Singapore and Bali

Welcome back! We had a smooth journey from London to Singapore with British Airways. Both of us managed to get a bit of sleep en route and we arrived in Singapore after the 13 1/2 hr flight feeling ok. This was just a short stopover at an airport hotel, but Kit and Natasha kindly joined us for dinner - and Natasha even paid, which was very naughty! It was lovely to meet her for the first time face-to-face and I’m sure we will enjoy travelling together over the next 10 days. Kit and Natasha had prepared a lovely bag of holiday goodies for each of us (a book, some chocolates and a bottle of SPF50 suncream!) and we handed over some Easter mini eggs and a Harrods teddy for Natasha.

Kit and Natasha both had work commitments on Friday, so we left them to it and caught a flight to Bali that morning. We have enjoyed the last two days here, catching up on some sleep, reading by the pool etc. Kit and Natasha catch us up this evening (Saturday) and we all head on together to Komodo tomorrow.

Our resort hotel here is on the beach at Jimbaran Bay, close to the airport. It’s been a perfect spot to recharge.

But the highlight of our two days here has to be our morning spent at a Balinese cooking lesson, which Kit and Natasha had given us as a Christmas present. This was run by the team at Jala restaurant, part of the Four Seasons resort just up the road. We met the chef there at 9am and he took us to the local fish market, where we saw amazingly colourful lobster, expert fish filleting and much else besides.

Then back to the restaurant to cook our lunch. We made Tum be Siap - minced chicken in banana leaf; Pepes Ikan Kakap - grilled red snapper wrapped in banana leaf; Lawar Kacang Panjang - tossed long beans with spicy grated coconut; Sambal Matah - spicy lemongrass shallot relish; and Kue Labu - Balinese sweet pumpkin cake. We had a lovely team helping us - all the ingredients were ready prepared so not too much chopping! And at the end of lunch, we were presented with two lovely red aprons and two very fine certificates to show we’d completed the course!

Back to the pool this afternoon and another chance to watch the sunset shortly after 6pm.

Off to Komodo tomorrow, where we have no wifi, so will post the next blog once we are back in Bali at the end of this coming week.