Tuesday 17th October

01:20 sleep is eluding me. The guest house is right on the main road. Traffic is relentless. The air con unit is humming away. There’s also a cat yowling somewhere; he needs to stop, and soon!

02:53 you know when you are overtired, as every little noise becomes accentuated to the point of excruciating. A pin dropping on a timber floor sounds like a wrench falling. I’m at this stage. Every noise is causing near-physical pain. I am awake. I want to sleep. It’s been so long since I slept; I’ve been awake since 05:00 Sunday. I am hearing all of the noises. There is no peace. It just doesn’t hush. Traffic continues. Vroom, vroom, vroom! Beep, beep, beep! Where are all these people going?

04:17 cockerels are crowing, it’s not morning yet you fools! Go to sleep. Ssssh! Dogs bark in the distance. Then there’s a kerfuffle. Lots of howling. Are there wolves in Bali I wonder?? Hmmm, sleep!

06:30 the staff are up in Tri Jaya and clearing the paths and gardens of all the previous day’s offerings and fallen Frangipani flowers, using some kind of palm or bamboo brush. Sweep, sweep, scrape! Sweep, sweep, scrape! I groan and realise that this may be my nightly pattern for the next two weeks. So much for blissful and idyllic.

08:50 broken sleep was had, I think! I get up and make my way to reception to grab breakfast with whoever is up. The instant I leave my nice air conditioned room I am enveloped in warm humid vapours, a sheen of moisture attaches itself to every bit of my skin. The ten second amble to the eating area has rivers, RIVERS!, streaming down my back and chest. What da…? I’ve never experienced such muggy, muggy humidity. I could nearly swim through the air it’s that thick. Unreal!!

Three breakfast options: Balinese style (fried plantain and palm sugar dumplings), American style (fried egg and toast) or Indonesian style (mie-gorang or nasi-gorang). I opted for the Balinese, might as well jump right in; plus not sure if I could handle noodles or rice on an empty stomach. The breakfast was nice, not overly sweet despite being drizzled in palm sugar and honey. To be honest, the fresh pineapple and watermelon were the best bits – can’t beat fruit for brekkie!

After breakfast I nipped to the local money changer to get my hands on some Indonesian Rupees, 15,000 IDR to the Euro – oh I’m gonna have some fun with the conversion rate!! On the up side, during this holiday I will be a multi-millionaire, many times over!!! Happy days.

On the way back to the guest house I noticed lots of little square coconut leaf parcels outside every entrance. These were filled with colourful flowers, sweets, coins and burning incense. They are called Canang Sari and are daily Hindu offerings made as prayers and thanks to the gods. As well as being on the ground, I also noticed them on cars and in small shrines that would be outside houses.  They are freshly made every day by the women of the households, and such offerings can be laid out up to three times a day.

If you see them on the ground when you are walking by you are not meant to step over or on them because it is considered disrespectful. Well duh to the latter, but okay, note to self don’t step over, go around instead! The offerings are simply everywhere. Their religious belief system here is so strong, it’s encompasses every single bit of their day to day living. They pray for the their households, they pray for the safety and health of family members, they pray for their cars, they pray for good fortune in their workplace; in fact there is very little that they do not pray for. 

To see such strong a belief system embraced so passionately by everyone is kinda wow-inducing. Personally I am of the same inclination as George R.R. Martin’s view on the topic: “You would consider me an atheist or agnostic. I find religion and spirituality fascinating. I would like to believe this isn’t the end and there’s something more, but I can’t convince the rational part of me that that makes any sense whatsoever.”

We ambled to the beach in the mid-morning heat. Only took about twenty minutes to get our bearings, wandering to and fro. By this time I felt that all my sun lotion had perspired off me. I mean I was dripping. Not quite profusely, but there’s an uncomfortable sheen, and I can tell it’s going to be consistently there for this entire trip.  (Now as I type this, I feel I am coming across very whiny, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t one bit miserable, just there is a lot to adapt to, and I haven’t had much sleep yet).

Anyway, the beach in Pemuteran consists of black sand, which means it consists of tiny fragments of basalt and it gets red hot during the day. Not good for walking barefoot, unless you were prepared to sprint to the water.

During our recon beach walk we came across a nice resort called Taman Selini which offered a lovely selection of shaded day beds and lounging areas, together with a pool and a nice restaurant. Area is deserted so they didn’t mind us using the facilities as long as we purchase some food or drink. Little did we know this would become our home away from home, as we ended up chilling here every day, too lazy to mooch further down the beach to other resorts. Plus this resort had an amazing bakery, which I’ll mention very soon in another post no doubt.

So now that I’m lounging in my cosy day bed, sipping on a watermelon juice, I should probably give a wee bit of information on this lovely place.

Pemuteran is a small fishing village in north Bali. We are here because two of the group, Tony and Francois, are keen divers and Pemuteran is home to the largest artificial Biorock Reef project in the world! What exactly does that mean you might wonder? Well the project aims to create new reefs in Bali. Electricity is conducted through metal frames planted on the seabed. This encourages calcified structures so that new coral can grow. For the sake of tourists, the frames have been moulded into interesting designs, such as bicycles, a Buddha in a lotus flower and a lobster pot. The coral is actively growing on these structures and the amount of fishlife in the area is simply astounding. Lionfish, clownfish, parrotfish, stonefish, blue starfish - it’s a seriously endless list.

Lunch consisted of a light omelette and the gang went swimming in the ocean. Lu and Jenny mentioned that they were being lightly nipped by creatures, so I decided to stay in my cosy sheltered nook and simply checked out the pool before leaving the beach.

The sun began to set around 6pm and we headed back to the guest house to get ready for dinner. The return route when taken via the main road only took ten minutes. Taman Selini will definitely become a firm favourite! At the guest house we freshened up. My shower is quite interesting, I’ll mention more about it tomorrow as I feel this post is dragging on a bit already.  I need to embrace brevity and waffle less! (Never gonna happen).

All seven of us trundled down the road, stopped at an Australian themed restaurant called Salt & Pepper and headed in. There was only one other person there at the time, so the staff were delighted when we all started ordering large Bintangs (620ml), aka “Bloody Cold Beers” as advertised on their menu. Bintang is a pale Indonesian lager and pretty much the only beer you can get in Bali. It is basically a localised version of Heineken where the taste and even the packaging looks similar (green bottle and red star). Getting it served chilled proved to be hit and miss. Refrigeration is an issue in this country. Ice cold is very difficult. A lot of places have chilled glasses and hope that you will order the small 330ml bottles. Price differences between the two were minimal so it made more sense to have a large bottle. The only downside being that the larger bottles had to be drunk fairly quickly as it warmed up at an unmerciful rate and nobody likes warm beer.

Once we all had our drinks, the waiter came around to check if we wanted the WiFi code (as sadly that is the first thing most people demand these days). I am happy to report that we sent him away with a “No thanks, we want to talk to each other” response. We are still all trying to catch up on where everyone is at after not seeing each other for a couple of years. Tony and Lu are just finished an epic sounding 73-day Xi’an to Singapore overland trip, encompassing Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. It sounded fabulous and the photos I’ve seen are unreal. More countries for the bucket list.

From there starters were had, followed by tasty mains and we all opted for pancakes as a dessert. It was funny because it turned out the restaurant seemingly only had one frying pan; all the pancakes came out individually with very long gaps between them. Sadly a lot were badly burnt on one side, the chef obviously cracked under the pressure of having to produce seven pancakes at the same time. The staff were anxious to close up, so we settled the bill and left around 9:30pm. Heading back to the guest house, it was all locked up and lights out; thankfully the gate was on a pulley system so we slinked quietly in and called it a night.