Rhonda Bracey: At Random

We were all up fairly early (it’s a family trait…). I saw the sun rising over the ocean and was able to see more of the resort than just the room — absolutely beautiful! Went for a walk with the family; after the path along the beach ended in one spot, my sister and I continued walking along the beach sand at the tide mark.

Unlike my experience walking along beaches in Sri Lanka 30 years ago, there was NO evidence of ‘human waste’ at all, although there was a bit of plastic rubbish on the beach. Not a lot, though.

We had a full buffet breakfast at the resort (AU$7 per person) — it seems my parents eat a hearty brekky, then a piece of fruit for lunch, then go out to dinner somewhere. Sounds good to me! I had muesli, yoghurt and fresh fruit, followed by a poached egg, bacon, and beef sausage. Plus apple juice.

After breakfast we parked ourselves under the shade on the sun lounges by the enormous and very pretty pool, had a few swims, read, etc. for a couple of hours.

Mum, my sister and I then wandered down the road to the Bumbu Cooking School to see if my sister and I could book in for a class later in the week. Unfortunately, they only operate the cooking school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday, so we got put on the waitlist for Wednesday (we fly home on Thursday). Here’s hoping — it looked really interesting, starting with a market visit at 6 am, then breakfast, then cooking until 2 pm when we eat the meals we’ve prepared (some 15 or so dishes!).

We also booked massages etc. for later in the day at the Joy Spa about 20 metres from the resort’s entrance.

Back to the resort for (fruit) drinks by the pool, then at 2 pm us girls went over to the Joy Spa for our treatments — I’d booked a 1-hour full body massage (ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!) plus a 1-hour reflexology foot massage (also great) plus a pedicure (got flowers painted on my toenails — too cute!). Mum had a mani/pedi, and my sister had a half-hour reflexology foot massage plus a pedicure. Even Mum got flowers on her nails — go Mum! 😉

Hour-long massages were AU$6, hour-long reflexology also AU$6, and the pedicure was about AU$5. Unbelievable. Equally unbelievable was the massage. By full body, they mean full body — everywhere was massaged except the genitals. And at various times the masseur climbed up on the table to get better purchase on the spine etc. The massage was SO good, I’ve booked another one with Inda (my masseuse) for tomorrow (Sunday) and Wednesday (just before we fly home on Thursday). At AU$6 each, they are a real bargain.

Back to the resort to shower and change for dinner. We’re eating at the other Bumbu restaurant tonight — it’s meant to be quite an amazing experience and the food is supposed to be to die for (NOT literally!).

The weather here is just perfect — warm to hot, but with cooling sea breezes constantly keeping the worst of the heat and humidity at bay.

Later…

Dinner at Bumbu was BRILLIANT! The food was amazing and very plentiful. First we were served with tiny prawn cracker type things with a HOT HOT chilli dip (yummo!). Then for starters we had one serve each of chicken satay sticks and beef satay sticks (20 small sticks altogether), plus all the lovely sauces to go with them.

We’d ordered four main dishes to share and boy, was there more than enough food! We had grilled chicken with roasted coconut sauce, chicken with spicy coconut sauce (like a Thai curry), grilled pork spare ribs with a Bali BBQ sauce, and baby roast suckling pork with crackling. The grilled chicken and the suckling pork were unbelievably moist and tender, the meat on the ribs just fell off the bone, and the array of accompaniments was amazing. For drinks, Mum and Dad had Bumbu’s home-made lemon squash; I had a minted lime squash, and my sister had a mango, banana and tangerine fruit juice. We even got free transport back to the resort! Total bill including taxes, gratuity charges etc. — AU$86!!

I like how the security guys at the hotels and resorts stop the traffic to let the tourists cross the road and to let out cars into the traffic. No-one seems to mind these constant interruptions and the traffic still flows pretty smoothly.