Wednesday 25th October

Balinese breakfast this morning. Changing it up yo! Oooh, new offering: loose rice covered in palm syrup and three pandan dumplings. Different! I’m not totally sold on it though. Missing my noodles already.

It has become a bit of a running joke where Robin normally asks every day if I plan on going snorkelling, and every day I sweetly reply “maybe”, when we all know I mean no. I’m not good in water. Tend to freak when I’m out of my depth. Overly cautious with the ocean; she terrifies me. (I’m totally ruing my missed opportunity to seize water goddess status yesterday!) Anyway, usually he asks when we are at the beach, but for some reason he asked me first thing this morning as we had breakfast. Not up to speed yet at this early hour, I responded coyly with my usual “maybe”. He then triumphantly took great pleasure in telling me about this area known as my comfort zone and this other exciting area where the magic happens, which, would you believe, is OUTSIDE my comfort zone! Oi vay!!

I happened to be eating a forkful of rice at the time, and the cheek of his impudence, knowing he just couldn’t wait to throw my smart comment from yesterday back in my face so soon had me guffaw and inhale the rice the wrong way. Cue nearly 5 minutes of me coughing and spluttering, trying to get my breath back. Brought a whole new meaning to choking on your own words. Feck sake! Cheeky fucker. Hilarious! He was grinning like a Cheshire Cat, totally proud of his smart self and delighted as punch that he was able to use it so soon, not even 24 hours later like!!! Ooooh, there will be retribution sir... for now though I let him have the win, begrudgedly! Feck!!

Today was, guess what? Another chill day. Finally finished reading Mountain Shadow. Twas alright. Impossible to live up to the hype of Shantaram I suppose. Still, it was a tolerable read, passed the time. Tony and Francois went diving and while their fish and nudibranch photos were amazing, the best by far were the shots of the shark nursery they came across today. Young white tips, hiding under the rocks. And again the silly urge to learn to dive rears its familiar head! (Sigh!!)

Lu and Amy popped to the massage parlour Joyeux and had pedicures – we are giving them great business this week. Jess booked her advanced Padi course and was given homework!! Because she had to study and Amy wanted to do photo upload work, the twins stayed at Taman Selini to have dinner.

The rest of us opted for pre-dinner drinks on my veranda back at the guest house. I’ve acquired Francois’ couch and a chair from the dining area, so we can now seat 7 around the table. Out came the gin and the rum. We’ve stashed mixers in the fridge in the dining area (with the owner’s consent of course). Since restaurants close so early we can’t stay on the veranda too long. Just two drinks and we are off.

We’ve heard a lot about a potent local rice liquor called Arak, normally 80% alcohol content. It’s considered the “rum” of Indonesia as it’s distilled from sugarcane. It is often created as a form of moonshine by locals. Geoff and Francois ordered cocktails called Arak Attack, consisting of arak and grenadine. My tasty Screwdriver also contained the liqueur, but to be honest, I couldn’t taste any difference from a western screwdriver.  That being said the restaurant was serving us proper over the counter alcohol. I’d be more wary of anything offered by locals in their homes from clear bottles. Some home-brewed Poitin back in Ireland could make you go blind or worse (methanol-tainted); over here I reckon it’s the same with the local hooch. Be wide!

(Since today was a slow day photowise, I have shamelessly stolen some of Francois' diving pics. How incredible does it look under the sea? If these don't want to make you jump into the water, nothing will. Stunningly magical. Maybe I will try my hand at snorkelling before we leave...)