Bali Day 3

Today we had part 1 of our Christmas present from my mum and dad – a driver for the day. We started the day off with some exercise (Stu went for a run and I hit the fitness centre) offset by a hearty buffet breakfast.

Our driver Kedak met us in the lobby at 8:15 and we jumped in the car and headed off. We’d decided we wanted to go to Kintamani a caldera of an extinct volcano in which Mt Batur resides. Last time Stu and I went there it was not a pleasant experience – we couldn’t see anything because of cloud and being my first day in Bali I had a bit of a panic attack when we were swamped by hawkers and I made the driver walk us to/from the car and restaurant.

This time was different – to start with hawkers are now second nature to me and don’t worry me even when there are a lot around and secondly there was no cloud and we got to see the top of Mt Kintamani.

Stu had been told by a customer at his work about a village where they make tiles called Sidemen. The trip from Mt Kintamani took us through rice fields and fruit forests and through lava fields too. We drove through the “red zone” as we drove around Mt Agung. Luckily it’s pretty quiet at the moment.

Sidemen is a lovely little village in the mountains with lots of rice terraces. We couldn’t find the tile place Stu was looking for so we went to another recommendation for lunch – Darmada Eco Resort. I think we have found somewhere new to stay when we come to Bali next. The food was excellent and the setting was so tranquil – there was a river running right next to the pavilion where we ate. We both got Nasi Campur.

After lunch we headed back to Sanur but as we headed back to the main road we found the tile place and surprisingly it is owned by the people that own the Darmada. We were told they have an export agreement with a tile company in Melbourne so we’ll look into that when we get home.