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~ 2001:
A Gutter Odyssey ~
December 28 through January 12, 2001
$1 U.S. = 9200 Indonesian Rupiah
(Remember to click on the thumbnails for
enlargements of the photos)
Ubud, Bali,
Indonesia
December 28 through January 12, 2001
(ccl) Approximately six months
ago, Wiley and I were sitting around talking (as we often are) and the
conversation turned to last New Year's Eve. On that night, an impromptu
gathering of friends turned into the best New Year's Eve party we'd ever been
to, and it was at our house. After reminiscing about it, we sent out an
email to the people who were there and essentially challenged them to, this
year, come to Bali for New Year's. Not really expecting anyone to take us
up on it, we laughed at the responses. Then one came from our good friend
Andre' Golubic, indicating that he and his girlfriend, Sha Ficarrota, were
actually considering making the trip. One thing led to another, and
eventually they had a four-week tour of south-east Asia in the works with plans
to start it in Bali with us, beginning December 28th.
I don't think I fully appreciated
what it takes for someone to come halfway around the world to see us until first
our friend, Paula Attaway, then Wiley's sister, Lele, met us in Greece and
Thailand, respectively. We never talked "real time" with any of
these people, and planned both of those meetings by email alone. It must
take some guts to get on a plane and hope you met up with the two people you're
looking to, who are "somewhere out there", especially when you're by
yourself. In Lele's case, I remember thinking when we left her at the
check-in counter at the airport that she had basically flown 36 hours to spend
six days with us, and now had to turn around and go back in the other
direction.
We got to know Sha on a ski trip to
Lake Tahoe in 1999. She used to live down the street from some friends of
ours, Mike and Dana Persons, who organize a ski trip of folks from Atlanta and
other parts of the country every spring. We had met Sha before, but on the trip we
shared a bedroom with her (quarters are close when you're trying to save money
in the Land of $45 Lift Tickets) and she and I had celebrated our birthdays
together. Andre' lived next door to an apartment complex in our
neighborhood that everyone referred to as "Melrose
Place", mainly because of the soap opera-like nature of the goings-on
there. We knew a lot of people who lived there, and met Andre' at an
Austin Powers party at Melrose Place. The story goes that one day Andre'
was looking out of the window of his house and saw Sha leaning over the railing
at Melrose Place, where she was visiting someone. Andre' told his
roommate, "Patrick, I think I'm in love,", and they've been pretty
much inseparable ever since. We've gotten to be really good friends with
them, and we were ecstatic to hear that we'd be ushering in the REAL millennium
with them.
If you've never emerged from the customs gauntlet at a third world airport and
into the teeming masses waiting outside, you've missed an interesting aspect of
travel. Maybe for us in the West, air travel has become so mundane that no one much
makes a big deal about it anymore. When I used to travel a lot on business
I hardly ever noticed more than a handful of people waiting to met someone as
they got off the plane. In some of the places we've been people seem to come to
the airport for entertainment, and when you emerge from the terminal building
into the blinding sunlight you are amazed at the number of people waiting
outside. Typically, no one is allowed to come into the terminal building
for security reasons, so people gather outside, some holding signs with the
names of the people they are trying to pick up on them. On the day that
Sha and Andre' arrived (or "Shandre'", as they are collectively
known), we were part of that throng of people, all sweating it out together in
the afternoon Balinese humidity. We had been waiting more than 45 minutes
since the PA system announced the arrival of their flight, and had watched
numerous package tourists come out of the terminal, squint in a confused manner
at the signs that read, "Four Seasons", "Ritz Carlton", and
"Hard Rock Hotel", when I saw them coming out. They, too, looked
uncomprehendingly at the crowd, until Wiley and I yelled "SHANDRE'!!".
They screamed and ran over to us and tackled us, backpacks and all. The
crowd, rather bored up to this point, enjoyed the performance so much it began
cheering and clapping. I imagine that most people never receive that kind
of auspicious welcome when they travel.
And so our time together began...Sha
and Andre' were scheduled to leave Bali on the 9th of January to continue their
trip in Thailand and Cambodia, so we had twelve days together. One of our
first orders of business was to procure appropriately stunning attire for New
Year's Eve. The sarongs that the Balinese men and women wear come in a
myriad of colors, fabrics, and prints, and can be as muted as a simple
earth-toned batik to an elaborate organza with gold and silver threads.
Most are relatively inexpensive, so we went to visit Nyoman, who had already
sold Wiley his Christmas Eve sarong (many of you know how good Wiley looks in a
sarong...). Nyoman had a rather noticeable affection for Wiley, and seemed
to especially enjoy dressing him up. He outfitted everyone but me - I, of
course, didn't find my sarong until New Year's Eve day.
That afternoon we stopped for happy
hour at our favorite bar, Three Monkeys. Winner of the Only Bar with
Cranberry Juice on the Long's Strange Trip award, we had made it our second home
during our time in Ubud, as they had a special on Absolut Vodka and cranberry
juice during the holidays. Being a firm believer in the medicinal benefits
of cranberry juice, I felt that we should have one, in order to ensure the
health of our newly-arrived friends. While there, our new friends and
fellow world travelers, Ed and Linda Hawkins walked by, and joined us for a
drink. It was kind of cool, after being on the road on our own for so
long, to have a table full of friends enjoying happy hour together. Even
though we have made lots of friends along the way, it's somehow different.
Here's a little tidbit I may have
left out up to this point in my writings about Bali: Ubud is not on the
beach. I keep getting emails from various members of my family, cautioning
me to remember to use sunscreen, and making snide comments about why I haven't
written them any emails when all I have to do is lie on the beach. Ubud is
firmly inland, and can get quite muggy at times, so it's important to try and
head for the beach when you can. The closest beach is Kuta, which is the
main tourist town on the island, and somehow that we had so far managed to
avoid. Lonely Planet made Kuta sound like a town in which tourism
and development had run amok, but how bad could it be for one afternoon?
Doing our best impression of
budget travelers, we took the shuttle bus to Kuta instead of a taxi.
Motion sickness and heat exhaustion forced us to bail from the bus well
before the end of the line, and once our heads cleared we realized that
bus fare for the four of us exceeded the price of a private taxi ride
from Ubud to Kuta. Oh well...
At this point on the trip, we have been on beaches in Morocco, Egypt,
Turkey, Greece, India, and Thailand. Add to that the numerous beaches
I have visited on other trips, and I will tell you with certainty: I have
never seen a beach as dirty as Kuta Beach in Bali. Kuta was rife
with aggressive vendors of everything from massages to tattoos to bad
silver jewelry, and swimming involved being periodically assailed by bits
of plastic bags that did a passable impression of sea creatures.
I thought of my sister, Barbara, who once used the excuse that "a
fish swam between my legs" as the reason that she was not able to
get up on waterskis. Barbara would not have liked Kuta Beach.
But as we were in the company of good
friends, we had a good time. When the boys went for a walk, Sha and I were
accosted by two Italian guys who wanted their picture made with us, and who made
us promise to meet them at the "deez-co" that night, so we headed into
a nearby restaurant to escape any more unwanted attention. The boys came
back, and we sat for a while in the restaurant, and then emerged to catch the
sunset. To our amazement, we saw that the beach was now filled with more
people than I have ever seen on a beach in my life. Everyone had come out
for sunset, and the place was a friendly throng of locals and tourists, playing
in the waves, strolling, and generally enjoying themselves. 
We took it easy on New Year's Eve day, in anticipation of a big night. Our
plans were to drink some beers at the house, then walk down the street for some
dinner at a local restaurant, then ring in the New Year at a party down the road
that promised to have a live reggae band. We had decided to walk that
evening, instead of taking the scooters, not only because the boys weren't sure
how to drive a scooter in a sarong, but also because one of the guys at our
hotel told us that his plans for the evening were to "get drunk and ride
around on my motorbike".
Things were going well. We made some really silly pictures at the house of
all of us in our festive attire, then we headed out to start the evening.
I was the only one without a beer in my hand, I'm SURE because my mother taught
me that ladies don't drink beer, and not simply because we had run out. We
could not have been 50 yards from the hotel when we encountered our first hole
in the sidewalk. A construction crew had been working on the road ever
since we had been there, and on the sidewalks as well. The sidewalks
covered storm ditches,
which swept away the copious amounts of rain that seem to fall at least once a
day here. We later learned that most of the menial heavy-labor type jobs
here are done by workers who are brought from Java, and they are Muslims. The
end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincided with New Year's Eve, and
apparently the workers vanished to celebrate, leaving off EVERY ONE of the large
concrete covers that provide access to the ditches below the sidewalk.
Wiley, Andre', and Sha had all been down the road on foot before and were aware
that there were holes in the sidewalk every ten feet or so; I had not and
therefore was not. After stepping around the first three or four of these holes,
I kind of forgot about them, and starting thinking about whether the restaurant
up the street would be a good place for dinner. One second I was happily
chatting with Andre', the next, I was standing in a hole. Apparently, I planted
my left foot, then made the step with my right foot right down into the hole,
which looked to be about four-and-a-half feet deep, based on the fact that the underside of my
left elbow was scraped. When they hauled me out, there was quite a bit of blood
pooling in my sandal, and I was pretty woozy, probably from shock.
This is where is becomes quite important that I
DIDN'T have a beer bottle in my hand when I fell into the hole. If I had,
I would have smashed it on the sidewalk, and would have probably cut my hand up
as well.
It's funny: I had remarked when we moved in that
it was quite convenient that there was a 24-hour medical clinic right next to
our hotel, never fathoming that it would be me who needed it. The guys supported
me back to our house, and Sha, who has her masters in nursing, took a look and
said that she thought stitches would be a good idea, given the depth of two of
the wounds. I had basically grazed the top of my foot, then hit hard twice on my
shin, then scraped the top of my shin. 
I limped back over to the medical clinic, where an exceedingly young-looking doctor examined me. I asked her how long she had been a doctor and she
cheerfully responded, "One year!". But she was extremely professional,
and Sha was close at hand to make sure that everything was sterile and the
procedures well-done. My "support team" was working overtime, and the
jokes were flying fast and furious. Andre' documented the entire event on
film, and I remember saying at one point that this was my mother's worse
nightmare (me lying in a third-world emergency room with needles). I was
out of there in about 30 minutes, and after a brief rest back at the house, I
felt great again and we headed back out for the party, albeit much more
carefully. 
Since the accident, I've come to realize that for
a year-long trip around the world to some exotic and slightly dangerous
locations, if we had to have one emergency room visit, this was a pretty
innocuous one to have.
At the party, my wounds generated much sympathy,
and I found that I was able to dance in a modified fashion. At seven
minutes to midnight, Andre' and Wiley threaded their way through the crowd to
the bar to get champagne, and while there heard, "Ten! Nine!
Eight!", and quickly rushed back to Sha and me, where we all rang in the
New Year together. There were lots of locals at the party, and they all
wanted to exchange New Year's greetings with us. On the way home we
stopped at a couple of impromptu parties that were being held by various hotel
employees in their parking lots. They welcomed us with open arms, offered
us some of their food, and made us feel right at home.
New Year's Day was a recovery day for everyone. I was hobbling around, but
doing pretty well, although we were all somewhat tired from the activities of
the previous night, so we gave ourselves the night off. The next day we
rallied, and headed up the road for incredible views of Mt. Batur, a
still-active volcano. On the way back we were pelted with rain, and got
home drenched, as none of us had the foresight to bring rain gear. That
night Ketut, the owner of our hotel (remember, the owner of our LAST hotel was
ALSO named Ketut - this is ridiculous, isn't it?) insisted that he take us to
the night market in the neighboring town of Gianyar for a true Balinese
feast. We sat down in front of a food vendor, and in one of the rare
moments when I have been elated that I have decided to be a vegetarian, I
watched as Sha, Andre', and Wiley were served the largest concentration of
animal fat I have ever seen on a single plate. The dinner included fried
pig skin, fried chicken skin, a sausage made completely from large, white chunks
of fat, and chunks of pork including (you guessed it!) fat! I was served a
lovely bowl of steamed rice and a green bean salad, and wore a haughty air of
superiority for the next 24 hours as we all cringed at the sound of blood
squeezing its way through the arteries of the others.
Andre' has a friend named Jim Barin,
and when he found out about Jimbarin Bay in Bali, he wanted to go and get his
friend a t-shirt or something from the beach that bears his name. It
turned out that Jimbarin had also been recommended by another friend of ours as
a great place to go for fresh seafood, so we had wanted to go there, too.
We went into central Ubud to hire a driver for the day, figuring we had had our
fill of the bus service on the island. After arguing with several guys who
wanted way too much money, we met Made, who agreed to drive us around all day
for a reasonable price. We made a brief stop in Kuta to try to find some
lamps that Sha and Andre' wanted. There, Sha and I met a Balinese guy who
talked our heads off for at least 30 minutes. He told us about how a 17
year old girl was in love with him, and how he was going to marry her, even
though he already has a wife and two children. According to him, it's OK
for a man to have two wives in Bali, as long as the first wife agrees.
This guy told us that he had the power to make women fall in love with him, and
that was part of his problem. He had made this 17 year old girl fall in
love with him, and now he had to marry her.
He then proceeded to tell us that he
was a master of an Indonesian martial art that allowed him to make his enemies
to fall down on the ground, helpless with laughter, when they attempted to
attack him. Actually, I had heard of this before, but when this man
attempted to turn himself into a lion right there in the mini mart, we were
pretty sure it was time for us to say our goodbyes. I suppose on day I
should write a book about all of the interesting characters I have met on this
trip - this guy would definitely make it.
We got to Jimbarin about an hour before sunset. It's a long, sandy beach
lined with little shack-like restaurants, each serving seafood fresh from the
ocean and good, cold beer. For some reason, your meal is cheaper if you
sit out at one of the tables on the beach than inside the restaurant. We chose a little place and sat down to enjoy
the sunset. The rest of the gang went for a swim, but in my crippled
condition I could only watch and make halting small talk with Made. We
followed our waitress inside to look at the fresh seafood. There were huge
lobsters, snapper, grouper, and king-sized prawns. As the sun made a real
show in the west, we devoured a delicious grilled seafood dinner. 
After dinner, as we sat and finished
our beers, we talked with our waitress, who turned out to own the place with her
husband. It was interesting that earlier in the day we had met the guy who
told us about how he was about to marry his second wife, because this woman told
us her side of a similar story. Her husband had a girlfriend, which she
really didn't seem to mind so much, except that he was never around to help with
the restaurant. She then told us that five hours after she gave birth to
the third of their three children, she had to borrow someone's scooter to get
from the hospital back to her home to feed the other two. Her husband had
been with his girlfriend the entire time. She later apologized for telling
me this sad story, saying that "sometimes I talk too much". She
was obviously a strong woman, and one who fiercely loved her children, who were
playing inside the restaurant. Her little boy, who was no more than two,
ran up to me as we were saying our goodbyes. How cute, I thought, he wants
to give me a hug. Wrong! The devil child attempted to kick me in the
leg, right on the bandages that covered my all-too-new wounds. In what I
hope was a translation error, she told me, "I hope if you have a child, it
is just like him.". Thanks, but no thanks...
Jimbarin Bay had no souvenir shops
that we saw, so in a final attempt to get something for Andre's friend, we had
Made take us to the Four Seasons hotel. As Andre' talked to the front desk
clerk, the three of us sidled past him, and into the pool area. The hotel,
which charges $550 per night and up for a room, has an incredible pool that runs
straight up to the edge of the hillside that overlooks the bay. No one
seemed to mind if the group (sans me, of course) had a quick dip, and it was a
fine way to end the day.
Lest you think we ignored the cultural and historical
aspects of the island during Sha and Andre's visit, let me assure you: we spent
at least one or two full afternoons seeing the sights. One day we made the
short ride over to Goa Gaja, known as the Elephant Cave. Legend tells that
the cave was carved in a single day by the fingernail of a giant; probably it
dates to the 11th century and was rediscovered by Dutch archaeologists in
1923. The cave is ornately carved at the mouth to resemble a monster
forcing himself out of somewhere, almost as if he were being born into this
world, and is comical and scary all at the same time. The grounds around the
cave are extensive, and we managed to work our way down to a beautiful river
that rushed on its way past the site. The swimmers in the crowd were, once
again, able to go in for a quick cool off, while I stayed on the side and took
pictures. 
Probably the most impressive monument
we have seen on Bali is Gunung Kawi. After cruising back and forth on the
main road a few times, we finally located the poorly marked entrance to the
temple. We parked our bikes next to some local men who were stroking their
roosters in preparation for the evening's cock fights. Cock fighting is
big sport on Bali, and everywhere you can see old men squatting on their
haunches, petting their birds. I have thought several times that the
thousands of stray, diseased dogs on Bali would welcome one-one hundredth of the
attention shown to the island's fighting cocks.
Gunung Kawi is the oldest of Bali's ancient monuments. A series of
rock-carved steps lead one down, down, down, through the lush green rice
paddies to a temple that contains ten monolithic shrines cut from the massive
rock faces on the hillsides. We were there are dusk, and the only people
in the place. It was eerily still and quiet, and the huge rocks loomed
menacingly above us. The monuments are believed to be memorials to 11th
century Balinese royalty, but little is known about how they actually got
there. Again, legend tells us that a giant carved out the whole place in a
night with his fingernail. Whatever these giants are taking to make their
fingernails so strong, I need some of it. I believe I could sell it in the
nail salons of America and become rich beyond my wildest dreams. 
One of the most enjoyable things we
have done since being in Bali has been taking a class in making batik
paintings. Batik is an ancient art, and it didn't originate on Bali, but
some of the finest Batik works come from this island. The process involves
painting a design on cloth with wax, and then applying dyes to the cloth where
you want color. As you apply the dyes, starting with the lighter colors
and moving to the darker, you add more wax to your design when you want to
preserve the existing colors. In the simple process that we did, we first
outlined our designs in wax, then yellow vegetable dye was applied. On the
areas where we wanted to preserve the yellow color, we applied wax. Then
the cloth was dipped in green dye. Afterwards, again, where we wanted to
preserve the green color, we applied more wax. The process continues
through orange, red, and finally dark blue dyes. Right before the cloth is
put into the blue dye, you scrunch up the whole piece of fabric, to crack the
wax and give the batik a "crinkle" effect. This allows a little
bit of blue color to bleed through onto the lighter color beneath. The
whole process is somewhat confusing, and I had to consult the teacher constantly
for advice on where to add more wax based on what color was going to be used
next. You really have no idea how the whole thing is going to look until
it has been through the entire dying process and the wax is removed with boiling
water. 
Our teacher for the class was Nyoman
Suradnya, an accomplished artist in the
mediums of batik, watercolor, and oil. A large, jolly man, Nyoman teaches
students from around the world, including from the American colleges of the
Naropa Institute and Wyoming State. On the day we started our class,
Nyoman was wearing a shirt that one of his students from Bowling Green State had
given him; we all thought that especially appropriate given the fact that our
good friend, Bob Lutz, is an esteemed alumni of this institution. Nyoman
laughed loud and often, and called our efforts, "cool", and
"groovy", and "awesome". He had a dog named Tokay
(which means "gecko" in Balinese; apparently as a puppy the dog had
been no bigger than a lizard) who was the friendliest dog we had met on the
island. Balinese dogs are notoriously vicious, and aren't shown much
regard by humans, so your presence is typically greeted with howls and growls
when you come upon them. But Tokay couldn't get enough affection, despite
all of our best efforts. 
Our one-day class stretched into two days because a torrential downpour started
and didn't let up. But we didn't mind, because Nyoman was infinitely
interesting company, and his house was a virtual playground of kitty cats, cool
birds, art, and of course, Tokay. We came back on Sunday to finish our
batiks, and it was great fun watching as each person's went through the final
dye processes. Each of us had chosen a completely different subject.
I came up with an underwater sunset-kind of thing, Andre' drew a picture of
hands playing a bass guitar (which is his instrument), Wiley's included a huge
question mark (Wiley says that in our relationship, he's the question mark and
I'm the exclamation point) along with our
"Why the hell not???" theme, and Sha drew an incredible picture
that she said reminded her of her goal to always follow her heart. We were
all pleased with our results. 
No visit to Bali is complete without
seeing one of the many traditional dances which are performed with regularity by
various groups around the island. The dancers are typically ordinary
people who indulge their passion for the dance after working their day jobs.
Most dances are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra, and the
movements made by the dancers are as jerky and rhythmical as the music. 
The dancers are typically acting out
a story, and oftentimes it's from a much-loved ancient
Hindu saga. We saw the Legong dance, which is one of the most famous of
Balinese dances. It tells the story of a beautiful princess who is
kidnapped and married by a king. The princess' brother goes out to fight
the king for the return of his sister, and on the way to the battle the king is
warned by a giant eagle that the battle will result in his death. The
costumes are elaborate and richly decorated, and the story is told not only
through the movements of the dancers, but also through their eye, hand, and facial
gestures, and more head bobbing than one of those little dogs that sits on the
dashboards of taxi cabs. The dancers maintain a wide-eyed expression
throughout, and are constantly cutting their eyes back and forth to indicate something,
I'm not sure what, however. We saw five or six different dances, including
a mask dance, where a male dancer wears a huge and somewhat frightening mask
onto the stage for a solo performance. The Balinese handle the masks with
extreme care, as they believe that when a person dons the mask, they take on its
personality. The mask is carefully stored between performances, and it
only brought out immediately before the dance begins. 
We've been to two of these
performances now, and while it's pretty interesting, there's a lot I just don't
get. I suppose the Balinese understand the average tourist's short
attention span for the dances, because both times I've begun squirming in
earnest, the dances have ended. But, as I mentioned above, there are many
different dances, and we will probably see at least one more before we leave the
island. We are both particularly interested in the Kecak dance, where
there is no musical accompaniment, only a group of men chanting.
Let me just take this opportunity to
rant about something that continues to bewilder me while on this trip (I pay for
this web site, therefore I am afforded certain rights thereof). During the
night we were at the dance with Sha and Andre', a woman in front of us watched
the entire performance on the screen of her digital video camera while she
filmed it. First of all, this bothers me because it seems like buying
tenth row tickets to see the Stones, then watching the whole concert on the huge
video screen. And secondly, I wonder: are these people ever going to watch
this? Are going to say to each other on a regular basis, "Hey, Honey,
why don't you get out that hour-long video of the Balinese dance we went to so
we can show it when the neighbors come over?"?? I remember when we
were in the National Museum in Egypt, in the room where the gold and other
amazing treasure from King Tut's tomb is kept, and I watched this man move from
object to object, carefully videotaping each one for about ten seconds.
PEOPLE, THIS STUFF DOESN'T MOVE!!! It's cool for you to be there, but it's
boring as watching paint dry to anyone else, so put down the camera and ENJOY
IT!!!
OK, now I feel better.
We spent Andre' and Sha's last full day in Bali shopping for furniture.
The Balinese make some beautiful stuff, and there's a ton of stores selling it
at really good prices. The catch? You have to pay to get it home,
but fear not. There are also a ton of shipping companies who will pack
your stuff into a container on a big freighter and get it to you. It's all
relatively pain free, and even after the shipping, you've saved considerable
money. After Andre' and Sha bought an armoire and a coffee table, we
headed for a place just outside of Ubud called Naughty Nury's Warung. We
had read somewhere that they make a "mean martini" there, and it was
no exaggeration. When we walked in we were greeted by Brian, the owner, a
former New York cop, and his wife, Nury, also known as Naughty Nury. We
sat and chatted with Brian as his Balinese staff, no doubt after completing rigorous
training with him, served us very cold and very dry martinis with an elaborate
flourish. Brian told us that he came to Bali for a month-long vacation
about ten years ago, met Nury, who was a guide, and fell in love. Some
friends were visiting from Jakarta once, and convinced them that Nury's cooking
was so good, they should open a restaurant. He told us that for the first
year they were open, they would sometimes go five nights with no
customers. Then the ex-pat crowd caught on, and the place is packed every
night. One of the reasons is that Nury's has a gas grill, a relative
oddity in Bali, and Brian cooks up racks of spare ribs, pork chops, and steaks
that make homesick travelers weep with joy. When I told Brian how I had
injured my leg, he told us about a filmmaker who fell into a hole in Kuta (we
had actually rented a couple of videos this guy had done before leaving home)
and broke his leg. He went to the hospital and found out they only took
cash, so he hobbled back out to get money out of the cash machine, where he
dropped dead of a heart attack. Suddenly, three stitches don't seem so
bad.
The next afternoon we bid farewell to our wonderful friends, and sent them on
the remainder of their adventure. Once again we were alone, and things
seemed pretty quiet at Bali Breeze Bungalows. We spent the next couple of
days searching for a house to rent for the final month of the Long's Strange
Trip, as we had decided to hunker down and enjoy the rest of our time on the
road in one place. I suppose we had high standards: affordable, good view,
phone line, kitchen, pool, and most importantly, comfort. We looked at so many
places I began to remember what I had hated so much about house-hunting, but we
finally found the perfect place in the Sayan Ridge area of Ubud. Sayan
Ridge overlooks the Ayung river and the highest peak on Bali, Sungai Agung, is
visible in the distance, along with several other mountains. The river
gorge is lined with verdant green rice terraces and coconut palms laden with
nuts. We made an incredible deal to rent an entire house for $1000 per
month. The place is amazing - every day, no less than four people come to
clean it, and a woman brings new floral arrangements as well. It's in the
traditional Balinese style, with two floors and the downstairs is completely
open. There's a gorgeous wooden chaise lounge with great pillows for
lounging and sighing as you stare out at the view, which we do a lot.
There's a bedroom upstairs, but so far we prefer to sleep in the downstairs bed,
which is completely open and protected by a mosquito net. It feels like
we're on one of those exotic and expensive African safaris. The houseboys
bring breakfast every morning, and the pool is about ten feet from our front
porch. And best of all, we have the same view as the people at the Four
Seasons, which is right next door, but they're paying $500 more per night for
it! 
As I write this, we've been here one
week, and have settled into a slow and languorous pace of living. We're
both doing work on the Internet, getting prepared for the tasks that await us
when we get home. We read books and sleep late and cook great meals and
eat at great restaurants, but mostly we talk about and anticipate the many
exciting challenges ahead. We have mixed feelings about the trip ending -
it's been an amazing chapter in our lives together, but we feel compelled to
start the next chapter. It's hard to believe it's been nearly a year since
we took off for Mexico, relative babes-in-the-woods of world travel, saying goodbye to so many people we love,
and now it is with great anticipation that we plan our many reunions with them.
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