LOTUS NOTES

Lunch, of course, was the first order of the day after we checked in and chucked our bags on the floor. A short shuttle ride took us to Ubud Palace. We were ready for babi guling, but it was not ready for us. In fact, the stall was packing up for the day. And it was only 3.30pm. We chanced on Lotus Cafe. What a lovely setting for our first meal on the island.

A pond filled with lotus abuts the back of the cafe and on some nights a week, there's a traditional dance staged at night. Nice idea to have a dance to go with your dinner. But not on Friday, the day we arrived.

Still, HB does a fair imitation of a Balinese dancer's surprised look.
We ordered ayam betutu. It came with brown rice. How nice!
And club sandwich. Our tums were still filled with inflight low-fat lunch, lah.
We bought tickets to a kecak and fire dance but had lotsa time to spare before the show. So we wondered about town. Then went to a Net cafe to download geocaching info which my sis had to email because I left the SD card stuck in my laptop at home (and I only just retrieved it while writing this!). No aircon at the Net cafe, shops - those that did were very economical with its use. We were feeling icky-sticky and too full for dinner. So we stopped by Ary's Warung. A really nice place. Pity we couldn't try out anything more than a drink.

The waiter was very chatty (we later found out that most of them are) and told us he trained at a seafood place at Boat Quay. There was awedding going on at the "temple" next door. People dressed up in their finest kebaya and songket kept streaming out and proceeding to a back garden where food was laid out. Made for interesting people-watching as we sipped our mango-lemon-honey-whatever drink.