First of all, Jill pointed out to me two glaring omissions. First, when we left our apartment in Manila for the airport on 31 January, 2020. We hopped in a taxi. More than halfway through our ride we discovered our drivers’ licenses were missing. If you’ve been reading along and remember every single line for the last 10 entries or so you could tell me where they are or were. I’ll give you a moment to look back.
Way back when we checked into our Manila apartment, we left our drivers’ licenses at the front desk. We were supposed to retrieve them when we moved out. After a week of not thinking about them, we carried on that tradition and walked out the door . I briefly considered turning asking the driver to turn around and going back but there was no time. We were catching a plane to Bali. Jill, wisely fired off a message to our airbnb host asking them to retrieve them and await further instructions. We continued on to the airport and Bali. We didn’t have a car to rent and our passports are sufficient for everything else. So, no sweat, except a nagging feeling that this may return to bite us at some point.
My other mis-remembrance is that we did not move to another cottage after our first night in Ubud. I’ll talk more about that later or forget to.
When we awoke February 1, 2020 on our first morning at our little Ubud guesthouse it had been the strangest transformation. We had traded island breezes on Boracay for humid, stinky, urban Manila. Now, overnight, we proceeded to a tropical jungle a bit south of the equator. This humidity was completely different than the Manila humidity, cleaner and wetter, I guess. In Manila the humidity had to fight with the smells, sights, and general cacophony of the city. Here in our little private space the humidity was complemented by the shush of the ever running water in the pool. The trees and sky high above us framed it and it could whisper. Our surroundings were personified by the out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye Geckoes darting for cover in the daylight but at night motionless (as a Boracay sunbather) in lamplight feasting on bugs.
I woke up before Jill and started poking around outside. Down the ravine past the pool was untouched jungle descending to an unseen gurgling stream. The earth rose again higher and higher until it was topped by several more hotels, patios, and pools.
I peeked over the edge down the ravine and saw my first dragon lizard of our trip. It was 3 feet long and dark grey; its tongue flickered out and in. Someone had left fruit scraps on the ground and I caught it in mid snack. I tried to pull out a camera but it scrabbled off into the bushes and my pictures don’t do it justice.
A nice worker walked down to me with a menu, we were getting breakfast! The choices were fruit, an omelet, or banana pancakes. I ordered the banana pancake, of course, and the omelet for Jill with two coffees. Jill was awake by now.
Jill had made us a couple cups of instant coffee. It was terrible and undrinkable by any standards. The coffee was in single serving packets that could have been in our room for years. We went to wait for breakfast. We were the only ones in the open air dining room except for the brilliant sun beam creeping to my chair. When the food arrived Jill received a perfectly round omelet with some tomatoes and onions cooked into it. I got a pancake of the same diameter but with some fresh grated coconut on top and syrup on the side. It was oily and cooked into it were sliced bananas. They was served with a mound of fresh pineapple, papaya, and watermelon. Each bite of my pancake was better than the last, and the last bite made me want to know how to order another. Our coffees came in two white cups with covers (for bugs, I guess). The coffee was strong and tasted great, the bottom of the cup was a muddy mess of powdered coffee. With that I was introduced both to banana pancakes and Indonesian coffee. I was hooked.
I managed not to order more breakfast at the guesthouse, mostly because Ubud is a food paradise. Every road is lined with two or three unique cafes or restaurants. The place has been the home of transcendentalist yogis Jill could go into any restaurant and order off of the menu even though she doesn’t eat red meat or dairy products. All the food was prepared fresh and with great care and it adds up to this eating experience that has no match wherever I’ve been. We walked, snacked, and explored all around our neighborhood. Jill found her yoga studio, we found a supermarket that made my mouth water with everything on the shelves, and had lunch at some raw food cafe. I was beginning to plan how we could live and work in this place.
Is that a motorbike coming?