We’re back

Lyla May McDonald: you’re lovely to travel with until the final two hours of a gruelling 12-hour day…

but those two hours went pretty quickly and at least you had a reason to be grizzly, unlike the 10-year-old kicking dad’s seat for the whole Now-Everyone-Can-Fly-But-Why-Oh-Why flight back. Does your dad run a travel website or something?

Internet access was dismal but what a great time we ended up having in Bali (maybe that “but” should be a “so”). We finally understand what all the Bali fuss is about: we found a fantabulous place to stay called Pondok Pisces, just back off quiet Balian beach, about two hours’ drive north of Denpasar. Coconut palms, overgrown rice terraces, cows, surf, a river, fishermen…

First up though we stayed a week at Villa Kresna, a place we’ve spent a couple of weekends the past year. For a reasonably priced place in Seminyak, (long) walking distance to the very Australian Ku De Ta and the lovely bar at La Luciano’s or whatever it’s called, it’s great. We like that they have solar power firing up their hot water, we just wish it would work more often. And if they put in new air-conditioner units, they’d probably save a motza on their real power bills. Otherwise the little swimming pool is charming and the villas airy and low-key.

Some pix of our favourite gel while we were there.

We hired a car for a day and travelled up to Gunung Batur, one of the main volcanoes on the island.

Here’s some of the scenery:

We ummed and aahed about whether to head back to Jakarta and brave dengue or try somewhere different. Figuring we had plenty of time and nothing to rush back for (how did I ever have time to WORK?) we went for the latter and found PP online, so it was a bit of a punt — but a winning one. Of all the travels we’ve done in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, this place has the best gardens we’ve ever seen. Admittedly it’s not exactly backpacker prices — about 50USD a night — but that’s for a three-storey house with gorgeous open-air kitchen and bathroom, living area and a loft bedroom that catches the sea breeze. They do have little bungalows but with Lyla in tow that’s something we’re putting behind us for now (hip hip hooray).

Here’s Dad and Lyla on our first day.

Cows grazed on the empty block of land in front of where we were staying. When it started raining I said to Stu it would be good to finally see what cows do in the rain.

“They sit down,” he said, “to protect the temperature of their milk.”

“Ha ha, yeah, right,” I said.

The mama cow then sat down.

The scenery was low-key.

We bought some colourful hand-painted mobiles on a whim when we travelled to the volcano. The woman I bought them from had blue paint on her hands when I interrupted her making them. If you’re one of the about dozen friends who have just had or are about to have a baby, I’m afraid one of these mobiles will be in the mail for you.

We had some outings where Lyla just had to wear her new hat.

Or her new sunglasses.

Lyla’s outie became an innie!

Maybe it was due to all the stress of practising lifting her head.

Here’s my baby girl and I at the river.