Shop till you drop

2nd August 2006

Ubud is definitely the place to do this, but first we spent the morning trying to plan our next move. Wayan – Ketut’s wife – informed me that our route via Gunung Batur (a volcano which will feature more later) was not the best. We ummed and ahhhed and booked things and cancelled things. Estrella came up with some alternative routes and then Ketut turned up and sorted out our Bali light trip. Driver to Amed with a wee tour thrown in, a hotel booked and all this in time for us to go and sample another of the restaurants down cheap street. The toilet was out back through this labyrinthine family compound and you needed a guide to find it, but man the food was good.

So with full stomachs and wallets we hit the streets of Ubud. Shopping tally? Estrella? Well this could be difficult cos boy that girl can shop: there was definitely a skirt, some trousers, a couple of tops and then I start to lose count. Kim: wedding present, a couple of pictures and a wedding outfit which was a whole experience of wrapping her up, unwrapping her, pinning her up, tying knots here and there and then just to make sure she gets it right on the day a whole step by step photo shoot. The shop assistant was well into the step by tiny step so in the end I had to pretend I was taking the shots. Me: two barong pictures, some cushion covers, a pair of trousers which could probably fit me and a couple of friends in and a nice new ring to replace the one that got too big and the one where the stone fell out.

Exhausted by the last few hours Estrella and I stopped for a fruit juice and a few moments to plan how we were going to pack all this shit, sorry I meant stuff. Meanwhile Kim went all the way down Monkey Forest Road to the Monkey Forest to commune with the nice friendly monkeys. She returned a wee while later with two more sarongs and the promise of two for one mojitos. It turns out they were a drink and snack all in one, lovely bits of mango and lashings of rum (yum). The girls had ginger ones.

So after our penultimate running of the gauntlet with the barking dogs of Ubud, we packed, checked our departure time, settled the bill and somehow ended up in the same restaurant as lunchtime. Well you know you can never get enough of a good thing...