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Posted by - ® GabrielleE on November 8, 2005 at 4:12 pm:
For some reason, my story cut short there, maybe there is a word limit on the forum. But to continue on with our trip to the Elephant park…
It was a good thing that we didn’t want to go into Ubud because we wouldn’t have been allowed to drive in anyway. The roads were blocked. We drove through Payagan to find Bali quad tours, but no luck so we just crossed over to Taro.
We weren’t interested in riding the elephants, we just wanted to watch them and have lunch there. We had to get back to Jelatik Spa for our massage at five o’clock so we thought that we would leave Taro at four and take our time getting back.
The entrance fee was $14 US or 149,800 rps ea. We wondered through to the elephants and sat at the restaurant watching them. It always amazes me how agile these creatures can be. To see them frolicking in the water was incredible. Jenny was told that at five o’clock all the elephants go in for a swim, what a shame that we had to be back into town by then.
It was a good thing that we decided to leave a little early because the roads were slow and busy with the cremation and others happening around the area.
Puti, at the front desk of Jelatik was lovely. We were shown a locker for our belongings and a room to change in. At once we felt more at ease in this place. The massage was very good. We had taken a change of clothing because we had made a booking at Lamak for dinner. After our massage, we went to some private change rooms so that we could individually shower and change. I was much happier with the way we were served at this place. Maybe it was just bad or good timing. That is the good thing about listening to many people’s ideas about somewhere, we all see things differently but sometimes you can go to the same place twice and find it different each time.
We drove to Lamak. I loved this place the last time that I was there. It comes highly recommended. The menu had changed and I found that it had a many weird and different concoctions. I love my food and am prepared to try different things but not too different. I will always try. This night I tried some salmon rissoles that were all dressed up with nowhere to go, and followed by their wonderful Soufflé. Last time I had blueberry and this time I had Mango. Jenny found the most normal thing there, Lamb cutlets. I’m not a real lamb fan and wanted to be a little adventurous. I did think that the rissoles tasted a little funny, but I just put it down to the herbs and not being a normal salmon eater, boy was I going to pay for that little adventure.
Home for an early night. For those of you with a week stomach, you might want to skip this part. At 11:30 I awoke feeling sick. I was up and down for a couple of hours. Who of you knows that it is very hard to want to through up when your bathroom is an open affair and you are sharing! I know that we are good friends but I didn’t think that she would really appreciate me hurling while she was trying to sleep. Neither did I think that the gardener would appreciate me hurling in the garden. One thing that I can’t do is hurl in the toilet, no way, it is the basin for me where I can wash my face and gargle with some fresh water and wash all the bits of carrot away! Finally at 1:30, up came the salmon. The only problem is, that the basins are not like ours with a plug but one of those joined metal “plugs” that you have to use a lever to make go up and down. Well this one hardly went up and down at all and the water that I was adding to wash the carrots away was filling up!!! This is not what I needed to be doing at 1:30 in the morning, (!!!!) and trying to do it as quietly as possible. Jen, not being a mother, cannot handle such things and was trying to sleep with a pillow over her head! I finally had to find a cup and had to ladle it all into the toilet. If it was just me, I would have left it there until the morning when I felt a little bit more like it. At the moment I was exhausted and a little light headed and just wanted to crash! I knew that I had taken some pine-o-clean wipes, for just a time as this, and went out to the car in search for them. Meanwhile waking up the staff that slept there! Back to the room and disinfected everything and at 2 am, crashed into bed! So much for the little adventurous eating!
I slept until 9am, very unusual for me. Christian was up and about and enquired about my house plans, so while Jen went into town to find a good deal for the quad tour, I discussed my housing ideas with him.
We were both finished up by lunch time with Jenny looking a little bit frazzled. She couldn’t book the quad tour. Not too worry, there is always next year! Well we finally went off to town as we had not yet even seen the markets. A cheap lunch first. Normally we have had no problems with getting a cheap meal, and most of them scrub up alright. We found a place in Monkey forest road. We thought that seeing that the place was rather full, even though it was cheap, that it would be o.k. Well, it really was a cheap place and after the night before, I found it not very enticing. These places make me smile with the reading of their menus though, with the likes of Gordon Blue.
Off we went to the markets. I take my camera everywhere, last year I had bought a video camera duty free but found that I only took about three rolls of film when normally I would take about eight. This time I made sure that I took more. There is something that I like about photo’s that I can’t explain. I really try and take shots that show something about the way I feel about Bali, something that means something to me. There always ends up being a few shots that just captures what I want.
We looked around for a little while and then we stood on the second storey and just watched the people. The locals, that is, not the visitors. Watching how they interacted with each other, their facial expressions. Priceless.
We finally left and went home for a shower and back into town for dinner. Finally we thought that we would try out the Greenhouse. When we got there it was empty, besides a few business men that were there having a coffee and obviously in deep discussion. This was a little disconcerting but I will always try somewhere once, never mind what it seems at the time. We had already seen the menu and had decided that it looked nice and the price was good so we knew that we were going to walk straight in. The guy out the front looked a little bit put off as he didn’t even need to coerce us into coming in.
The feeling of the place was great, o.k. the ambience was wonderful, is that better? They were playing 60’s jazz and blues. We enquired about the nationality of the owner and was astonished to find that he was a local man. We knew that there was some outside influence and was told that he had got someone in from Singapore to come up with the design. Hmmm, Singapore, it wasn’t quite what I was thinking, with it’s jazzy feel about it. The owner had his whole family (extended family) come to have dinner with him that night. They were upstairs so the poor waiters were up and down the stairs all night. It was great for us though as there were a few kids there that wanted to do their own thing and we didn’t feel like they were interrupting us at all.
We both decided to have three courses as everything looked so good and we really wanted to meander through everything and enjoy the night. Jenny loves tomatoes so she ordered the tomato salad. It was a good thing that Jenny likes tomatoes because it is exactly what she got. Just tomatoes, but different types, red, yellow, big, small, skinless, with a little dressing. She said that they were so tasty! She followed that with the honey roasted chicken and crepe compote of fruit, I had pumpkin soup and also the chicken followed by that everlasting Black rice pudding (yes, again!!).It was the most wonderful meal that I had had in a long time. We decided to adjourn to the lounge for our tea which came with a little cookie. The one thing that I would comment on is that I would have liked the lounge to be a little bit more comfortable. 253,000 rps, $32!!! For the two of us to have a three course meal plus the tea. O.k. now this place is definitely on our favourites/must do list!
Home and off to bed for a good nights sleep in readiness for the Eco tour the next day.
The day was beautiful. An 8am pick up, mostly aussies. I was to find out that we had all paid different prices according to their bartering skills, some were co-erced on the street, so were given a great price. We were still happy about our price but kicked ourselves at the fact that we normally get the best deal and we hadn’t even thought about trying to get one better. Oh well, we live and learn.
We were off to Kintamani for breakfast. First we stopped off at Tegallalang for the beautiful views of the rice paddies, we had stopped there before as it seems to be a tourist stop. Our tour guide Wayan, explained all about the irrigation system and everything that you could think of about rice. Off again. We had been to Kintamani a couple of times, I must say that once was enough I thought. Those sellers can get pretty pushy and I’m not really into the big restaurant buffet thing and the wind! I had taken the boys last year, but mostly as a stop over travelling from North to South.
We stopped at a different place this time, away from the others. It was called The Lakeview restaurant. The view from the balcony was wonderful. We could have breakfast out there and there was no wind! We had just a light breakfast, fruit, tea and coffee and pancakes. They had all types even chocolate ones. I must say that they were just beautiful. Wayan again, talked about all sorts of things including the village across Lake Batur that date prehistory. The first manuscripts are from the 8th century, so this little village dates back before then. They live differently in a number of ways compared to the rest of the island. One thing is that they don’t cremate the bodies, they just bury them in the cemetery, the only problem is that they have run out of room so there are bodies that are half buried because they can’t fit them anywhere else. It all was such fascinating stuff.
We were off again, the next stop was a spice plantation, a bit like an arboretum. They had a wide variety of plants and trees as an example of what they grow on the island, bananas, coffee, cocoa, vanilla, the list just went on. Everything was thoroughly explained by Wayan. We then saw where they roast the coffee beans and stopped to have either a coffee or a hot chocolate. I had a hot chocolate which was just lovely. This was such an amazing stop. There was a shop there where you could buy such a variety of dried ingredients.
Finally we got to our bikes. The bikes were good and with helmets to go. The only thing that I wished for was that I had some gloves, as you are mostly coasting down hill so you are on the brakes most of the time. This did get a little tender on my hands.
We stopped at a house that made thatch mats for ceilings, floors and all sorts from the splitting of the bamboo to the final product. We also had a little wander around the compound as we had the daily routine of families like this one explained to us. Next stop was at a small temple where Wayan explained about the different temples, from the families own private one to the big community temples. Next was a rice field. It was just so amazing to have it all explained to us. We normally rode in profile and at one point I was behind Jenny, we had been “high five”-ing some of the local kids when I saw two chooks, one chasing the other at full speed. I had no time to say anything as the first one went right under Jenny’s front wheel. As she skidded, she somehow managed to drop the bike and walk off without falling. It was amazing as I tried to dart the abandoned bike. Jen took a quick look around for the offending chook or it’s owner who Jen was sure would be seeking some compensation from her. We had to laugh, the previous year, we had one dart in front of our car, just to be squashed by the other oncoming car. We now warn all birds that like to sit on the road, that Jenny has a reputation so they better move quick!
Finally at 2:40 we stopped for lunch. We were starving. We had previously abandoned our bikes and with some more cold, and I mean cold, water and flannels and were picked up by one of the two vans and driver. The little place that we stopped for lunch was lovely. A wonderful mixture of indo food, chicken, duck, tempe, vegetables, salad, Sate, just lovely.
Then it was off again. We were getting a bit tired of the day by now, it was lovely but you know in yourself when you think that you have just about had enough of the day. We had another stop. This was at a village compound. Wayan again explained all that there was to know about how the typical family compound is made up of. It was all very interesting. We thought that we were finished when we were told that we were off to the Monkey forest. Again, we have been there once and wasn’t really interested in going again and asked if we could just go back to our villa instead. It seemed as though, most people felt like this as we dropped people off in town on the way. We just wanted to go home. 4:40, ah! Finally, home. It was on with the togs and for our first swim in the wonderful pool. All in all, it was a great day, it was just a bit too long for us.
We were greeted by our fresh laundry on the table outside our room. It’s definitely, what we will do from now on. Just take half the amount of clothes and get them washed, really if you are staying there for longer than a week and shifting hotels, do you really want washing building up in your suitcase with all of your clean clothes? Hmmm, take less and just get some things laundered!
While we were in the pool, we were watching a few squirrels, running up and down the palm trees, they are such amazing agile little creatures, jumping from palm frond to palm frond, wondering what it was that he had forgotten the first time.
We needed to go into town to get some money to pay for our accommodation and grab a few things for the next day. We stopped at an ATM and went off to their new Bintang supermarket. Stocked up with a few nibblies and drinks for our next few days we thought that we would just grab a quick bite to eat for dinner. Nothing flash, as we had a good lunch. We stopped at the infamous Mosaics to look at their prices, not for now, but just a general sticky beak at things. We finally stopped at Naughty Nuri’s for a snack of Mie Goreng and just Aqua. The place was buzzing, we didn’t think that we would be able to find a table in this small open fronted place. It sure was busy. This place is owned by a beareded Yank and is also the local HHH (Hash House Harriers, a running club, if I am correct). 18,000 rps later and we thought that since we were in the vicinity, we would walk across the road and have a look at the Uma. We just walked in, as though we have done it a thousand times before, saying hello to the guards as we went by. The place has simple elegance. Lovely, rather dear, but very secluded. It looks across the ravine to our little piece of paradise at about a fifth of the price.
It was off to bed in readiness of packing for the next stage of our journey. We were robbed of a decent night’s sleep though as the Air Con wasn’t working, which wouldn’t have been a problem with the lovely nights, but the door needed to be open to keep the room from feeling stuffy. The only problem is, they don’t have fly screens and we were too busy fighting off the mozzies. So it was up, down, door open, closed, slap, slap, slap! We were quite ready to get up and pack, right there and then.
The following morning, as you can imagine, we were up early and packed, we had breakfast and paid our bill. We said our goodbyes and mentioned the Air Conditioner. With promises of seeing them again, and Christian’s sad promise of a bitumen road the next time, we were off in the white suzie.
Now for the Crème de la crème. The Legain at Seminyak! How exciting!
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