An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
Another lovely breakfast from our good friends at Room Service, then Milton set off for his kayaking adventure on the Ayung river. It was about a 40 minute drive from the hotel to the put-in point and, as today is a major Hindu holy day, we passed a great many women brightly clad in their fancy sarongs carrying baskets of various offerings on their heads as they walked along the roadside to their local temple.
The kayaking was with a guide in an inflatable two-person kayak. Now, this is the way to do it!! It was like sitting in a comfy lounger as you paddle leisurely through some spectacular scenery and manageable and enjoyable rapids. The river was mostly class 2s with a few 3s, and the ride was only about 9km and took about 90 minutes. The trip was, of course, amazingly lush and green with huge bamboo and palm trees everywhere and the recessed terraces rising way up the hillsides. As it rains so much here, there were numerous waterfalls of all sizes and heights, seemingly coming at you from everywhere; in the really enormous ones the guide (as I’m sure they always do) would steer us under for a natural, high-pressure shower (now I know why we had to wear helmuts). A great experience - more fun and personal than the usual rafting.
Alas, the ride came to its too-quick finish and it was back to the hotel. Wendy was just leaving to scope out the nearby Amandari resort (sister of the Amanjiwo in which we stayed in Java), so we went together. Another lovely property (though not as stunningly unique as the new Amanjiwo), this one of thatch-roofed buildings and set atop the same deep, verdant valley as our Four Seasons. We dined outdoors, overlooking the pool and omnipresent greenery. Lunch was grilled chicken with wonderful Indonesian spices, a caesar salad with some whoppingly salty dried prosciutto, and grilled eggplant with ratatouie and tapanade. All delicious, naturally. Wendy also had a farewell young coconut juice which was served in a coconut so huge that we just had to take a picture of it. We then perused their absurdly over-priced boutique and returned to our hotel.
We spent a few hours reading and relaxing - Wendy enjoying actual functional air conditioning and Milton sitting out on the veranda soaking (literally) in the abundant tropical lushness and sunshine. It was then time for our Balinese massages. Certainly enjoyable, though nothing memorable, a bit like traditional swedish but with more active counter-stroking and kneading of the skin (at least the parts we were awake to remember). We returned to the room, ordered some dinner and packed for the overnight flight to Auckland.
Our Asian farewell dinner was another caesar salad with grilled chicken, succulent miso-seared tuna, and, of course, fresh honeydew juice, accompanied by a tape of “The Best of the Mamas and the Papas” - another great Pat Pong pickup. The time had come, so we checked out (chatting amiably with Royal who did, indeed, comp us all three nights) and met Wayan for the drive to the airport and a final excercise in attempting to understand strongly and strangely-accented english (though New Zealand may be even more of a challange). The wait was painless enough, and we boarded the flight. We were surprised to learn that, contrary to what we’d been told, the flight stopped in Brisbane for an hour. Thus, since the first part was only five hours before we had to leave the plane for an hour, we took our ambien immediately and neither of us even remember the takeoff.