Both Lynda and I walked home from dinner tonight wearing our new sarongs after having been dressed by Maday (sp?) at his shop which is called Karma. Not sure that I'll be wearing it on a daily basis but it will come in handy for any temples we visit or ceremonies we attend over the coming months. Actually, I take that back.....Lynda says she is going to wear hers cuz she loves the way it feels and....it looks really good on her with her white Mexican blouse. She is truly an international woman tonight!
Heh....a little ant just crawled across my screen! There are a lot of ants here...in fact....there are a lot of bugs of every type! I guess that is what one can expect when one is living in a tropical jungle environment. Complicate that further with the fact that our home for the next 3 weeks truly has us "connected" with nature. There are no windows (or screens) in our bungalow and the roof is not attached to the walls so pretty much anything that can crawl or fly is welcome to come for a visit. Tonight it was hilarious in the bathroom as the bugs were attracted to the lights and so in they came, in droves! There were big ones and little ones and everything in between too. They would fly at the lights around the mirror and then they would fly at the overhead light and then they would fly at the reflection in the mirror and then they would just plain fly wherever they damn well pleased! One pretty big one even decided to go for a swim in the glass of water I was using to brush my teeth. Water is precious so I just poured off enough water till the bug was gone and went ahead with brushing my teeth. Extra protein?!
We love our place in Lovina (north coast of Bali). We really haven't seen much of the town yet but are in no rush as we've got lots of time to do it. I'm just excited to have a pool! Weather is pretty hot but it is the humidity that really gets to me. When I said in an earlier post that my sweat was sweating I wasn't kidding....that is truly my reality. There is sweat constantly dripping off my chin, running into my eyes, and well....bottom line is I always look like I just came out of the shower. At this very moment though I am sitting in front of a fan in my room and the movement of the air is keeping me nice and cool so I'm loving it.
Before I go any further I need to give you a sense of our place here at Saraswati Holiday House in Lovina. The property is large and is home to one house (where the owner Birgit lives with her husband) as well as two bungalows. Lynda and I are in the large bungalow and at the moment there is no one in the other bungalow which means that we pretty much have this whole place to ourselves! Our bungalow consists of two massive bedrooms each with a mosquito net covered canopy bed. My room just has a queen size bed so I also get a couch and coffee table sitting area. Lynda's room has a king so her sitting area is two chairs and a small table. Our bathroom is also huge and the walk in shower is such a treat! The walls in the bathroom are all natural stone and the "windows" are decorative iron work that goes from the top of the 6+ foot wall to the roof line. The roof in all rooms is traditional style thatch. The whole place is a perfect blend of traditional Balinese and really high end touches. There is a small building between the two bungalows that is the guest kitchen where there are two fridges. One is for us and the other is for the 2nd bungalow. That is where we find our breakfast each morning. We miss Ketut bringing our breakfast to us but we're enjoying this too. We cook our own breakfast in our little kitchen...the only rule is that we CANNOT do any dishes. Gee....how will we ever obey that rule?! LOL! This morning we had scrambled eggs and toast (from home made bread) with PB & J or honey, a little cheese, and lots of fresh fruit. Again, no need for much else to eat till dinner time....no shortage of food here!
The outdoor area is so private and beautifully landscaped. Gooday and Kadeck are the staff who look after our every need. They are also the guys who do the dishes. They rake the lawns, clean the pool, maintain our rooms, and last night Kadeck even served us our takeout order on plates in the outdoor dining room. Yep....we're living the life! :-). Another thing that Gooday did tonight was to plug in my fan for me. Both Lynda and I had tried every which way we could think of....down on hands and knees with the flashlight on full beam but to no avail. In comes Gooday and in one second he had that thing plugged in and working. We never would have figured it out in a million years! You had to stick the two round prongs in just a little ways and then turn the whole thing 90 degrees before you could stick them in the rest of the way. Now that is safety at it's finest....it is even grandma proof!
Sitting out at poolside today I had some time to reflect on just how lucky we are. It was so beautiful and all I could hear was the wind in the bamboo and the sound of the creek that runs by this property. There were birds singing and very occasionally the cow from a neighbouring property would add her song to the mix too. There were butterflies busily making their way from flower to plant and back again. There was even one all black butterfly that was at least 3 inches across. He was so big that he looked more like a smallish bird although he was much larger than many of the birds in the yard today. He was so big he would just float more than flutter which showed up even more so against all the little butterflies that were flitting from flower to flower. Speaking of flowers....there are so many flowers in our yard! We have orchids of all size and colour, there are frangipani trees and I think some plumeria as well, there are big red fluffy flowers, and big white elegant flowers, and lots and lots of green stuff. All of the things that we grow in our homes are growing right here except that these ones are a whole bunch bigger!
Part of the reflection on how lucky we are included a recap of our trip here yesterday. We left Ubud at 9:00 and arrived here in Lovina just before 5:00 pm. Jati (our driver) still had to make the 3 1/2 hour drive home so I'm thinking he was glad to have Pasek (our host in Ubud) along for the ride. We enjoyed having Pasek with us for the trip up here too....they really have become our Balinese family already.
The road to Lovina is difficult to describe except to say that much of it is very narrow and filled with hairpin turns. To further complicate things there is an abundance of traffic made even more extreme by the many ceremonies underway along the roads we had to take to get us here. I still can't get over what a great driver Jati is. There are no road signs anywhere (at least none that I could see) and yet he knew where to turn and how far to go and what was coming next. I know it is his job but still....you kind of have to experience it to know what I mean when I say there is no way that I would know where to turn....I'd still be trying to find my way here if I was driving. As well, the roads are so narrow that you're constantly having to pull over to let the oncoming traffic pass. At one point yesterday the road was so narrow and there were so many other vehicles parked along it's edges that the oncoming car and our car actually "kissed" mirrors as we passed one another. The other car's drivers mirror was hinged so it just bent in to the side of the car and everyone continued on their way. I'm sure it happens all the time and so no one even blinks an eye about it.
One of our stops en route was at the MOST beautiful temple. It is the temple by the lake and being that it is set on a lake helps with the ambiance of the parklike setting. Within seconds of our arrival there Lynda had dubbed it the Butchart Gardens of Bali and she wasn't kidding. Acres of manicured lawns and gardens spread out around the temple. As usual, lady luck was with us once again and as soon as we walked through the temple gate a special ceremony began. It was as though they were doing it just for us! First there were at least a hundred people come marching through a gate from the lake area into a courtyard (there are several buildings within the temple compound). Right behind them were another 20'ish musicians all playing drums and other traditional instruments that created a very loud and really unique sound. Once the musicians were fully into the courtyard they settled themselves and continued to play while the people at the front (near another set of doors leading to an inner temple area) performed the rituals that were a blessing part of the ceremony we were witnessing. Once that blessing at the front of the inner temple was complete the entire entourage moved the procession into that inner temple area to move onto the next stage of the ceremony. We weren't allowed into that area but were able to watch it from a side gate that was near the lake. Everyone was dressed in white and gold and it all looked so wonderfully official and kind of regal. There was one thing that brought it right back to reality though and that was three young boys who were part of the procession. The boys were about 8 - 10 years old and they hung back till they were the last ones through the door into the inner sanctuary. The reason for them hanging back was at least in part because they had a cell phone and were busy playing a game that I'm sure they just couldn't put down! LOL. Kids the world over are all just the same!
Another stop we made yesterday was at a waterfall. What I will say about that stop was that the waterfall is beautiful but the path down to the bottom of it is very long and very steep! The further down we went the more I dreaded about the climb back up! I'm not kidding...it was a long way and very very steep! Once I could see the waterfall I knew I'd gone far enough and that my knees were done. I decided to begin to make the climb back up while the rest of my group continued down to the pool at the bottom of the falls. I took my time climbing back up through the clove trees and the cacao trees and the banana trees and the coconut trees and the papaya trees.....yes.....I'm not kidding.....that was what was just growing everywhere naturally! I stopped to admire the "ladders" that they use because those ladders are just a single long pole (bamboo I think) with pegs on either side of it. I'm not sure how that thing doesn't just tip over as they're climbing it but....they're all using them so I'm going to assume they've figured out how to make it work for them. The tallest of the "ladders" that I saw was more than 40 feet high! Once I got as far up as the hut with the little old lady who was selling spices I figured I'd gone far enough and would wait for the rest of my group to return ....and....she had a couple of chairs there that looked mighty tempting! She and I had a great visit, I bought a few spices from her and she offered me some fresh cacao to chew (which I did). It doesn't really taste all that good....kind of like when you think that bakers chocolate is going to taste so yummy and then you realize you just bit into the unsweetened kind. Well, that's sort of what the real cacao seeds taste like too. This little old lady and I were having a great visit and then all of a sudden there came the roar of a motorbike climbing up the hill and guess who was riding on the back of that bike?! Yes, you guessed it....it was Lynda hanging onto the driver so tightly that she didn't even see me there on the side of the path! I was green with envy...I'd just climbed a small mountain and had another small mountain still to go and she got a ride up all the way from the bottom!
Eeek! A gecko (you know the squeaky toy kind-the big ones) just let loose with his song in my room! Aggghhhh....he's somewhere in my roof....please don't let him stay there all night!
Back to my waterfall story.....so when I saw that same guy who'd given Lynda a ride up coming back down to get his next fare at the bottom, I stopped him and got him to take me up the rest of the way too. It is a pretty wild ride so I could understand why she didn't see me on the side. You have to hold on tight because you're going up some pretty steep inclines and you don't want to even move your head from side to side for fear of putting the driver off centre. There are ruts and some muddy sections and of course there's the odd rock in the way to have to swerve to avoid. You can picture it....we're on a trail going up a mountain in the jungle....it's kind of sketchy. And to top it all off.....remember one of me = 2 Balinese so you gotta know that guy driving the bike hasn't had too much experience with this body type on the back of his bike! Once we were almost at the very top the path became even steeper....it was crazy steep! It was so steep that the driver actually put his feet down onto the ground and helped the bike make it to the top at the same time as he was giving it full throttle so we sounded a lot like a jet engine! There is something pretty magical about doing slightly crazy stuff like that....it is kind of wild and a little dangerous....but it is fun in the end because you made it through unscathed. Risky? Maybe a little....but the adrenaline that results from the adventure found in a little educated risk (how's that for an oxymoron?!) is what helps keeps both Lynda and I coming back for more. Good thing we both like a lot of the same stuff! LOL.
Other stops we made included a view from the highest point of the mountain pass we crossed. Another lookout boasted bamboo walkways that hang out over the cliffs where you can stop for great pics...which we did. We stopped to enjoy the view of the twin lakes (you can see two lakes from one vantage point). We stopped at a fruit stand. We got held up in crazy traffic jams caused by countless ceremonial processions. We marvelled at the women walking along roadways with bundles and baskets of all shape and size balanced atop their heads. We tried to take pictures out the windows as we passed entire families on their single motorbike. And we had a picnic in the car with the fruit and snacks we'd purchased from the fruit stand.
I think that's about all I can remember for now and it is getting very late in Bali so time for me to hit the hay. Lynda headed off to her bed quite a while ago but my guess is that she'll be up before me tomorrow morning too so it makes sense that she has turned in for the night. This morning she was up for an early walk intending to find the beach. She followed the instruction Birgit had given for a "shortcut" to the beach but alas she turned left instead of right across the little bridge and so instead of finding the beach she found herself back on the main road and eventually headed back down the road to Saraswati House. Her journey had her precariously balanced on a high ridge of muddy ground with a deep creek beside her. It had her hanging onto bamboo for fear of falling over the edge at another particularly skinny bit of ground. In the end, the good news is that she now knows she doesn't really want to go via the short cut and S the other good news is that she kept turning left so she just went in a big square. Imagine if she would have turned right at one of those corners?! She might still be walking!
Till next time...
L & L
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