captain's breakfast

Each year when the Sama Sama sails into its channel anchorage, a flutter of excitement rises with the anticipation of our annual breakfast outing. The graceful teak boat is owned by an Austrian couple, and in between charters they slot in a ten day holiday, before the boat heads to the Mentawai for the remainder of the surf season. 

With their Balinese cook they laid on a buffet breakfast that lasted all morning. Two loaves of bread -warm from the oven - fruit platter, toasted muesli, eggs, salami, banana and chocolate cake, a selection of jams and spreads, juice, tea and a bottomless plunger of coffee. Oh how variety can cause one to overeat. Sweet to savoury, back to sweet...another coffee? more bread? 

In between courses we dived off the deck, did laps around the boat, the girls played cards while the boys battled it out in chess. Tom found a spot on the daybed with 360 degree ocean views, and slowly slipped from the position you see above to a more horizontal one. 

Thank you Susannah and Gerfried for generously sharing your supplies and space. Your visit is always a highlight of the year. Until next time, may the wind fill your sails. 

thirty something

It's my birthday week. Hip hip hooray. I am very partial to a bit of birthday action, and refuse to accept that it can't be as exciting as it was when I was seven - perhaps not seven, as that day ended in tears because everyone else got a party hat and I didn't. Mum had to swiftly cut out a crown with a big number 7 stapled on the front to save the day.  

I have but a few humble requests : a cake with a candle, a rendition of happy birthday, no dishes, and at least one opportunity to do something new (yes, my semi-enlightened husband has reminded me that every moment is a new experience...) This year, to ease my childlike expectations, I steamed a vegan chocolate and cranberry cake the day before, and tried not to watch when Aquaman cut it up before presenting it to me with a tea-light candle on top. Ever the practical thinker is my Tom.  We shared it with the boys next door for breakfast. 

The remainder of the day was a beautiful combination of solitude, peace, adventure, and socialising. A quiet moment with a magazine and coffee in my birthday cup (handmade porcelain by Samantha Robinson), an empty lagoon to swim in, a late morning smoothie, an all afternoon outing, and burritos for dinner with friends at the hotel. 

I was blessed with unexpected presents (including the necklace I am wearing above, made by fellow islander, Hildi), a bounty of kisses and a second cake decorated with plastic palm trees. 

Thank you.

Photos from our picnic to the south coast of the island coming up next. 

getting younger

Aquaman has chalked up another year of waves and commitment to the simple life. We celebrated with a divine breakfast at Colin & Linda's, after the weekly market run.  With an ocean view from the dining pavilion, we dined on frozen banana, date and cacao "mousse" with coconut cream and almonds,  papaya smoothie and a strong coffee that had us buzzing for hours. The perfect fuel for a surf; and being the good wife I had arranged for clean, head high sets all afternoon. 

Happy birthday dear Tommy, selamat hari ulang tahun. x

island outings

While the McParents were here we took the opportunity to team up with our friends, Colin and Linda, and scout the back roads to the bays and beaches beyond our own.  The mid morning point of each outing was marked with a thermos of tea and a vegan treat beneath a shady tree. One can not explore new frontiers and gather priceless driftwood treasures on water alone. 

Vehicles are a novelty in these parts, and the roads are a killer on a scooter, so the offer of a bounce around in the back of Colin and Linda's ute is always welcome.  Plenty of fresh air, free solarium and unimpaired views. However a 4WD she isn't, and the wheels aren't much bigger than a lawnmower.  Despite our best efforts at road maintenance, three failed attempts to mount the final hill saw us backtrack home. 

the barefoot season

Never fear, I haven't been held hostage in the City of Dreams. The flight left as per schedule and there were hand shakes all round as I was reunited with my waiting room friends from the previous morning.  It is a no-service flight, not even time for a sip of water or an unidentified food object, before we spanned the Straits of Death and landed at the recently extended runway; I'm very grateful for that, or we would have cleaned up a few fences, goats and lontar on our way in.  In place of the usual baggage carousel is a ute, which is loaded up on the tarmac and driven around to the front of the terminal shed, where you help yourself.

I was flooded with anticipation as we approached home, noting landmarks, checking off changes in the familiar landscape - a new fence, a fallen tree, an abandoned house. Sending Tom ahead to unveil the beach shack and begin damage control from the wet season's fury was well managed, and I arrived to a frangipani on the pillow and organic fruit for dinner. 

Leading up to our departure from Australia with the crescendo of activity, lists and packing that marks the change over, I imagined myself laid out on the daybed with a cuppa, the crosshatch of our coconut roof holding my gaze between waves and paragraphs. It didn't take long. I'm home. 

Welcome to the barefoot season. 

time for tea

Without the constraints of work schedules, school hours and appointments, it is always cuppa time.  You can drop around to visit anyone at any hour of the day and the kettle is not far off the boil.  In the house of an expat, the offer is made for tea or coffee; black, white, sugar?  In a local's home, the tea arrives black with a small plantation of cane sugar already added.  You smile graciously and wait for the host to announce he or she is about to drink, at which you acknowledge the host and state your intention to sip. 

Depending on which expat you call upon, it could be English Breakfast, Earl Grey, organic Genmaicha, Nescafe or thick Indonesian mud posing as coffee.  There is the odd plunger and stove top espresso maker around, and our neighbour Linda upped the ante with the first hand operated milk frother.  In a sweet demonstration of attachment causing suffering, the "strong hands" of their pembantu broke the frother in the second week and the camp sank into mourning.

Milk is powdered, or UHT for those that can be bothered carrying it in.  We ration our precious soy milk from Bali, as I am yet to perfect making a drinkable version from scratch.  Soya beans are available in abundance at the market, as it tofu and tempeh, but milk is unheard of, and I can't get anything other than a curdled glue on its way to custard.  If anyone has any tips, please send them my way.  Until then, it's a green oolong, or black Nerada, pesticide free, hold the cow.

settled

I bought myself two magazines at the Perth airport, Frankie and Peppermint, and promised I would save them until the house was clean, the fridge stocked and I could settle onto the day bed with a coffee.  The delayed gratification was worth it. Welcome home.

bali transit

For most visitors, Bali is the destination they have been counting down for; annual leave, school holidays, honeymoon, girls pamper trip or post-season footy debauchery.  We are in the unusual situation were Bali is a transit zone or a weekender.  Like a trip to the city from down south, when lounging in cafes and browsing through boutiques melds with food shopping and errands in the light industrial area.  We are neither tourist nor expat, although we wander in both shoes. 

We had three nights in Bali enroute to our end of the archipelago. First on our list was to hire a scooter and head straight to Bintang supermarket for a banana binge.  Floods and cyclones have pushed bananas in Australia to a luxury level and we were dearly missing our staple food.  The whole kilo was devoured before we left the carpark.

There was still room in the tummy for more tropical fruit and a soy latte at Grocer and Grind while planning our list for the day. (Note : G & G have a new branch on Jalan Uluwatu in Jimbaran, which is a welcome addition to this espresso starved area).

You might imagine my list to be populated with a massage, pedicure, bikini wax and hair treatment; in between high tea and a beach walk. I thought that as well, until the reality of picking up new bamboo blinds, shipping air cargo and getting fingerprinted at immigration bunted the spa activities aside.  However, we did both get to the haridresser; for Tom's pre-season hair cut and my damage control treatment.

"Oh dear madam, you're hair feels like sand."

The blinds are to replace those destroyed in the wet season storms, thanks to the failure of our assigned worker to close down the house.  The domestic air cargo is not on any tourist itineraries that I'm aware of, and so should it remain.  Unless Gen Y and younger would like to see what a typewriter looks like.  Look mum, no cords!

posing for a cause

You can take the girl out of the office, but you can't take the marketing out of the girl.  Doing my best Elle impersonation to promo the new range of Keep Cups on sale at Samudra.  Many disposable cups and lids incorporate plastic, polythene and even toxic dyes and are therefore not recyclable.  500 million of them end up in landfill every year and can take decades to break down.  Keep Cups are a reusable, designed and manufactured in Australia from recyclable plastic with a  low embodied energy, and will last for ages if your mates don’t souvenir them.  If you're heading out to Dunsborough, call in to Samudra and grab one.

 

photographed by my talented aqua assistant, tmc

 

when the water falls part 2

The area around Munduk in north-central Bali, offers a smorgasbord of waterfalls and streams.  All that is needed are strong knees and lungs for the hike down and back up again.  East of Munduk is a little visited cafe with a backdrop akin to the Pixie Photo booth that used to move around regional shopping centres.  We had been alerted to the cafe by a small article in Bali's Insight magazine (thanks Andrew).  

Look out for the small roadside "waterfall cafe" sign, park up, and the "gatekeeper" will greet you with wooden walking poles to support your descent; well worth the 3000 rps entry fee.  Descend through regenerated spice gardens, cacao and coffee, cross the slatted bamboo bridge and take your seat at the modest cafe.  

 Fresh juices, smoothies, tea and authentic dishes are on offer, including lak-lak, a delicious Balinese dessert, like a small rice dumpling, cooked on an open fire, and topped with palm sugar syrup and coconut.

If you are game, this could be the cheapest place to try authentic kopi luwak, widely reported to be the most expensive coffee in the world.  Freshly shat from the intestinal tract of resident civet cats, it looks like a turd full of coffee beans, and is  claimed to  have smooth "intertwined" flavours with a lack of bitterness.  The question begs to be asked - why gave the coffee growers the initial urge to try this "delicacy?" 

Hawaiian special roast

  

 

almond milk frappucino on a Sunday morning

Bill and Jen are from Maui, and we became friends when they first visited the island in 2007.  They always bring a packet of the finest Hawaiian coffee, and our rubber arms are twisted to indulge regularly while they are here.  

On their first visit, our only furniture was a mattress on the floor and a couple of wooden stools Tom made from scrap timber.  We didn't have power or running water, and had just been catapulted into the new world with a gas cook top.  This addition enabled me to offer guests a cuppa without having to first collect the wood and light a fire.  Today our beach shack is a comfortable home, and I'm sitting in my studio connected to the world.

early days in the beach house

long distance food run

Some people go around the corner to Woolies or the local gourmet store; Hildi and I come to Bali. Someone's got to do it.  

Food and hardware shopping take up the first two day's agenda.  We hire a Suzuki Sierra, and with my brazen confidence behind the wheel, we take lists in hand and take to the road.  I have a wholesale account with a food company that supplies imported foods to the catering industry.  Trading as the "Tom and Sally Cafe" I pick up our order of bulk nuts, seeds, dried fruit, pulses & olives for the next two months.  Added to the food items are door handles, hinges, stainless steel wire, screws, books and cartons of soy milk.  With the main load shipped off on air cargo, our time is free to indulge in the finer points of coffee, massage and window shopping.

Grocer and Grind in Seminyak offer this delightful eye candy.  Not available in our local market.  Just looking madam.

voices of the coffee lands

It is the final day of the Ubud writers festival and my friend Zoe has arrived from Perth to the promise of long girly chats over coffee, body scrubs, massage and two for one mojitos. We kick off with the former at Bali Buddha, and a breakfast of fruit salad, green smoothies and bagels.

Afternoon tea is a special event at Linda Garland’s house. The theme is coffee, and we espouse our position on the deck with a fresh brew, cappuccino gelato and carrot cake. Four authors are invited to share their words, both poetry and prose, humorous, harrowing and informative, about their experience with the world’s favourite neurostimulant. A native Haitian speaks in a heavy French accent of his youth infused with the aroma of coffee, and an English author reads his account of all night coffee fuelled assignments at university. Live samba music completes the theme, and one could be forgiven for geographical ambiguity as the afternoon slides on.

Known worldwide as “the bamboo lady”, and the founder of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation, Linda Garland is an interior designer with a famous clientele, including Richard Branson and Mick Jagger.


She has kindly opened her house and villas for our perusal, and it is a treat to scout the palatial bedrooms, outdoor bathrooms and sitting nooks. The kind of place you can imagine writing your memoirs.