September 15, 2008 - Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia

After one night on Mata'irea in Serangan, we took the screens off the hatches, put the freeze and fridge back on auto, stowed the dinghy on deck, got a lift to shore, and hailed a cab to take us over to swanky Seminyak. We checked into a small hotel, comprised of a cluster of two story buildings set around a pool that meandered through the central courtyard like a stream. After getting ourselves sorted, we walked up the beach for a late lunch at Ku de Ta, the most talked about restaurant/bar in Southern Bali. The food and drink prices are on par with any casual restaurant at home, which makes them ludicrous for Bali. But the view makes it all worth it. Sten watched the surf throughout lunch. As soon as we got back to our room, he grabbed his board and headed back to the beach.

This next morning, he was up and off to the beach for another session before breakfast. After breakfast, we remembered that we still needed to pick up Sten's passport from the US consulate, so we found a driver to take us over there. While we were in the neighborhood, we stopped in at the Thai embassy to see about getting Thai visas. I was so busy taking notes on the various documentation required that I completely forgot to ask the consulate staff where to go for good Thai food in Bali. With beef penang curry on my brain, we picked up Suzy from the hotel and headed over to the Anantara, a hotel that seems to have been transplanted from Miami Beach, and boasts a Thai restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant works from a more eclectic international menu during the day, so no curry for me. But the smoked duck ravioli tossed in a sage butter sauce more than made up for it. Smoked duck is a traditional Balinese food (as it should be with so many of the quackers wandering around the rice paddies). We had a more traditional version in Ubud: smoked and and then deep fried - nothing wrong with that. Shredded and stuffed into fresh pasta may not be traditional, but it sure was tasty.

After we tallied up the bill for lunch, we realized that we could live for a month in Timor, eating out every day, and not spend what we had on lunch these past two days. Eating out in Bali (particularly in Seminyak) is pricey when compared to the rest of Indonesia, but compared to home, it is still a bargain.