Back on the 29th after 21 days in Bali. Me 50ish and Mum 72 ish.
Had a good flight over with Garuda. Took some medical donations over for a lady to do with Southern Cross Bali Association. Garuda gave us an extra 5 kils each. Got through customs this time they didn't even look at our luggage was stressing a bit over the medical things. It was only bandaides and dressing stuff but there was a lot of it.
Don was there to pick us up. Stayed at his Villas for 1 night as was being picked up the next day to start our 7 night 8 day Cooking Tour or should i say eating tour.
The first 3 nights we stayed at Alila in Ubud which was very nice.
Alia is very very nice but a bit quiet for my liking. Lots of couples on honeymoon. Bueatifull swimming pool looking out over the mountains. The second night i thought we were in Mecca as this guy started chanting from out in the mountains at some ungodly hour and kept going for hours. I later found out it was a tape that was playing!!It was the start of there celebrations for there Xmas which they celebrate twice a year.
The views out over the mountains was truly spectacular. The monkeys would come out to play, fight, and you know what at about 5.00pm along one of the brick walls in front of our room. If your into nature you would love it. We had some lovely meals there as the Chef is a young Aussie guy from Perth. Went to the markets at Ubud. Sorry not very good at this sort of thing and am a crap speller so bear with me. Was with a group of 16 with this Tour. Lovely people from all walks of life and all from Perth.
The next 4 nights we were a Alila at Candi Dasa. This was on the beach and was also very very nice. They have there own organic garden so we did a tour of this then had our cooking class where we cooked traditional Bali dishes. Then the best part was that we ate it!!
Next day we went to the morning markets at KlungKung a traditional village market. We then travelled up to the village of Sideman and saw the rice terraced vistas. We had lunch at the homestay of Pondok Wisata Patal Kikian whoes guests have included Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Hey they probablly went there to meditate!! Anyway the meal was lovely and this lady was a delight.
On our final night we visited one of the Old Royal Palaces and then went to the Royal Water Palace for Dinner which was all done by the Alila Staff. This was also very nice. Before dinner we also saw a Bali dance, forget what it was called but very entertaining.
Well that was our tour over so we all then went our seperate ways.
Mum and i had booked our private transport to head further up the east coast to Lovina to visit my sponcer child.
We booked into our accommodation at Rambuttan Cottages. It was very nice and even though i didnt get to meet Richard and his family as they were on holidays his staff where great and he should be very proud of them. The first night mum and i were hanging out for some good old fashioned aussie food. We thought bugger it, on the menu was steak and mashed potatoes and salad. I said to mum this could be interesting. It turned out great. The steak melted in our mouths and the mashed potato was mashed potato and the salad had a nice dressing on it. Bloody bueatifull!! We actually had it the second night as well. Hardly any tourist up there, very quiet.
Thats all for now will post one on our sponcer child visit next.
Regard
Leonie