One Last Visit with Made and Family
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2011
1
19
20
Trip End
Oct 07, 2011
Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia
Thursday, October 6, 2011
We decided to catch a cab to Kuta this morning. We walked the main drag, parallel to the ocean, along with lots of young and beautiful tourists. It was overcast, intermittently raining, so we'd brought the umbrellas provided to us by the villa--full-sized ones with curved handles. I think we were the only people around who had any rain protection. Most of the young people were walking along dripping from head to toe. If there had been a wet T-shirt contest in the area, there would have been no end to the young women contestants--we passed them all on the street!
We stopped at a place called Flap Jacks for breakfast (their ham and cheese crepes are really good. Bill went the traditional route with eggs and chicken sausage and beef bacon, etc. His order came with a garden salad, oddly enough). Then it was on to Matahari (a mall) and Discovery Shopping Mall. We just did a pass-through of both places, buying a couple relatively inexpensive things. We were impressed with the high, fixed prices on all the tourist junk. It was really quite amazing and also discouraging, particularly as I still had a bunch of gifts to try to buy and time was literally running out. Made and his family were due to arrive at 1 p.m. back at the villa, for a final visit, so this was pretty much our last chance for buying anything. However, we managed to find some stuff.
Then it was off to a particular Chinese restaurant down the street from Hard Rock, to get our picture taken at a particular table on their second floor deck. It's funny, the things we attach sentimentality to. The first time we stopped at this restaurant, in 2007, it was to get a cold drink. We sat down at an upstairs table on their deck, and Bill ordered an iced ginger tea which was horribly gingery--he couldn't drink it all down and to this day does not like to have anything to do with ginger, unless it is added as a seasoning to a stir-fry dish. While there, we asked one of the waiters to snap our photo, which he did. That photo in turn became the picture on our credit card, which we look at every time we use it for purchases. When we found ourselves in Bali again in 2008, we made the trek to the same restaurant, to the same table, for another photo. Well, here we were again, 4 years after the first instance, and what do you know but "our" table was taken by two young Brazilian women, so we sat down next to them and waited for them to leave. They didn't, and we had no remaining time to spare, so we found a waiter who took our picture. See attached.
We caught a cab back to Seminyak and were just ahead of Made, Lasmi and Bule, who arrived a few moments after we did. When they first came in the door, they were all still wearing their helmets (they'd ridden one scooter between the 3 of them), and Bule looked so darned cute. We visited for a little while then walked down to Sate Bali, which is an Indonesian restaurant, for lunch. Bill and I were saving our appetites for our big blow-out farewell-to-Bali dinner later that evening, so we ate small appetizers while Lasmi and Made had nasi goreng and mie goreng with sides of sate. After lunch, we went back to the villa and sat around, watching cartoons and playing with Bule. Made gave us our final Balinese Indonesian language lesson, and before we knew it, they were leaving for home. It was so sad to say goodbye. Hopefully we will see them again someday, if we are lucky.
It was then time to take another shower and dress for dinner. We had reservations at La Lucciola, which is an Italian restaurant fronting the ocean, about a 10 minutes' walk away. Unfortunately we weren't able to get dinner reservations earlier than 6:15, so we missed the sunset viewing. Other than that, the experience was wonderful, with the ocean breezes, swaying palm trees, rolls with real butter to spread on them, pasta, red wine, pounding surf. Once our meal was completed, we walked up the restaurant's lawn to the beach and made our way homeward, walking barefooted on the sand. It was pitch dark by that point, but the lights from various resorts shone out toward the ocean, which illuminated our way. The sea was beautiful with unending rolling waves, salty wind in our hair, cool sand under our feet. We decided to cut back in toward the street through Ku De Ta (a highly upscale bar/restaurant) so as to get to our accommodation. We were stopped at the base of steps which led from the sand up to the restaurant by an unsmiling security guard who told Bill that we were not allowed to bring food onto the premises (he was carrying my uneaten portion of pasta in a sack). I'm not sure what Bill said to the guard, but I seem to recall it being a tad bit sarcastic, and he just shouldered his way up the steps and on into the restaurant area, me following like an obedient duckling. We walked in our bare, sandy feet through the outdoor portions of the restaurant. I tried to wash my feet in a big, decorative fountain but didn't have the guts to really do a thorough job, what with people milling around, someone playing soft jazz piano nearby, everyone dressed up with drinks in hand, etc. Therefore, it was a snappish slog home, my feet were rubbing on my sandals, and when I complained, Bill took off his flip-flops, tossed them at me to wear, then stomped the rest of the way in his bare feet. Not the most romantic of endings, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
