What a Difference 30 Meters Make

So Ben (ELF like me) and I decided we just wanted to cruise around, get out of the main spots and walk/window shop. We walked for hours on Tuesday afternoon. It was fabulous. We headed north of Seminyak along the beach and cut through the 'restaurant' district. We had only one mission, he needed to buy a hammock and he had a place circled in the Lonely Planet. It was all just a good excuse for me to explore and have some company. We walked through streets that varied between shops and rice fields. We meandered around dogs lazy in the hot afternoon sun and then we got to the busy street where his hammock shop was supposed to be. They were no longer in business in Seminyak. So we kept walking, getting more tired and hungry and irritated with the sounds of the motorcycles and cars. Then Ben sees a sign, an Indo restaurant allegedly 30m off the road, through what looks like jungle.

We start to walk and end up at someone's house. Oops wrong path. We backed up and go down the other path on this great bamboo and tropical plant forest path. It was carefully tended to by the locals that live there…looks nothing like a resort landscape, very natural. We ended up at an outdoor restaurant right on the edge of a rice field. We paid Indo prices (not Seminyak prices) for our food. Fresh Gado Gado, lemon tea all for about $1 each. And the most amazing part was the ambient sound. All throughout the rice field were these hand crafted noise making fans. Essentially a hand made pinwheel blew in the wind which made something else turn and clank inside of a tin can. I'm sure you engineer wizards at home can figure this one out. We had walked from so much street noise right into a tucked away retreat with this hypnotic sound that was like a wind orchestrated gamelan ensemble. This was the first time I wanted to use the video component on my camera. I'll try to You-Tube it and then link it on the sidebar.

So the end result of the hammock mission wasn't quite as disappointing as I may have led you to believe. All day long we just took risks. Lets try this, lets go down this street… well our last turn before heading back the way of the beach, there, glowing in a heavenly beam of light through the clouds and angels (geckos) singing, was a hammock shop, where they make them right there (and sell them to Japan). It was randomly set in a sparse area full of rice fields. Who knew? And of course I had to buy one myself.