My holiday in Bali was sadly coming to a close.
Unfortunately the sunburn from yesterdays snorkelling prevented me from having the greatest night sleep so I was fairly sleepy today.
Luckily there wasn’t much on the agenda. The goals for today were to pack, check out, get lunch, have a massage and slowly make my way to the airport - what a tough day!
Lotus cafe
I had almost spent all the cash I had exchanged at the start of my stay here, but luckily I had another $50 note in my wallet, so after breakfast Suzy and I went for a walk down the street and I got that exchanged to Rupiah.
Then Suzy suggested we go to a restaurant that I had missed out on called the “Lotus Cafe”.
I must have walked past in every day, but I never noticed the huge lily pond out the back! It was a really nice place!
It’s easy to forget that Bali has so many ridges and valleys with waterways everywhere!
Walking down the main strip in Ubud, you see the road and buildings along the side, but just behind those buildings could be anything from temples and rivers to rural farms and this restaurant was a great example of that!
For lunch I had a chicken and lamb satay dish, it was really tasty and very well presented!
I took a bit of time to walk to take some photos around the restaurant - just looking at them you wouldn’t know this was a restaurant along the main strip of Ubud.
Massage at Lily
After lunch we still had some time to kill before I was meeting up with Wayan to take me a bit closer to the airport so we stopped for massages.
So far all my massages had been part of the hotel, so this time I went across the road to a place called “Lily”.
Some of the others from the group had recommended, and I can see why!
I had an hour and half treatment that included a massage, then a scrub and a bath. They were careful not to scrub my painful sunburnt shoulders and gave me about half an hour to soak in a “flower bath” with some fresh ginger tea. It was really relaxing!
New Moon Restaurant
After the massage, I collected my luggage from the hotel, said my farewell to Suzy who was staying one last night and met up with Wayan.
My flight wasn’t until 2:00am that night, so my plan was to have a late dinner and slowly make my way to the airport.
Wayan suggested that he would take me to one of the best seafood places in Bali that was right on the beach and very close to the airport and that we would arrive there by sunset so I could take photos and wonder around the beach for a while and the restaurant would even hold my luggage and then take me to airport when I was ready to go!
Wayan knew the owner of the restaurant and called ahead to make sure there was a table for me.
This was the first time I really saw much of Kuta and it’s quite different to Ubud. It seems more commercial and much more crowded!
As we pulled up to the restaurant, Wayan introduced me to the staff and they took my bags and put them behind the counter.
I thought this was a service they offered with lockers or something, but it turns out they were just doing this because Wayan asked them to!
They offered me a drink and showed to me to table. They had reserved a table right on the beach for me with a great view of the ocean!
Despite the average reviews on TripAdviser, this place was definitely one of the more popular places in the area.
Looking along the beach, all the restaurants had their own section of beach with tables for their guests, but this place had much more people that the other places! It was packed!
I went to order my meal and they get you to pick from buckets of fresh seafood! These buckets were constantly being refilled with seafood, it all looked and smelled really fresh! Nothing was frozen and there was even “live crab” on the menu (which scared me a little!).
They had big seafood meals for sale for $80, which was too expensive for me, but then you could order the seafood by the kilo.
This confused me a little, but I ended up ordering squid, the guy picked up a whole squid, weighed it and charged me about $14.
I had no idea what I was going to get here, I was half expecting the full squid on a plate, but I just went back to my table and waited for my meal to arrive.
It took a long time for my meal to arrive, but the atmosphere was great!
There was a cool breeze, big waves crashing on the beach in front of me with a four piece band making there way around the tables playing music and the sunsetting in the background.
Even though I had to wait around an hour to get my meal, it was pretty relaxing and I just sat there taking photos of the sunset and the various performances around the place while I drank my fresh fruit juice.
Because the meal was taking a while, the waitress brought some complimentary peanuts over and apologies for the wait.
Eventually, my meal arrived and it was delicious! It was possibly the best squid I’ve had.
It was actually cut up and cooked with some nice spices and served with rice and salad - I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised!
After I finished my meal, they brought some fresh fruit and I payed the bill and went for a walk down the beach.
Every now and then a new performance would start at one of the restaurants along the beach, there was a mix between more moderns bands and more traditional Balinese dances.
Not long afterwards, it started raining and everyone rushed from the beach into the restaurants.
The poor restaurant were run off their feet and rain had stopped me from walking around, so amongst their rushing, I asked them for my luggage and got them to call a driver for me.
While they didn’t hold everyones bags, they did offer free transfers to the airport for everyone.
They asked me for my table number and before long my bags were loaded up and I was being driven to the airport.
Leaving Bali
This trip has been awesome and I definitely want to come back again, maybe for the next yoga retreat!
The return flights from Perth to Bali and back again cost me less than $350.
The 3 extra nights at the hotel only cost me about $200 and as for spending money, I exchanged about $300 Aussie dollars the entire trip.
This was a pretty affordable holiday compared a lot of other places and the other places don’t include yoga, massages, personal drivers and amazing fresh food!
I arrived at the airport with a huge 6 hours to spare before my flight!
Checkin wasn’t opened yet and the airport didn’t have much to do. It didn’t even have a lot of places to sit other than at the few small coffee shops around and I was still full from dinner.
I walked around a bit and found the information desk. I asked her if there was anywhere I could go to kill 6 hours and the best she could offer was a big open space on the second level of the airport where people often go to lay on the floor. It looked like this place was under construction and the shops just hadn’t been built yet, but I headed there either way.
There were quite a few people scattered around floors so I did the same thing.
I ended up sitting next to a lady named Krista from The Netherlands who had a much longer wait than me (around 16 hours I think!) and I’m glad I did because we ended up talking for hours!
We exchanged stories about our travels and went through photos. It was a great way to pass the time by, thanks Krista!
Before long I was on a plane heading to Perth - what a great holiday!