Delicious Hibiscus Tea

The second that we arrived in the Denpassar airport in Bali, I knew I would love it. Even though we hadn’t slept for a long time, Emma and I had fallen in love with the place. When all four of our bags came out of the conveyor belt, we lugged all of our stuff outside to find a paper made sign saying in all caps and navy blue letters Adam and Melissa. The man holding the sign introduced himself as Nyoman and then we introduced ourselves. He took us to his car and loaded in all of our stuff. We paid the toll to get out of the Denpassar International Airport and we were on our way. Before Emma and I fell asleep for the hour long car ride to Ubud, we had our first Indonesian and Balinese language lessons. They have their own language in Bali, but Indonesian is the national language so they speak both. Hello in both is Hello. Thank you in Indonesian is Tarimakasi and thank you in Balinese is Matur Suksimo. When we arrived at what would be our home for the next three weeks we were not happy to see the stairs that we would have to go up to get there. After the walk to our cottage we were very pleasantly surprised. The house, along with other houses, is surrounded by tons and tons of rice fields. Outside when you first walk in there is a little Coifish pond and then there is a porch. On the porch there is a set of four chairs and a table, a bed, and a couch. We eat all of our meals on the porch. I also sleep outside. The bed is pretty comfortable with a mosquito net to keep the bugs out. It is normally pretty peaceful out there with the calming sound of the wind rustling the leaves and the Coifish splashing in the pond. We are woken up every once in a while with the occasional dog fight due to the fact that there are many stray dogs in Ubud. Despite that, we love it. Inside there is another couch and a bathroom. In the back there is a little kitchen. Upstairs there is a desk, a dresser, and another bed. After we got somewhat settled in, we took a walk to town. Since we hadn’t had real food since Vietnam, we were all starving. We found a little restaurant on Monkey Forest Road called Ibu Rai. We had a 4:00 meal that was it for the day. It was very good. After that we walked around a little bit and then we went back. Little did we know how dark it was going to be. After we climbed the stairs and we got to the beginning of the path, we realized that we would have to get there in the pitch dark. After a little bit of groping around, my dad pulled out his cell phone for light. We made it back, but we made sure to bring flashlights for the other times that we were out at night. The next day we were counting the seconds until our grandmother came to meet us. She was coming in at midnight that night, so we were planning on seeing her in the morning. We all woke up relatively early the next day and we walked across the rice fields to her hotel. My grandma and her boyfriend, Aloni, were sitting there eating breakfast. The second we saw her we ran up to her. We were so excited to see her. That day we went into town and did a little bit of shopping. After that we decided to get massages. They were very nice-our first massages! Before going to a carnival called Earth Day, we got lunch at a restaurant called the KAFE. It was delicious. After that we took a long walk to the Earth Day celebration. There was food and music and activities. After a little while there, we headed back to Ubud for dinner. After dinner we went back to our house. This time we remembered flash lights, luckily.

We spent a lot of our time swimming and relaxing. One night we went to see traditional Balinese dancing. The costumes were beautiful, but it was a little bit tedious. We sat right next to the instruments so we were able to see the exotic-wood-carved xylophone-like instruments. It was interesting to see, but it was a little bit too loud. After that experience, we went back to our house to go to sleep. For our various days in Ubud we did a lot of shopping and hanging out. We found a lot of cute restaurants in and around Ubud.

My mom and dad went away for a weekend to Seminyak Beach. When they were gone (it was a very sad goodbye after four months of not being separated) one day my grandma and Aloni took us to a place called Taro, Bali. In Taro they have an amazing elephant park. It had been raining all morning long and luckily when we got out of the car, it had stopped. We went in and grabbed a quick lunch and then we went on a ride through the park on elephants. The scenery was beautiful and it was nice to be on an elephant without a big black eye and stitches! After the ride we got back to the park and we watched an elephant talent show. There were three elephants. They climbed across a balance beam, they played soccer and basketball, they carried people in their trunks, they sprayed us with water and they did math. It was very cool. The next day we went to visit different temples and a hot spring. In order to enter a Balinese temple, you must wear a sarong. In front of the temple we bought a sarong. Inside we looked at the different carvings and spiritual sections. While we were there, they were preparing for a celebration, so we got to see their art. After that we went to see the hot spring. There were two warm pools and a cold pool. We swam and hung out there for a while and then we ate lunch. After that we left for another temple. The last temple that we visited was the Elephant cave temple. Inside there was a market and after we went down some steps we got to a place were there were three pools each one up to the middle of my calves. Our guide told us that it is holy water used to purify your soul. On one side of the temple there is an elephant cave. The cave was very dark. It had carvings in it, many of elephants. It was a very beautiful sight to see. I enjoyed it. When we left that temple we drove for about an hour to get back to Ubud. It was a fun day.

The next day we spent most of the morning sleeping in and hanging out. At about 11:30 we were picked up and we went to meet my parents in Seminyak Village which is very close to Kuta Beach. We were so happy to see our parents because it was the first time that we had been away from them for four months. It was very strange to be separated from them. After so long of not being able to get away from them, I thought that it would be nice but, it felt like something was missing. I love being with my grandma and the hot springs and elephant riding were SO much fun, but it was so different. It was really the first time in four months that my mom and dad had to say, “What did you do?” or, “How was it?” (I wonder what going away to camp is going to be like!) We had lunch there and then we went back to my parents’ hotel to swim in the pool and in the ocean. It was fun. Later, at about 4:00, we went to shop around Kuta. Kuta is mainly an Australian surf town, so it was full of big signs and western stores. After a little bit of shopping, we went to dinner. After dinner we went back to Ubud…happy to be with two more people then we came with.

The day after we returned from Kuta was when our REAL adventures began. The first one was a one day bike trip in the hills of Bali. It was all downhill and our hands probably got more exercise by braking all of the time then our feet did by pedaling, but it was fun. Along the way we stopped at a traditional garden, a temple, and a traditional Balinese house compound. The garden had many things: cocoa beans (my favorite!), coffee beans, chili peppers, pumpkins, and other various fruits and vegetables. It was very interesting. Our next two-wheeled stop was a temple. Our guide told us the every house compound has a temple and that every town has a bigger temple. They are made like human bodies. The head is the holiest part and the feet are the least holy. There are three courtyards within each town temple. The head is the first one, the stomach is the second one, and the feet is the third one. It was interesting to learn about. Our last stop before lunch was a traditional Balinese house compound. All compounds have various houses within them because all families live together. Normally a new married couple goes to live with the husband’s family. Within each compound there are cousins, siblings, parents, and grandparents. Each immediate family has its own house, but is only a few steps away from the other houses. As I mentioned earlier, each compound has its own temple inside of it and they also share a kitchen. Like temples, houses are also like the human body. The feet are where the animals are and the head is where the temple is. It was a very interesting to see. Another interesting thing about Balinese culture is that they make beautiful, colorful, and fruit-full offerings every morning for the Hindu Gods. They put these offerings in shrines that are dressed up with sarongs. Everyone wears sarongs-men and women alike. One thing that really fascinates me is that if you are the eldest child in the family, your name is Wayan, if you are the second child your name is Made (Maday), the third is Nyoman, and the fourth is Putu. If you have any more children you start over, but you add Bali to the end. The fifth child would be called Wayan Bali. Since so many people have the same name, we found that most people have been given nicknames. When we left the house compound we rode our bikes to the end and then a van picked us up for a delicious Balinese lunch buffet (which we felt like we didn’t really deserve due to the effortless bike ride). After that, we went back to Ubud for an afternoon swim.

The next day we continued our adventures. We decided to go river rafting. Emma was very nervous and I have to admit that I was a little scared too. We got to our starting point and we got our life jackets, our helmets, and our paddles. We walked down the 400 steps to the Agung River and were given simple instructions for the boat. We got into our raft, and we were off. As we bumped down our first rapid I was full of mixed emotions. Some were that “this is so much fun,” or “It’s so beautiful,” but others were “what happens if I fall out?” or “what if I don’t do it right?” or “what if I lose my paddle?” While all of these were going through my head we got to the bottom of the our first rapid and over the roaring water I hear our guide scream “FORWARD!” and we started moving. After that first rapid I was thinking more positive things. After two or three rapids I was pretty sure that I had gotten the hang of it. Our guide then told us to get inside of the boat because we were about to go down a one meter waterfall. I knew that I would just have to deal, but after my little mishap in Thailand, waterfalls have not been my favorite thing. As we got closer, my heart started beating faster and faster. When we got to it, I held my paddle the way I was told, closed my eyes, and screamed. A big wave of cool water splashed over us and I was so happy. I had made it! I didn’t fall out! After a couple easier rapids our guide announced that our next rapid is called ping-pong. He didn’t explain why it was called ping-pong, though. We paddled according to direction and then we were, well, like a ping-pong ball. We went back and forth until it got calmer. This one wasn’t like that waterfall that lasted for about one second. This one seemed to go on and on and on. At one point we hit a rock and my dad fell on me. I was almost positive that I was going to fall out, but luckily, I didn’t. We knew why they called it ping-pong! After a few more rapids, we made it to the end of the trail. I was so proud of myself. I had made without falling! We unloaded our helmets, life jackets, and paddles, we showered and then we ate lunch (which was almost exactly the same as the bike trip from the previous day because we used the same company). After the trip they drove us back and we stayed in Ubud for the rest of the day.

The rest of the time that our grandma was here, we spent hanging out and doing shopping. On of the days we went to a fabric store and we designed a bed spread for Emma and a jewelry box for me. (One of my Chanukah presents was a jewelry box in Bali.) That was fun. We got clothes and sarongs and jewelry and puppets (for my grandma) and other souvenirs. On our last night with our grandma we went out for a delicious dinner and then we had a tearful goodbye as we trudged up the stairs to our house.

We spent about four days doing a lot of work and then we took what we call a vacation from our vacation from our vacation. The whole trip is our vacation, Bali is our vacation from our vacation, and Amed, the beach town about two hours away from Ubud is our vacation from our vacation from our vacation. Amed is very quiet, but beautiful. We stayed at a Feng Shui Boutique hotel (if you know my mom, you would know how much she loves Feng Shui) that had a nice pool and was right on the ocean. It was a coral beach but the water was beautiful. We did a lot of swimming and snorkeling while we were there. One day we went to a Japanese ship wreck. There were beautiful coral gardens and the boat was spectacular. The boat was broken in half and spread out about 15 feet under the water. There was life in and around it and it was magnificent. The water was a little bit rough, but it was fine to just float around. The boat that we took in order to get there was like a little mini catamaran. The water is very shallow, so the boats have to be wide, not deep. The inside of the boat is long and skinny, like a canoe and we had to sit and stand in single file. We had fun in Amed but, as always, we were very excited to return to Ubud.

Our last couple of days in Ubud were exciting, but we were sad to go. We ended up having to move to the Honeymoon Cottages because my dad is allergic to cats. There, they serve Hibiscus Tea which we thought was delicious. From then on, our family joke was Delicious Hibiscus Teach. One of the things that Ubud is famous for is its Monkey Forest. There are tons and tons of monkeys that are very accustomed to people being there so if I was crazy enough I could have touched one. We spent about a half hour admiring the crazing monkeys and their human like activity. After our walk thru the monkey forest we walked down Hanoman Street. (The three main roads in central Ubud are the Main Road, Monkey Forest Street, and Hanoman Steet.) We did some shopping and then, while we were in one of the stores, they told that there was going to be a cremation. The Balinese celebrate everything including death because they believe in reincarnation. Some people buy tickets to these celebrations (though it is not necessary) to see them. Coming down the road was a big float-like thing carried by men on their shoulders. There is a priest on top and the villagers sprayed water on them. Followed by the “float” there was many musicians. The next “float” was the same thing, but the first one was more like a castle, and this was a giant black paper mache bull. They carried this all to a grave site, the first “float” was carrying the body. They cut up the bull and put the body inside with offerings, holy water, and blessings. When all of the body’s remains were in the bull with various blessings they closed it up. To light it up, they surprisingly used gas and within minutes in was in flames. It was an unforgettable sight to see this cremation. Everyone was so happy-there was singing and laughing. Not to mention everyone was in bright colors. After watching this we were very hungry but very happy with the sight that we had just witnessed. It was a good conclusion to our stay in Ubud.For out last day we took a long walk to the Maya Ubud, a hotel that we felt like we had to visit. It was beautiful. I got a hat and to my dismay, my dad got the same one. We did some last minute shopping and picked up our lunch. Then our taxi driver, Nyoman, drove us to the airport and watched as we left Ubud.

READERS NOTE: I POSTED THIS BLOG AT THE SAME TIME AS MY 'GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM' BLOG WHICH IS BELOW.