Legian

It rained all through the night. It thundered down relentlessly. The wind and rain swirled ghoulishly around the villa, and at one stage I became quite concerned thinking: this must be what it’s like to be in a cyclone. All the grounds were flooded well above yesterday’s levels and the pool broke its banks yet again. This morning the living area’s floor was covered in water and our bathroom – well it look like a bomb had hit it. And without being too dramatic, we spoke to one of the owners of another villa who’d been coming to Bali for 15 years who said he’d never seen anything like it. So yes. It was pretty spectacular.

It was still squalling this morning after breakfast, but I had to get out so thought a stroll down the beach to check out the wildness was in order. We all decided to go and had to cross from path to path to avoid the huge amounts of water on the roads. It was easily two feet deep at the end of Double 6 Arjuna. In typical fashion the stoical Balinese were riding their bikes through the water in their ponchos or holding brollies, setting up their shops for the day, and hawking for customers at restaurants and beauty spas.

The beach was wild, the wind and waves even moreso. Big, gnarly, churning waves that were brown and foamy. Not a soul in the water which was an indication of how dangerous it was. Nor were the beach bars and coffee shops open for business, their tables, beanbags and boards safely stowed under cover. However it wasn’t raining (yet) so we thought we’d walk. The beach, littered and dirty at the best of times, was elevated to another level with so much garbage washed in from the sea, and out from the land. We saw three cleaners with a sad looking wooden trolley trying to clear one section, raking up pathetic piles of crap all over the place. Really, they’d need a Mount Newman sized excavator to clean up the place. But, they were doing it, and the bar and coffee shop owners were waiting expectantly for the weather to break. A group of Balinese men were trying desperately to restore a tree that had fallen over in the winds.

A fair few walkers out, including us. It was very muggy. They’ve built a concrete promenade now all the way from Kuta to Seminyak so the walking is easier now than what it used to be. Despite the non picture-postcard look there was still a lot of interesting things to take photos of. We came across a beautiful shore temple complex, the courtyard which was about two feet deep in water. But it looked beautiful because there were several sculptures of sea serpents, their tiled tails rising and falling along the ground so looked quite at home in the water. Very interesting stupa-like statues, one of which had a gold swastika free-standing carving in it. We found out later that this temple is built purposely low to flood because it's a sea serpent temple! What lovely logic!

Walking along they have now bridged over the creeks which were now full and rushing into the ocean. We made our way further towards Seminyak, past another temple that they were preparing for a celebration and stumbled onto – Ku De Ta – another place of the morning drinking tradition. We were very happy to get out of the wind and it had started to spit so time for selfies, sangria and a facebook check-in.

It was nice there for the hour or so we were there but then all the lunchtime patrons started wandering in, what I call: the beachclub beautiful people. Time to go.
We walked back through Seminyak and made our way to Made’s Warung again as we only wanted something light. Satays, nasi goreng and two beers each later I was full-as, so much for a snack.

Mootched around a bit and back at the villas now. The pool is out of balance and a fair bit cooler because of all the rain but there’s sun!!!!! We might even be able to catch the sunset tonight 😊. But we didn't catch the sunset. Mick and I also didn't go to dinner because we were still so full from lunch. So we just sat around drinking and talking. It was nice.Read more