Christmas Eve
9:00 AM
We spent yesterday traveling from Northern Bali to Melbourne Australia
On the 21st, we were driven from Munduk to Pemuteran, to stay for two nights at the Matahari Beach Resort, close to the northwestern tip of Bali. The idea was to avoid the crowds of tourists down near the south. (Little did we know that there was going to be a volcanic eruption, and tourism would be at a small fraction of its usual volume.) Since it was still raining in the mountains around Munduk, we chose to leave right after breakfast.
It was a long ride along twisty, narrow, but well paved roads. In a couple of places, though, we saw damage that the excessively rainy season had done. On one mountain slope the road was half gone for about twenty yards; in one town, erosion had caused enough damage that the road through it was down to one lane, with work crews manually doing repairs.
Once in Pemuteran, though, we quickly settled in. The Matahari has an enormous, beautiful pool set between two huge banyan trees. One side of the resort faces the Java Sea, and sports a black lava sand beach. Actually it was more of a sepia color, rather rocky. Not appealing to either of us, but the pool certainly was. The weather down by the sea was clear and warm, so Mary dove in and did her customary mile swim.
This resort was built about 22 years ago, with a good deal of consciousness, by a German chain. They carefully built around the trees as much as possible. While the entire grounds is a carefully tended garden, they use recycled water for the plants and lawns, from their own waste treatment plant.
There was no slacking in comforts, though. The villas are spacious, built in Balinese style, with lots and lots of hand-carved wood, and are very comfortable. The outdoor shower was a hoot — a three-meter tall, three-headed, carved stone dragon! (Stand by for a drawing of that).
Mary reported that the place got low marks for its food. Not from us, though. We thought it was tasty, well-presented and well prepared. The morning omelets were beautifully fluffy, for example. I ordered a salad, and just had to get the recipe. Here’s what the chef wrote:
– Cook cream. – Garlik chop. – Lea Perrin [Worchestershire sauce]. – Lemon juice. – Salt & pepper.
I suppose we could have gone into the town itself, about a kilometer away, but I think because of the intermittent rain we decided to just stay put. This allowed for lots of swimming for Mary, and a couple of watercolors from me, one of a resurrected beauganvillia , and a pen-and-watercolor sketch of the Balinese theater that is on the grounds.
The morning of the 23d we headed out after breakfast to Denpensar, to the airport, for a flight to Melbourne, Australia, to spend Christmas with Mary’s niece and close friends who live there. We left the hotel at 8:00 AM and emerged from the Melbourne airport about 13 hours later, at around Midnight local time.
We were met at the airport by Mary’s niece Ashley and her partner Taylan, and taken into Melbourne proper, to an apartment Ashley arranged for us. Very clean and functional, though sparse, and with drinkable water right out of the tap! Amazing that this would hit me as such a welcome novelty.
In an hour or so we’ll meet up with Ashley and Taylan. He promised to take me to the local mall. I need to replace my beard trimmer, which died. Later we’ll go visit them at their place, meet the dogs, and the chooks . . .
