Delayed arrival and pool party!!

Cos people wanna hang with us...

You may recall that in my last post, we had just spent a fun and chilled out week with our friends Jo and Nick. They made it home on time and in one piece despite the Lombok volcano disrupting flights day after day...

A mere week after they went home, Lex (aka my little sis) was due to arrive in Bali to spend a couple of weeks with us - yay!!! Despite Jo and Nick's arrival dramas, I was pretty confident Lex would make it on schedule, having switched her flight from "can't-get-our-shit-together-Jetstar" to "we'll-have-you-there-in-a-jiffy-Garuda".

But it seems the universe didn't want Lex arriving hassle-free, hiding her passport the day before her departure and forcing her to the immigration department to get a priority passport issued!!! The universe can be a cruel bitch uh, prankster...

So, a couple of days later than planned, Lex hit the sunny shores of Bali for a now-slightly-less-than 2 week visit!!

Actually, her timing was perfect, as she arrived at the tail end of a couple of construction projects.

A few weeks ago, Phil and I commissioned a Balinese wooden screen for the rather bare balcony of our upstairs apartment. I was a bit nervous about how it would come together, but it turned out beautifully.

And, it was finished on the day Lex arrived:


Breathing some life into the balcony... Can't wait to get a few plants to finish it off.


Balmy sunset...

Incidentally, it's been great to have a longer stint in Bali to make a few changes to the apartments here. We've ordered a new couch which should be arriving any day... I'm super excited to see it!!!

Note: the couch was commissioned directly from a workshop (cos it was half the price) based on a very rough sketch - so pls people, keep your fingers crossed that it looks at least vaguely like what we're imagining...

Also over the past few weeks, all the tiles surrounding the pool have been pulled up and replaced by gorgeous sparkly new tiles. It was a big project, but the results are awesome.


So new and shiny!!


... and speaking of the pool

Pool party!!!

To celebrate the completion of the pool work, Lex, Phil and I asked the fantastic staff (who keep the Beach Melati Apartments running so beautifully) to join us, together with their families for lunch - on us - and a pool party!!

Because the apartment complex is completely empty (thanks to the pool work), we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for the staff and their families to be the first to try out the fancy new pool area with their kids. And a small way for us to thank them for looking after us so well.

It was a really fun day and great to spend time chilling out with the awesome staff and their families.


Look at these adorable munchkins with Wayan


Yuda - there is nothing this man can't fix. This was actually seriously brave, because he can't swim...but he just looks super chill!


Tucking into lunch


Lex obtained an admirer - Dacia - who followed her around all day

To myself, I dedicated the day to my dad, who passed away 5 years ago this November 20th.

He would have loved hanging out with all the guys, meeting their families and especially playing with the kids in the pool. In fact, I think he might have been behind the spirit of the day in the first place. Always thinking of you, dad.

What else??
In the next instalment, adventures with Lex!!

We went to an island - ooh, intriguing, right?? Did we swim with turtles and totally make her holiday? You'll have to check in to find out...

One quick update before I sign off - remember Douglas, our very noisy gecko who moved into our bedroom air conditioner and kept us up with his, frankly creepy, mating call???



A rare shot of Douglas in the 'wild'...

Well, he has moved on!!! No more waking up at midnight to a crooning reptile. Woo hoo!!!

I guess all that effort finally paid off and he found his lady love - awww...

Or else it was Phil smacking the air con unit with a tshirt every time he started up for two days straight?? Either way, I'm sleeping like a lamb!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

There's a gecko in my air conditioner...

Douglas

Since we arrived back in Bali in late October, we have experienced a mostly-nocturnal phenomenon... a loudly squeaking gecko that has moved into the bedroom's air conditioning vent! We have named him Douglas. He likes to squeak out his song several times a night, waking us up in the process - thanks Douglas!!

So many questions - geckos make noises? Geckos have names? Geckos can live in air conditioning vents? He wakes you up - how big is this damn gecko anyway??

So geckos in Bali come in several shapes and sizes. But here in the heavily populated Legian area, you only really see the tiny ones. They're super cute and absolutely everywhere.


So tiny, they're almost translucent...

But once you're out of the busiest spots, you come across the bigger ones, although they're not a super common sighting. I've seen a couple in Ubud over the past few years.


The ones in Bali are generally cuter than this...

Phil and I were sure that Douglas must be a monster of a gecko because of the aforementioned LOUDNESS of his call... (check out this YouTube video - it's not mine, but Ol' Douglas sounds exactly the same).

But he could also have been amplified by the air con unit, so we just couldn't be sure!!

Well, yesterday was finally the day of reckoning... We spotted him!!! Just for a minute, but long enough for Phil to whip out the camera and capture a (rather grainy) candid shot.



Can you see him there - cute right?? It was hard to get a shot in the dark and without being able to get too close, but Phil did a great job sneaking up...

And just in case you're wondering whether it was just a coincidence, seconds after Douglas scampered away, he was back at his post, squeaking away!!

-------------

Speaking of coincidences, tonight Douglas has been louder than ever, prompting me to suggest to him in no uncertain terms that he might like to PIPE DOWN!!

Twenty minutes later, the power in the whole apartment goes out and doesn't look like it's coming back. Sigh, Douglas, you are a rascal...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Adventures with Jo and Nick

The volcano saga

As I mentioned in my last post, a volcano erupted on Mount Rinjani in Lombok about two weeks ago and has been playing havoc on flights in and out of Bali.

Well, sort of... I think Jetstar may not have run a single scheduled flight to or from Bali in two weeks!! On the other hand, apart from two or three brief closures of the Bali airport, Garuda has been flying their usual schedule pretty consistently. Apparently they are allowed to fly in the military zone which allows them to avoid the volcanic ash.

The point of all this, is our friends Jo and Nick scheduled a quick visit to Bali, from last Sunday to Friday. Woo hoo, right? But they had booked on Jetstar - boo!!!! At the time of the last post, their Sunday arrival date had already passed - booooo!!!

Phil and I were watching Jetstar travel alerts like hawks in the week leading up to the visit, and getting a little despondent as day after days's worth of flights were cancelled.

But by this stage, Jo and Nick had given up on Jetstar and rebooked on Garuda on a flight due to arrive on Monday at lunchtime, so we kept our hopes up. And... they made it late Monday night (WOO HOOOO)!!! We were over the moon when we finally saw them emerge from the airport, and they brought us the best gift of all - duty free grey goose vodka their presence!!!

Nick and Jo in Bali
We only had four days to pack a lot of Bali fun into... But we managed to fit in a ton!!

Super relaxing reflexology, beers on the beach, a few dips in the pool, an elegant rooftop bar, a movie (James Bond, of course), a fancy dinner at my favourite Sarong and lots of laughs and cocktails, of course.

We also managed a whole day at Bali's awesome waterslide park, Waterbom. It helped that it's so quiet here at the moment, there were no queues at all!! You were only limited by how long it took you to climb the giant ladders to get up to the death defying attractions.

Here's some highlights of our fun mini-week in pictures:



Jo and I at Sarong on our first night


We had a delicious spread, including a gravity defying fairy floss cocktail!



Nick and Phil contemplating life... or dinner...



Sunset drinks on a rooftop bar at Double Six - the big round tables are sunk into an infinity pool - super fancy!!


Dinner at Deus ex machina - I think the universe was making up for lost time, because we arrived at the exact moment the ladies' happy hour began... free cocktails for Jo and I!


Phil with our adopted cat for the evening - Nick may have secured her love by "dropping" some chicken on the ground...

The time flew by, as it always does when friends visit, but despite the shorter visit, we had a great time and made some awesome memories.

Next up... my very own sister, Lex arrives in four days for almost two weeks!! I've already got some awesome adventures planned.

And we're down to our last month of what I've dubbed "adventure 2015". It's hard believe how fast time has gone by... Guess we'll have to make the most of it while we can!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My (second) island home

Stranded!!!
We've been back in Bali for 3 weeks since our Melbourne/ Kota Kinabalu adventures, and it's fair to say we are very happy to be kicking back here. Which is a very good thing at the moment because... we are stranded!!!

In case you missed it, some volcano on Mt Rinjani (in Lombok) started spewing out piles of volcanic ash which has caused havoc with air travel to and from Bali for almost a week now.


It's really not too bad a place to get stuck in... Here is Phil getting nibbled on by someone's PET OTTER!!!

People who are here are stuck here and those trying to get here are having a lot of trouble...

Case in point, we were are super excited to have our friends, Jo and Nick visit us for a week, arriving on Sunday... Yes, that Sunday that just passed us by (cue rage at stupid ill-timed volcano noooooooo!!!).

Jetfail have just cancelled everything, but in an impressive display of tenacity and determination, Jo & Nick have rebooked on Garuda and will hopefully be here by the time you're reading this post. Fingers crossed, people!!!

Island life
So what have we been up to lately? Or, as some people put it when they hear you're going to be in Bali for a while, 'what do you do there all day???'

I once overheard someone at the next table talking about what they do on a holiday in Bali... 'Well, I get up and have some breakfast. Then I have a massage and once I'm done, it's time for lunch and a cocktail. Some pool time, and a few more cocktails, and it's sunset and dinner. Some days, I barely have time for all that!'

Even without a dozen cocktails a day, it is true that the days in Bali seem to melt away incredibly quickly!!

We had some excitement our first week back with a visit from my dear friend Yules (see here for recap) and it was so much fun giving her a taste of Bali for the first time.

Since her visit, we've settled into a very gentle routine. A morning and evening walk on the beach, a swim in the pool and reading a book pretty much fills half the day!!


I never get sick of walking on the beach at sunset...

If you've seen my Facebook or Instagram posts, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all we do is eat...



Look at that beautiful fruit salad. It cost $3...

But while it's true that we can linger over breakfast and a coffee like nobody's business, there are a few new things we've been trying out.

Phil has been keen to try out body surfing for ages, and has picked up some flippers and a hand board and has been out in the waves daily.

I have picked up a yoga mat (no, not kidding). I have NOT loved my previous Bali yoga experiences, but I am committed to stretching out my very un-bendy self before I get back to office-chair bound back torture! Definitely not yoga as you know it, but so far, so good (ie no tendons have snapped to date...)

Trilinguality
Phil has also been attending one-on-one Indonesian classes three times a week and his language skills are improving in leaps and bounds!!

He has signed up with the Seminyak Language school which is located opposite the Bintang supermarket (in case you're wondering). A particular advantage of going through the school, is they will sponsor you for a social/ cultural visa which I understand allows you to stay in Bali for up to 6 months. Very handy if you want to come over for a while and are keen to learn a bit as well.

Phil's language skills are definitely coming in handy too! We've been devoting a fair bit of time to making some improvements to our apartments here and transactions are definitely easier if you can speak to the tradies. Plus it's just really nice to see people relax when you speak to them in their language.

Spontaneous heroics
And, Phil's newfound language skills actually helped to save TWO LIVES this week!! He was out for an early morning body surf and was approached by a frantic woman yelling that her husband was drowning. Phil quickly donned his secret identity "Super-Phil" (and not for the first time), leapt into the water and swam out to save him.

Unfortunately, frantic (and by the sound of things possibly still-hammered) wife decided she would follow suit, quickly got herself into trouble and had to be dragged out of the water by Super-Phil!!

Lives saved at this point: 1


Looks calm, but not so much...

Super-Phil then decides to engage the help of the locals, uses his awesome Indonesian language skills to convey that someone is in trouble. The guys jump into action and the lifeguards are called in and mount the jetski to go out and save the husband.

But the jetski keeps getting stuck in the shallow water!!


Ill-fated jetski

So it's Super-Phil to the rescue once again, and he leaps into the water to push the jetski out, the lifesavers tow the guy in and the tally is now:

Total lives saved: 2

The kicker end to the story is that when they dragged the guy back to the beach, it became apparent that he was totally naked... classy...

Apparently, the instant he hit the shore, a screaming match started up between husband and wife... and when Phil and a life saver tried to get him to lie on his side because he was coughing up water, he tried to punch them. Super classy dude!!!

He did eventually calm down and thank his rescuers...

I should say that Phil's telling of this story is far more modest, but he did in fact intervene to save two lives and is my personal hero.

(Hopefully) in the next instalment, adventures with Jo and Nick!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

So it's been a while between blog posts. Lots of things have been happening, people, I just haven't sat down to write about it... what a slacker!!

At the time of the last blog post, both Phil and I were wrapping up our first two weeks in Bali after some fairly persistent, but minor stomach ailments. We were a week or so away from 10 days in Kota Kinabalu in east Malaysia to renew our visas and revisit the gorgeous spot where we got married some 6 years ago!

And then there was a last minute change... a mere 4 days before flying to Malaysia, I had a FaceTime chat with my mum which made it clear that I needed to head back to Melbourne for a few days instead.

While I've loved our travels, I do really miss home while I'm away. I have especially been missing my beautiful cat Millie and the dogs, so when it looked like some help wouldn't go astray, I got myself down to the AirAsia office and changed my flight. It was that easy.

Melbourne!!!!!!
So instead of spending 10 days eating noodles and snorkelling on islands for a few ringgit a day, I spent 10 days inhaling coffee and appreciating the hell out of my own bed and pillow!! I focussed on a bunch of renovation-related meetings to organise and attend, but also managed to squeeze in some walks with the dogs and a few all-too-brief catch ups.

It was a whirlwind trip and over almost as soon as it began!!


Beautiful Millie wouldn't let me out of her sight during my week in Melb...



And I was so happy to be reunited with the dogs... Andy looks less impressed.

While I was in Melbourne, Phil had "our" Malaysian holiday, walking all around Kota Kinabalu and eating an impressive amount of roti (and torturing me with drool-worthy foodie pics!!)


Yes, that is iced milo!!

Back in Bali

We each headed back to Bali on the same day, our flights arriving a mere hour apart... and we had a third person to meet at Denpasar airport...



My gorgeous and talented friend, Yules. Woo hoo!!!!!! Incidentally, this girl cannot take a bad photo... I need her secret.

Yules, who has never been to Bali before had a week before heading to a conference in Adelaide. It couldn't have been a more perfect re-introduction to Bali!!

We swam in the pool, discovered some new breakfast spots, watched the sunset from the beach, had a tarot reading at high tea, shopped our little hearts out and squeezed in a day trip to Ubud. It was an awesome week!!!

Here it is in pics:



I knew it would be an awesome visit when we looked at each other's bags...


Bali's golden sunsets



Chilling by the pool


The rice fields of Ubud


Breakfast at the awesome Kreol kitchen



Happy travellers!!

It was over all too soon...

In the next instalment, read about how we're trapped in the island and how Phil's Indonesian classes are literally saving lives!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone