Family Holiday to Bali, Gili Island and Lombok

After ages, I'm so glad to finally bring you a travel-related post. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, travel had been out of the picture for so long that I had forgotten what it even felt like. 

We recently went on a one-week island hopping trip to Bali, Gili Islands and Lombok of the Indonesian archipelago. It was a much-needed break for all of us plus a chance to get away from the perpetually gloomy/rainy weather in Singapore that had started to get depressing. 

We have been to Bali twice before (if interested you can check out the first blog post here and the second one here) but we love the Island of the Gods so much that we could go there again and again. This time we decided to combine Bali with some of the nearby islands. 

This post is going to be less wordy (by my standards) and more photo-heavy. What with a picture being worth a thousand words and all 😄

Since we had already explored Bali in the past, our original plan was to fly to Bali from Singapore and just spend a few hours there before taking a fast boat on the same day to Gili Islands. 

Our flight from Singapore was very early in the morning for which we woke up hours before the crack of dawn and drove to the airport yawning and bleary-eyed. But unfortunately for us, we happened to fly Scoot (which I'm sorry to say is a dreadful airline) and our short flight to Bali was delayed by more than two hours which made us narrowly miss the fast boat to Gili Islands that we had pre-booked, not to mention the check-in at the resort on Gili Air which had also been booked in advance. Needless to say, I was pretty miffed about the whole thing. The husband on the other hand was typically unfazed (I find that mildly annoying 😆). 

Landing in Bali itself appeared to be a riveting development for our children so while they started playing some arcane game at the airport, we sat down together and mulled what to do about our situation. We found out that there were no other fast boats to Gili Islands on that day so we made the decision to stay in Bali and travel to Gili Islands the next day. First we contacted the fast boat operator who was very obliging and immediately offered us a refund on our booking. We then contacted the resort on Gili Air who was also understanding of our situation and considerately waived off our room charge for the first day. After that, we scrolled through TripAdvisor and booked a resort that was closest to the fast boat harbor and then booked a fast boat to Gili Islands the next day afternoon. Having solved the issues arising from the flight delay, we promptly booked a taxi to our resort in Bali and were on our way. 

Bloo Lagoon Eco Village is an eco-resort that overlooks the ocean above Padangbai in East Bali. Padangbai is a busy port where most people take the ferry to/from Lombok and onwards to the Gilis, Komodo Islands and Flores. The property is located around 55 km away from the Ngurah Rai – Bali International Airport. It took us around 1.5 hours to get there but the drive was scenic so we enjoyed it. The girls were refreshed by a nap in the flight and were completely preoccupied counting the number of animals they spotted - stray dogs, cows, chickens, goats among others. They were also fascinated by the lush natural landscape and the lack of skyscrapers that they are so used to seeing in Singapore. 

When we go on holidays, we usually do considerable research before booking our stay. Since this was an unexpected and a complete on the spur of the moment booking, we had done none of that. But fortunately for us, on reaching the property we realized we had made a good choice. 

Bloo Lagoon is a great place to get in touch with the East Balinese culture via sustainable tourism. Each of the 25 imaginative, distinctive and elegantly designed villas which make up this hill top resort enjoy panoramic views over Blue Lagoon Bay and Mount Agung. 

Bloo Lagoon is an alternative for those travelers who treasure contact with nature and wish to live in harmony with it. It is an ecosystem that attracts birds, butterflies, frogs, geckos, and plants. Occasionally monkeys and monitor lizards can be spotted. Having stayed at eco-resorts in Bali before, we knew exactly what to expect and were even looking forward to it. 

We had booked two connecting villas suitable for families and it couldn't have been more perfect. We had comfortable, clean and tastefully done rooms keeping environmental sustainability in mind with breathtaking panoramic ocean views. 

Just look at this view 😍

Deepavali Special: Coconut and Dry Fruit and Nut Ladoos

As is fairly typical with me, I've kept all my Deepavali preparation to the last minute 😛 Somehow this always happens unlike with Christmas where I plan, prep and execute tasks/activities days or sometimes even weeks in advance. 

We just got back from a fantastic family holiday less than a week ago (more on that in my next blog post). Immediately after getting back I was swamped with work along with assisting to complete a mountain of the kids pending school work. It is only yesterday that I finished the last batch of the laundry (a beach holiday means there is sand just about everywhere!). The suitcases went into the attic yesterday as well so I only started feeling a sense of normalcy from this morning.

I had not really thought about what I'm going to cook for Deepavali. We love celebrating this sparkling festival of lights and the childhood nostalgia around Deepavali cements a special place in my heart so I wasn't looking to make excuses to slack off. I quickly picked two traditional sweets to cook and for the savoury, I decided to stick with my favourite Masala Vada. The lunch and dinner menu is going to be quite simple this year as we don't have many guests visiting during the long weekend. 

The first traditional sweet dish I made was these Coconut and Dry Fruit and Nut Ladoos and they turned out much better than I expected. I made them with grated fresh coconut, organic jaggery, ghee, mixed nuts, raisins, poppy seeds and cardamom. With no milk, cream or refined sugar, this ladoo is lighter than your typically rich and often cloyingly sweet Indian dessert. 

For me, one of the advantages of living in Singapore is the easy availability of grated fresh coconut. I can get coconut grated on the spot every morning and all it takes is a 3-minute walk to the vegetable market opposite my condo. It is fresh and moist and can be directly used in savoury and sweet dishes. Let me tell you that not having to grate the coconut from scratch means this sweet dish comes together really quickly. You can make these ladoos with dessicated coconut but it just isn't the same. 

The ladoos held their shape beautifully, had a mellow sweetness from the jaggery and great texture from the coconut and nuts. The kids gave their stamp of approval as well so I was very pleased with the outcome. 

This recipe is a keeper and I'll be definitely making these ladoos many more times in the future. I hope you try these ladoos folks. I can guarantee that you will love them.

Wishing you all a very happy Diwali/Deepavali. Love and light in abundance💥 

Book review: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

According to my carefully considered blogging schedule, for the first post of October, I was supposed to feature a recipe post. Unfortunately for me, cooking has taken a backseat and it'll be at least another week before I can even start thinking about blog-worthy recipes. So I've decided to publish a book review that I had completed around 6 months ago. Let's just say I'm starting October with food for thought 😄

Kate Quinn is the reigning queen of historical fiction. Whether she is writing about World War I France or post-World War II London, ancient Rome or Renaissance Italy, she brings her readers history with an irreverent twist. 

I have previously mentioned on my blog how much I adore historical fiction as a genre of book and cinema. And I am fascinated with stories centered around women. Give me a well-written story combining the two and the author will gain a fan in me for life! I came across The Rose Code on goodreads and the blurb caught my interest immediately. I am so glad I read it because I can safely say that this book is one among my favourites from 2022 (and it so happens that I've read several brilliant books this year). 

***Plot***

The year is 1940. Britain is bracing for retaliation from the Nazis. Able-bodied men all over the country are enlisting in the British Armed Forces. 

In Bletchley Park (BP for short), an isolated country estate, WWII preparation of a different sort is underway. Here, the best and brightest minds in Britain are brought together to crack German ciphers that could reveal enemy secrets and change the tide of war. The codebreakers of BP are both men and women; a motley crew of nerds and oddballs consisting of Oxford and Cambridge graduates, mathematicians, chess players, crossword solvers and language experts. The widespread belief that the Enigma codes used by the Axis powers were uncrackable was proved wrong at the top-secret decryption facility. 

Osla Kendall, a wealthy and vivacious socialite is fed up of being perceived as a dim-witted debutante. Fluent in German, she is recruited at BP as a translator. On the other hand, self-made Mab Churt, hailing from the underprivileged section of London’s East End is desperately seeking to improve her prospects in life. Mab is initially recruited at BP for her secretarial skills but she eventually progresses to operate and maintain decoding machines. 

While billeting in the  local village cottage of a timid and repressed young spinster named Beth Finch, Osla and Mab discover Beth’s remarkable aptitude for crosswords. Yanking her out of the shadow of her domineering mother, Beth is recommended for recruitment at BP where she gradually blossoms into a star cryptanalyst. Although the three extraordinary young women are starkly different in personality, come from different walks of life and possess different skill sets, they manage to forge a close friendship as the war drags on. Their days turn into years which heave under immense workload, the strain of keeping official secrets and the constant worry of bombing raids over British cities. The combined physical and mental exhaustion takes a heavy toll on them. 

In a dramatic twist, the three friends are driven apart by a terrible secret that irrevocably changes the course of life of one of them. They turn against each other and the friendship dissipates into a cloud of blame, animosity and estrangement. One of them is eventually committed to a mental asylum. 

Against insurmountable odds, the three women have to resurrect their former alliance to expose a mysterious traitor at BP who has committed treason. One who has also betrayed each of them.