Get Well Wishes in Bali

Get well flowers in Bali: sent to a villa more often than a ward

Half the get-well orders we take here start with a scooter. The graze that follows a spill has a nickname on this island: people call it a Bali tattoo. It is rarely serious, but a wet corner in Berawa keeps somebody off the bike for a fortnight, and off the bike here means indoors for most of it.

That changes where the bouquet lands.

In a big city a get-well order goes to a ward: a bed number, a desk, visiting hours. Here it goes to a rented house with a gate code. Nobody signs for it at reception, there is no vase in the cupboard, and the flowers become one more job for someone on the sofa with a dressing on one shin.

What suits a villa recovery

The brief narrows fast. Compact, because it will sit on a side table beside a phone charger. Nothing that needs looking after, since nobody with a bandaged leg is recutting stems. Low scent above all, because a closed bedroom holds a smell all day and stems that suit a dining room stop being a gift by the third morning.

The low-scent shortlist is not long. Orchids sit at the top of it, holding a week in this air where imported roses will not. For a recovery at home the choice comes down to four things, and the first is not a bouquet at all.

• A potted orchid — no water to change, no stems to cut, still alive when the dressing comes off.
• A box carrying its own water — lisianthus, ranunculus, hydrangea, left where it is set down.
• Low rather than tall — 120 cm Ecuadorian roses want a floor vase and free hands.
• Fruit rather than chocolate — above 30 °C the chocolate loses.

A plant wins on arithmetic. Cut flowers give five days in this heat, road rash takes a fortnight, and the pot is still on the table when the bandage comes off.

If it is a clinic, the clinic decides

Some of these orders do go to a ward, where the rules are not ours. Fresh flowers in patient rooms are restricted often enough to be worth a phone call. Reception says yes, no, or yes in a closed container, and that minute beats one spent with a courier at the entrance holding a box nobody will take.

When the answer is no, we hold the order. Discharge day is often the better delivery anyway, and we move the slot to the home address without you placing the order again.

"The first thing I ask is whether anyone can walk to the gate. If the answer is no, the flowers change and so does the person we call."

— JFLOO florist

Getting it through the gate

A get-well delivery still starts with a pin dropped in a chat. Most of them stop at a shared entrance. Several villas sit behind it, so we want the gate name too, and a number someone will pick up.

The gate is the specific problem in these orders. Someone on crutches, or with a dressing that has to stay dry, is not walking a wet path to open it. So we ask who else is in the compound. Give us a second number: the neighbour, the housekeeper, whoever holds the spare key. A courier who can call the villa next door hands the box over in two minutes instead of waiting at a locked gate while the phone rings inside.

Bikes go out from 9 AM to 10 PM, island time, GMT+8. Morning suits these orders, since the household is awake and the heat has not built. Seminyak, Canggu and Sanur take 90 to 150 minutes, while Uluwatu, Tabanan and the villas inland need three to four hours.

Over 30 °C, and with the humidity on top, anything cut travels firmly wrapped with a cooling element. From November to March the afternoon rain slows the runs inland, so anything pinned to an hour is worth booking the day before.

"Nobody recovering wants a job handed to them. If it needs a vase and a fresh trim on Thursday, I sent the wrong thing."

— JFLOO florist

Orders start at 650,000 IDR. QRIS, GoPay, OVO and DANA go through from a local number, cards from abroad, and the courier takes cash at the gate. Before he rides off we photograph the handover, because senders on these orders are usually several time zones away and want to see it arrived.

Say whether it is a villa or a ward, and send the pin, the gate name and a second number. We build get well flowers in Bali for a room somebody is not leaving for a week, so the height, the container and the scent follow from where it is going.