what half the fruits were so that was a little embarrassing. Kadek asked me if I would be interested to see how various herbs are grown as well as coffee, which I was, so we stopped off at one of the many agricultural centres selling coffee. I was met by the most lovely local boy who showed me around the plantation, looking at cardamon, cinnamon, ginger, clove and various other plants. They also had a couple of luwek cats there and he showed me how they eat the coffee beans, expel them out and then how the coffee is made. The cat looks a lot like an Australian possum only uglier. All very interesting and in the end you are taken to a little sheltered area where you can enjoy another amazing jungle view. The staff then place laminated list of different types of tea & coffee in front of you and bring out a sample of each and place it on the relevant name & picture.
You get to try rosella tea (not the bird!), mangosteen tea, ginger tea, lemongrass tea, spice tea, hot chocolate, mocha coffee, vanilla coffee, Bali coffee, coconut coffee and one or two others. Some were fabulous, in particular the mocha & vanilla coffee. I made a couple of purchases & hope they will be ok to get back into Australia. The staff at this plantation were just so friendly and loved to have a chat and ask where you were from with no expectation to buy or pushy sales tactics.
Gunung Kawi was our next destination which is located in Tampaksiring and is another 11th century temple. This complex is just beautiful, filled with ponds, statues with frogs spouting water, a couple of swimming pools (men & women separate) and a holy water area broken into three sections with male statues on one, female on another and babies on the last one. The atmosphere is one of piece and calm and aside from myself there was only two other groups of western tourists visiting. I am not sure how popular this place is but for me, it was the highlight of my day. A real example of the real Bali I wanted to experience.
We returned to Ubud about 5pm and I was dropped off back at Cafe Vespa. Extremely satisfied with my day and full of praise for my driver, I will definitely be writing up a positive review for him.
On the way back to the villa I met a very friendly man standing outside my gate sporting a green Victoria Bitter polo shirt. Very chatty he asked where I was staying, how long I was here etc etc. Ends up he lives in the house opposite mine across the rice field and is the owner of Kopi Desa restaurant just down the road. I decided to make this my evenings dinner destination so headed off there about 7pm. It is really laid back kind of place with cool lounge music playing and a very nice atmosphere. Then, it happened.The arrival of a large group of early twenties US kids who were screaming and hi-fiving the staff, speaking so loudly and inappropriately about their sexual conquests whilst they have been away visiting another island. It was just so disappointing as this is such a nice spot and it was totally ruined by this group of obnoxious people. I was a 20 something backpacker once too & I am pretty confident I was not this type of tourist! The situation wasn't helped when they naturally deposited themselves at the table next to me!
Anyway - asides from this, the meal was great. I had a fabulous salad of lettuce, tomato, red & green capsicum, cucumber & carrot. All ingredients were fresh and crunchy, the size was not too big but big enough & the dressing was really nice. This was accompanied by a fetta & spinach pie which was lovely. Pastry was a bit oily but it may have been heated up in the microwave so that's ok. The taste of the meal overall was terrific - cheesey, salty and nicely balanced with the spinach. In conclusion, I will return there soon and just pray to god that those kids have found some other town to terrorise.