"TAKE 2"! - Would you believe that I had this one completely written and about to publish when a problem arose with the music. When I tried to rectify it the whole post was deleted....Goddamit!
So from memory it went a little bit like this......
After a farewell Mie Goreng it was time to ramble on this pagi...
We managed to linger longer though.
The Madu's pond was exceptional.
Pam and I compared all others we saw during the trip with this one and none even came close.
Pam's favorite Pearl fish....plenty of happy babies swimming around too.
A monitor lizard about a foot and a half long lives under the bridge.
One afternoon he ventured out and with great excitement the staff tried to shoo him back in.
They said he has been getting very brave lately and had ventured into the house a couple of times.
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On.
Bye Alfie! Thanks for helping us travelers that miss their babies back home.
Nurdi told me that she has a hard time getting her to eat when there aren't any guests in the villa.
Definitely a people pooch. Monkey her off-sider is more standoffish, taking his guard dog duties seriously.
Ready to roll kids?
God Arjuna the Archer on our way out of Ubud.
Luke seems to have a perpetual grin whilst he is riding around.
(he likes motorbikes, he likes them a lot ...grrrrrrr.)
A truck load of hydrangeas.
Min got some footage with Luke's Helmet cam.
Like a leaf is to a tree,so fine... my dears.
We were heading to Bloo Lagoon Eco Village in Padang Bai.
We liked the ethos of the place and it has some excellent reviews.
'Yoga' from infinitytours.com (and Jack's older brother) helped 'transfer us'.
Once we got in the car one of the first things he asked was why the heck we were going to stay in Padang Bai. Hmmmm a plump little seed of doubt was planted in my mind.
"Tidak Bagus Padang Bai,Yoga"? All he did was shake his head in disbelief at the fact we were staying there, hopefully it was that and not my Indo skills.
Whenever we spoke to the locals after this and they asked where we had been. Without fail when we mentioned Padang Bai they would screw up their face and ask "Why you stay there"? Hmmmm
Nice road up the coast funded by Aust. I believe.
The Eco Village is perched on top of a hill.
A smiling parking attendant greeted us.
That's where the smiles ended.
I think it was the Manager that showed us to our rooms with a grimace.
As we walked past the lovely looking pool I smiled at some other guests but just got a " there goes the neighbourhood" look or was it a sneer?.
WARNING - The following may contain a high content of whinging and course language.
Ok..... we were led through the vine covered arbor with the rotting, stinking fruit on the ground and shown the villa I had earmarked for the kids.
Really nice view of the harbor from this villa.
We moved on to have a look at the villa that was supposedly to be mine and Pam's.
I had booked direct and through the process of a few emails, I thought I had asked all the right questions and had painted our picture clearly. The 3 bedroom villa for the group of 'adult kids' and a 2 bedroom for the 'mums'.
They had to of been kidding. 'Grimace' showed us the smaller villa that had a double bed with a grubby looking mosquito net hanging over it. When I asked about the other bed he seemed a little taken aback but apprehensively peered up toward the loft.
I knew the other bed was up in a loft ...what I didn't know was that it's a mattress on the floor that all sorts of vermin had been running amok on.
Kind of tight lipped I asked if they had another room. He begrudgingly went down the hill to get the keys to the last room available. The villa at the peak. It was better than the 2 bedroom, there were no visible signs of vermin at least.
The younguns settled on the room in the nosebleed section and Luke,Pam and I took the other.
Look I know we had stayed in wonderful (gorgeous,sumptuous) villas so far this trip but believe me when I say I wasn't just being 'precious'.
The photo's really do it more justice than it deserves. Nothing had seen a cloth in a while not even the kitchen or bathrooms. You know that feeling when you don't want to touch anything..I had that.
Everything was dirty and had a film over it. A big plus was the linens (excl.the mosquito nets and the cushion covers) looked clean, thank goodness.
None of us were saying what we were thinking at this stage, I think we had all just decided to 'suck it and see'.
A couple of duty frees were definitely in order and I used a sarong to clean the glasses. We decided to try out the nice looking pool and the kids went off to get organised.
Whilst kicking back with our G&T's we checked out the great view of the harbor and watched the ferries come and go. The muslim call to prayer began in the town below and it sounded, you know, mystical to begin with.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Scar tissue
We caught up with the kids on our way to the pool and they didn't look too impressed.
They had got to the peak villa but 'grimace' had forgotten to give them a key but he had left it on the reception counter for them, what a guy.
When they had got in they turned the pedestal fan on that was mounted to the wall. When it got up to speed it had exploded into little bits peppering poor Maddie's back. Thankfully no one was hurt.
When they had tried to use the safe the alarm had gone off and they couldn't switch it off, so it was a trip back to reception.
None of the doors locked and none of the safes worked.
For some reason they provided us with a key to lock this gate, go figure.
Strangely I used it too :0) maybe it provided me with some false sense of security.
There was no one else about at the pool..bonus. The kids or should I say the boys had a lot of fun on the pools slippery dip, inventing more and more, potentially injurious ways to come down it.
There were some sore tushes the next day, no sympathy was given.
The pool water was very warm so I didn't stay in for long. We spent a nice afternoon at the edge of the pool in the cafe, eating pizza, having some laughs and beverages.
We called Marcus in Darwin (nephew, cousin, son and friend) and all sang Happy Birthday to him. I don't think he was too impressed though.
Before we knew it, it was time for Min to get organised for her 7pm pickup for the airport.
When we got back to the villa, the call to prayer was still happening...must of been mistaken about it being the call to prayer. After 3 hours, surely if you were going to pray you would be there by now.
It had lost it's mystique and was sounding more like very loud and bad karaoke!
Every bathroom had privacy issues and care needed to be taken.
You could see the top of Pam's head whilst she was sitting on her outside loo when you walked through the entrance gate. From mine I could see into 2 other villas lounge areas and I could see Luke having a shower from my bedroom if I chose too.
Every mosquito net we have come across in Bali has had some sort of dirt on it (excl.Maharaj)
Like the spotting on the top with some dead bugs....thanks for your effectiveness net, you have done your job well. Also often the bottoms are grubby from dragging on the floor in an open air tropical environment..it's to be expected.
But the ones at the 'Village' were something else. I thought mine was bad being close to stiff with grime but when I went to wake Luke the next morning his net had what looked like big brown s@#% stains on it. Not bloody good enough Eco Village.....again it doesn't look too bad in the photos.
We decided the best thing to do was to have a bite at the Village's restaurant whilst we waited for Jack's arrival for Min's transfer. The food was average but the Strawberry Margaritas were worth a second go.
I gave Jack a call 20 minutes before his ETA and he thought he would put the frighteners on me with "OH NO Julie ....I Forget all about it"! I spoke in tongues a little until I heard his laughter. Very good Jack, your a funny man, laugh it up. He maybe wouldn't of done that to me, if he had known the day had been full of unpleasant surprises.
He arrived 5 minutes later still chuckling. I hugged, kissed, squeezed and waved Min goodbye and asked Jack to take special care. She was a little nervous of doing the airport on her own. She had a list of instructions from me and she wouldn't be shy about asking for help if she needed it. Jack ended up walking her through the airport too. He's a good guy even if his comedy timing is off.
When we got back to the villa I felt the need to check out the bed. Thanks to j_hercules (please come back you're missed!) I knew to check the seams of the mattress for bed bugs, there weren't any present but when I lifted the mattress the bed base which is a slatted wooden box was full of webs. When I pulled back the top sheet there was a bloody big cockroach hunkered down in there ....Oh for @#$%sake, that was the clincher for me. I was going to be unhappy here.
I didn't tell anyone about my discoveries but got out the laptop, logged on to TA and started looking for villa's that might be available for the next 2 nights in Candidasa.
Pam joined in the search, we found 3 likely candidates and sent them emails. Then we checked out the reviews for Eco Village so that I could prove to her that indeed some people love the place!
Again it only goes to show that it's definitely different strokes for different folks Or the other section of the Village is a whole lot better!
We have lived in the tropics, so I am familiar with the abundance of very diverse critters that come along with this climate. They don't usual worry me in the slightest and I usually marvel at them but when I went to turn in and was about to pull the mosquito net back the biggest cicada that I have ever seen landed on the net near my hand, I swear he was around 5inches long and a seriously ugly looking creature. I must of been feeling quite fragile because I nearly dropped my bundle then..Thankfully Pam came to the rescue and sent him on his way.
A face only a mother could love!!
I climbed into bed hugging my laptop in the hope I would get some replies to the emails.
Not much sleep was had that night, with the noise of the Ferry sirens and engines echoing up from the busy harbor below. Also why the hell was I scratching all night when there weren't any bites or bugs to be seen!
Thank goodness I got that day done and dusted Again. This was the one day I wasn't looking forward to writing about as I don't like 'dishing the dirt' on places.
It got way better after this.
Looking on the bright side. At least Min didn't feel too bad having to return home when we had moved to such lodgings.
Sampai Jumpa teman teman saya!
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