Well surf camp is now over - no more surf camp geekiness for us! I was just starting to really enjoy it as well and get over the fear, plus we met some really, really good guys there, but that said I've probably got enough reef cuts and bruises and welts across my body now and Brett has some hideous looking sea lice plague all over him so maybe a few days out of the sea are no bad thing!
Brett's mum decided to come to spend a week in Bali which has seen an end to our cheap and easy living for a wee moment. We left surf camp and checked into a pretty basic hotel with a few odd chunks missing from the plaster and a few stains on the bed sheets and a dubious water system, but ce la vie, we can't always be living it up and after a quick pep talk to myself I concluded I have definitly slept in worse places. Plus we get breakfast included, complete with coffee so who am I to complain?!
Today the 3 of us did a day trip to Ubud. Me and Brett had already planned to spend a day or so there but as his mum wanted to see it we arranged a driver to take us up just for a day. To be honest it's hard to get much of an impression of the place in the short time we were there, it's inland and up towards the mountains so you pass some beautiful lush green scenery and rice fields on the way up. We spent a grand total of an hour in Ubud itself which is quite a tourist trap but has some genuinely beautiful art and market goods and temples. We were then hustled on to go up to look at the volcanic mountain which in my opinion is a bit over-rated. I'm probably a bit spolit having just been in New Zealand so I'm a bit like "oh yeah, there's another stunning mountain view," but if Ubud is a tourist trap, the Mountain top is like a big fat laser beam riddled tourist prison. You exit the car, pick your way through the mass of people trying to sell to you and are somehow hustled into this grand building where you are handed a towel and asked to sit down for your 100,000 rupiah buffet. You're sat down before you even realiuse that you didn't even want or ask for a buffet. Now 100,000 rupiah is only approximately $10, but then me and Brett have been eating fantastic, fresh meals for 6 - 10,0000 rupiah so comparitively it is a bloomin' fortune! We escaped from that buffet on principle as much as anything, but then still hungry we ended up barteting down the cost of another buffet style meal which was nothing to write home about but I suppose did only cost $6.
Probably my favourite part of my day was the fruit stalls on the way up the mountain with beautiful displays of fruits, I think we sampled more of the fruits for free than we actually paid for. And that was buying from genuine locals as opposed to the Tourist company buffets. Ooh, and our laundry which we picked up all washed and dried and ironed and folded. My clothes look better than they've ever looked in their lifes - this has made my day! Ah, the small things!
Oh yeah and finally - mongoose poo coffee! Supposedly a much sought after speciality, where the best coffee beans are supposedly eaten by mongooses and then pass through them whole, to be cleaned and made into coffee. This I had to try. In all honestly it tasted just like any normal coffee (such a connoiseur!) but at least I can say I've tried poo coffee!
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