On Saturday evening, I was treated to dinner out by friends who have been staying with me here in Bali. Donning our best bibs and tuckers we headed over to Métis in Seminyak, arriving just before it got dark. I’m so glad that we caught the last of the daylight, as the grounds of this fabulous French restaurant were a sight to behold.
The food was excellent, the company fantastic and we had a very jolly evening surrounded by the ‘beautiful’ people of Bali’s most sophisticated and expensive tourist spot, Seminyak. A place that until then I had never ventured to.
The following morning, after my visitors had left, I settled down to a day of painting. By mid afternoon I was feeling decidedly ill and was throwing up. It was not, I hasten to add, the result of the trés delicieux dinner from the night before. The vomit-inducing culprit was a portion of gado gado (steamed vegetables with peanut sauce) that Wayan had bought for our lunch from a warung up the road. It tasted decidedly off, and on finding evidence of cockroaches and other critters amongst the bean sprouts, tofu and sauce I suspect that hygiene was not this particular warungs game. The rest of my Easter Sunday was spent alone hanging over the toilet and feeling decidedly green.
Monday morning I had a mission. I couldn’t get the gardens of Métis out of my head, I needed to get back there with a camera and take some pictures. I’d had a fitful few hours of sleep and by 2am fed up with tossing and turning, I got up and started my day. I swum in the milky light of the moon and later watched the splendid pink and red dawn breaking in the east from the balcony.
The gardens at Métis are an artists dream. With around an acre or so of lotus and lily ponds, it is a sight for sore eyes. Bali’s answer to Giverny. As I crouched down to take pictures, I couldn’t help but wonder what Monet would have made of this place? Plein air indeed! It was so hot that the sweat poured off me and though the humidity from earlier in the morning was no longer posing a problem with steaming up the camera lens, now I had my own sweat to contend with. It’s early days for me, and this macro lens but I’m quite pleased with some of the pictures. I’m going to bring the Irishman here at the first opportunity, I can see us spending quite a few hours painting, drawing and taking pictures.
Lottie Nevin - The Red House Diaries 
Beautiful photos. It does remind me of tropical Giverny! Sorry to hear about the gado gado incident.
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It’s been a while since I last felt this ill from eating street food! I think gado gado is going to be off menu for some time! 😛
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Don’t blame you. I avoided bakso for months because of the same issue 😛
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Funny that you should mention bakso! I had a very bad experience with it a few months after moving to Jakarta and I”m not sure that I shall ever be brave enough to eat it again. Shame because I really loved it!
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Yes, Giverny in Bali! That’s spot on, Lottie! xxx Gorgeous pinks and greens.
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Thanks Martha! It’s such a beautiful place- very inspiring xxx
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Magnificent photo collection. Worthy of an empress indeed. The close up of the dragonfly is splendid. Steve will drool if not dribble over the plants. It’s a shame you missed the comet in the sky. Lotus also provide good food and Mrs. Ha is partial to lotus seed soup. This looks to be a place worthy of a Michelin star or three. If not for the food then certainly for the photos!
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I did think about putting your p-p-p-penguin in the sky ….he will definitely appear next time, I have a little feature lined up called ‘All creatures great and small’
I read up about Lotus plants and seeds last night – Mrs Ha should be in rude health, it’s a wonder food so I believe.
Glad you liked the pictures. I’m a bit nervous about posting pictures now that I’m not using my iphone to hide behind!! I forgot to bring the tripod over from Jakarta so it was quite hard to keep the camera still – I’m still at the playgroup stage of taking pictures….:D
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Not the penguin Lottie, the comet!!! Yup, take the tripod but for handheld these are pretty impressive. if you haven’t got a tripod try to rest the camera on a bean bag or improvised equivalent.
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Wonderful photos!!! What a location! Loooooove these shots
Hope you are feeling better after the roach gado gado!! Euwwwww
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Thanks me darlin’ and thanks too for such a great evening! We will have to go back there together. It’s so beautiful in the day time and the flowers have to be seen to be believed. I wish that I had a wide-angle lens – I would have loved to have got a shot of the whole thing.
see you soon! 😀 xxx
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Breathtaking photos Lottie! I didn’t realise you actually got physically ill from the Roacho Roacho, hope you feel better now.
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Much better now, thanks Trish. 🙂 really happy you like the photos!
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Lovely photos. Monet would have praised you to high heaven. How’s the stomach?
I thought cockroaches were a delicacy in Vietnam. Do you sometimes wish for a good old fashioned British ‘fry-up’?
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I probably would be able to deal with fried cockroaches if they were ‘the dish’ as opposed to being smuggled into the dish so to speak.
No, I never fancy a greasy British fry-up but Irishman adores them. I do love sausages and they are really difficult to find – real pork ones I mean not those anaemic chicken ones or beef which frankly do not cut the mustard in this house. When we go back to London, the first meal that we have is always gammon/ham or sausages and mashed potatoes! I know! Such a sophisticated couple! 😀
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I’m so sorry to hear how you spent your Easter, Lottie. Thankfully you recovered quickly and were able to take these amazing photographs.
Macro is one of my favorite forms. Life is so astonishing on this level. Your photos are stunning. xoxo
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Thank you Sis! This lens is very new and I’m just getting to grips with it. I am really enjoying using it. You are right, life is so astonishing on this level. I love how you can see the most minute detail if you get up really close – I took some photographs earlier today of 2 crickets mating…yes! I really did and you can acutally see the tiny hairs on their legs. So sweet! xoxo
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Yes, I saw that and it is an awesome shot! Leave it to you to catch mating grasshoppers!! Hahaha!
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I like to think of it as wildlife photography! 😀
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A lousy finish to Sunday, glad it didn’t inconvenience life too much beyond that though. Super photos. A macro lens is on my wish list!
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Hayley, I hope you can beg, borrow or steal one. I love my macro lens! I worked very hard to convince Pete that I needed one and bless him, he bought me one for our wedding anniversary as a present. I really need to use a tripod though because trying to get in close and focus without getting camera shake is difficult.
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I thought there were going to be some boring foody pix of your posh meal out and instead got a beautiful feast for the eyes with your spectacular photos. Lovely.
Cockies. I don’t think I’ll go down that road. You’re probably sick of them already (haha really funny and totally insensitive joke there). I’m just waiting for the first of the little f***ers to appear as the weather is warming up here.
I did have a pal who ate locusts in Cambodia. You can claim a first for eating cockies. Or almost eating them. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
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Mrs Rough, you’ve got me all wrong! When ever have you seen pictures of food on here? Good grief! – Maybe just once, but only if it’s something that I’ve made and there is a story attached to it somewhere (please note desperate disclaimer!)
Big respect to your friend for eating locusts – I expect they are a bit crunchy? If push came to shove then I could probably handle locusts but cockroaches are a whole different ball game. It’s a bit like that terrible joke – the one about ‘what’s worse, finding a maggot in your apple or half a maggot…’ I kept thinking about that after my disgusting lunch. YUK 😀
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Splendid collection, Lottie. We have a lotus pond locally but it does not have nearly the display of your restaurant and, sadly, no lovely snail eggs. I would think your artist’s eye was on overload as your images indicate.
I like peanuts and I like veggies, but we had gado gado once and it put me off even without the roaches. What a nasty way to spend any day.
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Thank you Steve! High praise indeed 😀
I have to admit, the snails eggs really made my day. The combination of the tiny pink eggs and the green leaves and the lotus flowers was perfect. All those colours, all those different textures!
Sorry to hear about your gado gado experience. Pete absolutely loathes gado gado – he hates food that is warm. He likes his food to be either hot or cold but not warm which is how gado gado is traditionally served up.
I may have had a lousy Easter Sunday but I sure as heck made up for it on the Monday!
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Love these Lottie, wow you have arrived baby xxxxxx
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Not sure that I’ve arrived, but I’m slowly getting there! Can’t wait to show you this place, you will LOVE it. xxxxx
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Un ‘effen’ believable! Your photography is insane.
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You do make me laugh! I’ve got a great lens, that’s all. It does make a hell of a difference 🙂
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Your photos do have a way of adding a new perspective on things.
AV
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HUGE apologies for only just replying to your kind comment AV – how shocking that I’ve only just seen it – I’m so sorry. Glad you like my take/perspective on things! Lottie 😀
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Those are some amazing photos, I can’t wait to get some flowers around us here too.
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Thank you 😀 I hope you get the flowers blooming soon. I remember the joys of springtime and the buds and blossoms – it’s a great thing after a long hard winter
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Lovely photos! I can’t wait to see some flowers here too :).
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Lottie these photos are fantastic.Each and every one. Excellent macro lens you have there. Flowers are gorgeous.
Do be careful about where you get your food . That had to have been a terrible day to be so sick. Just thinking of the roaches makes me sort of ill.
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I’m sorry that you felt ill – yes, it wasn’t the best meal of my life, that’s for sure. Sorry to be so late with my reply to your lovely comment. I seem to have some sort of glitch on wordpress – it’s being a bit slow for me at the moment and jumps around all over the place. hope all well with you 😀
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Well Lottie, I did not mean il, ill, that was an exaggeration. Take what I write with a grain of salt- whatever that means. I had a thing with WP where everything was jumping around. It seems that WP was not happy with my browser. I updated to Windows 7 and then Val of Arty Old bird told me that Google chrome or Foxfire was better and then it seems Wp was behaving itself much better. Strange to say the least but that really stopped all the jumping around. I was having a terrible time with it. If you are not using one of those browsers then change to one of those. Do not put windows 8 on your computer. It really causes all kinds of trouble. cosco techs told me that they had been giving directions to people on how to uninstall Windows 8 and to put Windows 7 back in place.
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You and I have quite a bit in common I think when it comes to anything to do with computers. I have to hand it you Yvonne, you are a heck of a lot more savvy than I am – seriously! I get so bolshy with mine and tearful at times – it’s quite pathetic but I’d be lost without it now. I don’t even know what I’m using on here, haven’t a clue – as long as the wretched thing works I’m ok. It’s the same attitude that I have with cars…..:)
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Gee whiz. I think you are much smarter than I. You post those great photos and lots of them. You must be better than I.
Lottie I find it hard to believe that you have a problem.
In my case I am always trying to rush and when that happens then I am really in a pickle or a stew or a mess- whatever.
I curse like a sailor when I can’t get things to behave (as I like to say). But I am sure it all has to do with me not paying attention and reading the info that WP puts out for computer dummies like us.
Well I suppose cars could fall in line with computer problems.
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Hi Lottie. I’m stopping by from the A to Z Blog Challenge. Your photographs are absolutely stunning. Bali is a place i dream of visiting.
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