Horse Riding

Yesterday we booked a 2 hour horse ride at the Umalas stables north of Seminyak on the west coast of Bali.

We were picked up in a very nice air conditioned car from our hotel at 2:30pm (made a change to the Bemo) and driven out to the stables.

It was a great ride through the Rice Paddy's and then out onto the Beach. That whole coast is a lovely wide sandy beach with crashing surf on it....particularly wild yesterday....and the first time we'd seen some other kitesurfers out on that coast.

The stables were lovely....horses well looked after....they were not at all busy, looked like we were the only ones that had been there that day...or maybe that week or month!

however....

In hindsight maybe telling them that we were expert riders who have ridden all our lives wasn't the best of ideas! The hope was that they wouldn't put us on donkey's but I think they took the opportunity to bring out a couple of their horses with "attitude" problems to give them a bit of a run.

We set off with 2 Balinese guides....Abdul and I never did quite catch the name of the other one. They led us down the streets of Umalas (complete with honking cars, mopeds and the mass of Bali dogs running about). Horses seemed well behaved enough. Then we cut through the paddy fields and next thing we were crossing a river on our way to the beach.

It was on the beach that I realized we may have problems! Both horses seemed solely intent on getting us off their backs...although each with their own unique way of doing it!

Kim's horse took the approach of having 2 gears....stop and gallop. It would either just stand there pooing or it would take off down the beach at a gallop whilst employing a tactic of ducking and swerving from side to side. Thankfully Kim appears to be a competant rider and I have to say she did a great job of keeping it heading in generally the right direction and not falling off.

Mine employed a slightly sneakier tactic....on our first canter on the beach it was great...kept its head up and I was able to steer and control the speed. Once it had made me complacent it then decided that it would be much easier if I wasn't on its back. It would take off nicely in a canter, getting quicker and quicker and then just when I was getting comfortable, it would stop dead...front hooves splayed out in front, dug into the sand...head down, hind quarters in the air. Just as I would be untangling myself from round its neck, it would bolt upright and take off again throwing me to the back.

Thankfully neither of us came off, and the guides seemed to be enjoying the show.

It was really good fun though, and by the end we both had them under some sort of control. Neither of us can move this morning....my backside is raw, my back is aching and my calves and thighs are swollen to twice their size. We're taking a day off kiting!

After the ride we got the driver to take us to Kuta for dinner, however on the way he convinced us there was really nice fish restaurants in Jimbaran just further south from Kuta, and one in particular had particulary good food and a great view of the sunset. Realizing it was a scam and he was on a commission we thought what the hell, we'd go anyway.

Jimbaran Bay is a lovely spot overlooking the airport runway (not as bad as it sounds).....the beach has been taken over by restaurants sprawling out onto the sand. It is clearly a tourist trap but not in too bad of a way. I have to say the food was excellent if somewhat pricier than other places we've been eating. Kim went inside to pick dinner and the next thing I knew we had a huge red snapper and lobster being delivered to our table.....really yummy and probably one of the best meals we've had since hitting the road.

A cab ride back to Sanur saw us in bed asleep (ok I was, don't know about Kim) by 9:00pm