Today's plan is to head to the botanical gardens in the north of Bali. I am up a little later than we had agreed yesterday as I was pretty tired after my Moto driving yesterday. I grab my morning cup of coffee, which is a far cry from the great coffee of Vietnam. So Juli has informed me that she has invited someone else from the hostel, this is after she asks me if it is ok. I say sure, which is a good job because she had already extended the offer. We are going with Alexandra, from Brazil. She seems friendly enough, though it is always a risk, she will be coming on her own Moto, and will be following us. Now, she has been on the bike for a good few days so I am hoping that she will be able to keep up, not that I am going that fast, but still. We set off, the fun begins.
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At the early stages Alexandra is so slow and far behind. I'm having to slow down to 30kph just so that she can catch up. This will mean that it will take an absolute eternity to reach the gardens. I nominate that Juli speaks to her about it. We pull up at some lights and Juli is less than subtle about telling Alexandra that if she doesn't hurry up we will never get there. I thought that she would have told her in an understanding manner, but no, straight up. Ha. After this the situation doesn't really improve, but as we get further out of the traffic her speed improves. Though, we still have to wait at junctions until she appears to make sure that she goes in the right direction. There was an instance where she went flying off in the other direction. We had to turn back and head after her, but then a local told us that she was down the road. The problem is that she doesn't stay still, but instead keeps driving, so it is harder to find her. This is entertaining for all of about 5mins then it starts to become somewhat irritating. Of course I rip the piss out of Juli for inviting her in the first place. You couldn't describe Alexandra as a small woman, which made it even more impressive that she was so far behind that I couldn't even see her in the wing mirror, I mean you can always see the moon. Eventually we get to the botanical gardens, and I am pleased to report that it is nice and cool due to the increase in elevation. Of course Juli and Alexandra think that it is cold. Tripe! It's a great temperature. Very refreshing after being cooked on the Moto on the way up here.
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The bikes are parked under some trees for some shade and we head up to the ticket office. There are not too many people here today, I get the feeling that it isn't really a major tourist attraction, as it doesn't involve any drinking. That's fine it suits me, I'm just enjoying the great temperatures. We wander through the gardens, with a terrible map, that really gave no sense of scale or direction. This was not helped by Juli's inability to read it. I would say this is more of a park than gardens, and so there was a lot of walking. Not something I think Alexandra was too pleased about. Of course we have the usual posing for photos and what not. A blend of classic Asian poses and then Alexandra's favourite, run so far away from the camera that you look small. All fairly entertaining stuff. As the afternoon goes on Alexandra announces that she will not be walking up any more hills. This limits what else we can do, with seeing the lake being out! Disappointing, but I am entertained so much by the pair of them that it doesn't matter. With Juli disappearing off to take 1000 photos of the same thing and then my favourite Alexandra moment of the day. We get to a road that runs through the park, along the side of the road are these large wooden posts about 8" in diameter, about 4ft tall. Alexandra decides she would like a photo by the post, so she goes up and leans against it. This has the effect of uprooting the post, sending it and Alexandra tumbling down the steep bank behind. I instantly want to explode with laughter, because this has to the the funniest thing I have ever seen. I look to Juli to see if it is socially acceptable, it isn't, she is shouting to Alexandra to see if she is alright. I run over to offer Alexandra hand back up the steep bank, she declines. Probably for the best, she'd probably have had me pulled down there with her. I'm pleased with how well I was able to contain myself, I give myself a pat on the back. We walk round for another bit before we are all starting to get hungry and so head back to the Motos.
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The plan is just to stop somewhere on the way back and grab a local lunch. It seems to take forever to find somewhere, probably not helped by the fact that my stomach is now eating itself I'm so hungry. Juli is to shout when she sees something that looks good, being the local girl. At last, Juli gives the sign, just a pity that we had cruised past it. It's ok, no need to panic, just a U-turn in the road, on a Moto, with someone else on the back. We know how good I am at those. Ha. Luckily no one died and I park up the bike and we head in. As has become the usual, Juli selects something for me, and as usual, it was delicious. I'm going to miss this when I go to Australia, it's not like I'm going to ask an Australian to pick me a local dish! After our lunch we head back on the road and I don't know what has happened to Alexandra, but she has found the accelerator and she is relentless. Flying past us, not letting up. I have to push quite hard to catch up with her. Then she just gets plain reckless, so I ease off. It is clear that she is not going to wait for us. A bit rude I think, considering that I waited for her the whole way here and made sure she was ok. Awww well, whatever. We head back to the hostel on our own.
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Some time has passed and I say to Juli that maybe Alexandra is dead. Maybe we should have followed her? No, she is big enough (understatement) and old enough to look after herself. After about an hour she appears, she had just been for a massage, now that sounds like a good idea. Especially if Juli is with me, then I don't need to worry about anything other than a massage. Decided then, off we go to the place that Alexandra recommended, and if she got a good massage, it must have been pretty firm, sounds good. It's just round in Seminyak square, about 5mins on the Moto. I decide to get the hot stones. First time ever, I'm excited about this. So it starts off with a normal back massage and then after the hot stones are used and then placed on my back at various points, including some under the elastic of my boxers. Then it's on to my legs, with the same routine for each leg, this is after I get the usual treatment of pulling my boxers down from the back, and up the legs. I was wearing cotton boxers and they didn't move so easy, so there was the masseuse struggling with my boxers. Ha. The stones are pretty hot that they use, but I like it. Though I would say that it wasn't as intense as I would have liked it, I probably should have asked for a bit more pressure. After the massage is finished I am washed down with a wet towel to take any residual oil off the skin, which was a nice touch as I am left not feeling like I need a shower.
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We head out for dinner after the massage and stop in this Italian place as Juli is after a pizza. There are plenty of good places to grab something to eat here and there is a good buzz of an atmosphere. We get some place that had great food, though the service was questionable, with the waitresses only smiling at me and practically scowling at Juli. Juli orders up a beer and I go for a sprite as I still have the Moto, it's funny when it arrives as it is a different waitress and she automatically pours me the beer and Juli the sprite. You see this is the way that it should be. After the dinner we head back to the hostel and grab a few beers from the Lawson as they are a bit cheaper than in the hostel and sit upstairs on the balcony and chat away until it is bed time.