Lombok Weekend

November 14-17 Lindsay, Melissa and myself went to Lombok (next island to the east) for the weekend. It is alot quiter and less-touristy. It was a nice break! We went to some amazing beaches. Got a tour of a textile factory, saw same amazing waterfalls and went on a hike, also through an aqua-duct. We also went for a boat ride and did some snorkelling.

I was having issues uploading pictures to this blog, so if you want to check them out go here...
Facebook Album

Enjoy!
Lindsey

10 Things I Love About Bali

Today I was reading about a man who moved to Manhattan and became overwhelmed with all the bad things he saw, and the busyness of it all, but he decided to start counting things he liked about the place as he walked along the sidewalk.
I like his thinking! So here are some things that I love about Bali.

1. The people. For every one grumpy Indonesian I run into, I meet about 37 friendly ones who love that I can speak Indonesian and will go completely out of their way to get me whatever I need. Their smiles are always ready, and I love that.
2. The green! Its so green and lush and beautiful here, even though its November its still green- the flowers are still blooming and I have mangoes just outside my yard waiting to be picked.
3. The lady who makes and sells offerings on my street. She laughs every time I walk by for no apparent reason, and that cracks me up.
4. The abundance of cats that are happy to eat the mice and cockroaches and giant grasshoppers around my house.
5. The teenage boys who play soccer in the center's parking lot almost every afternoon. They play barefoot and its so hilarious to watch them, its like they're having the time of their lives.
6. Watching the family who lives behind me play with their little boy.
7. The stunning natural beauty of this place.
8. The food. There's a great international variety here, but oh boy is there some good local food! And the fruit, oh my goodness.
9. The art and architecture.
10. The ceceks (little geckos) that crawl all over the walls and eat bugs. They're such cute and funny little creatures. I like to chase them with flashlights. I caught one once.

11. (for good luck) Theres NO SNOW.

Random Event

The 1st ever Asian Beach Games are here! Check them out at http://www.bali2008.com/ .
I haven't seen anything for them yet, but in true Indonesian fashion there are banners and signs absolutely everywhere and traffic is nuts.

Canadian Thanksgiving, Balinese Heat

Canadian Thanksgiving, Oct. 13, has definitely been a highlight of my time here in Bali. I went early in the afternoon to Barry and Geri's place to help set up, and then we went for a nice, perfect relaxing swim. Yes, swimming on Thanksgiving. Why? Two reasons: #1. Because I can. #2. Because its a zillion degrees with 157% humidity!

The meal was perfect. The turkey was done on the barbeque and was so great, there was purple sweet potatoes, stuffing, pickles (I brought them), pumpkin pie, apple pie... practically every Thanksgiving thing you can think of, even cranberry sauce! I ate sooo much I could hardly move. If it had been in Canada I think I could have eaten alot more, but with adjusting to regular smaller portioned meals here,and the heat I ate less than I would have at home.

The company was great as well. There was myself, Barry and Geri and their son Quinn, and another family with 3 kids from Alberta, and a woman who lived in Calgary with her two sons who are Indonesian-Canadian. It was alot of fun, definitely alot of "ehs".

My New Favourite Thing

Last Saturday, Oct. 4, Lindsay, Melissa, and myself, decided to go to Pedang Bai where there is a beach called "Bloo Lagoon" on the East Coast of Bali. I found a new favorite thing.
Snorkeling.
Seriously, this is amazing. You put on these funny looking masks and have to breathe through a tube, but you just float and you have a front-row seat to the amazing world under the sea. Incredible. I saw fish that looked like they belonged on Finding Nemo, and they were 3 feet away from me! I had no idea that it was that cool under there and could never understand people who loved snorkeling, but now I have seen the light. I was telling the kids about this the next day and they could not believe that this was my second time ever in the ocean and my first time ever snorkeling. (Kids who have grown up in Bali don't really understand "landlocked Alberta")

So we spent the first part of the day hanging out at the beach, watching the fishing boats, snorkeling and eating. Then we walked into town to catch a tourist shuttle bus that was going to take us back to Sanur. We were at the booth on time and got in the van. They drove us to the other side of town, told us to wait "sebentar" (for a minute) and then left. We waited.. and waited... waited. Two hours later, they come back with a bunch of tourists that had just gotten off the ferry from Lombok, and finally we're off. We were so tired, hungry and angry, but at least we were now on our way.

(what do you do when you're stuck on a bus for 2 hours in Bali? You take pictures of offerings and fishing boats.)


About twenty minutes into the trip back, the driver pulls over, looking concerned. He gets out, looks around the van, walks across the street talks to someone, gets on a motorbike and leaves. He eventually came back. It turns out tat a strut or something had broken. So now we are stranded in the middle of nowhere. We find out that we are 30 km away from Sanur and we determined that this was too far to walk (after converting it into miles for Melissa and Lindsay, the Americans). Then (because we are not tourists and we know people in Bali) we all get our phones out and soon we have friends on the way to come rescue us. They show up-bless their souls-and we get home uneventfully.

I liked the first part of the day better.



It has been getting hotter here. Now even just standing outside breaks you into a sweat. Even at the beach it is becoming more sauna-like. The kid's building is brutally hot when you have 20 kids and 4 adults in there on Sunday mornings, this morning even the kids were sweating (usually I'm the only really sweaty one).
(yes, that is cream to make your skin whiter)

Friday night we had a "Girl's Movie Night". I moved two of the mattresses from my house into the building and we watched the movie "Enchanted". It was a pretty fun night, we had a bunch of great snacks, played charades, laughed and talked. I know if you just read the last couple blogs I have posted you would think all I do here in Bali is go to beautiful rice fields and the beach. But my weeks are pretty full with all sorts of things! I do language class three times a week, which I really enjoy and can see my progress in. I also prepare lessons for Sundays. There's Kid's Club on Thursdays, meetings and getting to know people. Some weeks I'm pretty busy!

This isn't new news, but, sometimes I forget things. Usually, they are just little things that are easy to fix (especially if there is a set of keys other than the ones in my locked house). But sometimes they are things that are not easy to fix. Say like, hypothetically forgetting to take your bank card out of the atm... in Indonesia. This, apparently, is not so easy to fix. I'll spare you all the details but I will tell you this: Never Do This.

A Visit to a Village

Friday, Lindsay, a couple that Lindsay works with, and me headed out to a village past Tabanan to visit a friend of theirs. It was about a two hour drive. Their friend, 'Pak', grew up in this village, and has an amazing story:

Pak's older brother had gone to school on Sumatra, another Indonesian island, and hadd become a Chr'stian there. When he came back he shared about his beliefs to his family, and his brothers also became C's. (I guess to understand this story you have to know that cnverting like that is a really big deal, especially in a village. The other families believe that it will displease the gods and that bad things will happen from the village, and other things like that, so its not exactly an accepted change.) This was about the time of the attempted Communist coup in Indonesia, and anyone who was suspected of being a Communist was killed. Apparently about 100,000 people on Bali were killed. Some leaders in Pak's village (Pak was away at school) used this as an opportunity to get rid of Pak's two C brothers, and they were murdered.

Pak went to school in New Zealand after High School, and did some other things, lived in other places in Indonesia, and then got a job with World Vision because he has incredibly innovative ways of pumping water to remote villages and stuff like that.

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Eventually, with full knowledge of who murdered his brothers and what was awaiting him, Pak returned to his village, and was told that if there was an opportunity, he would also be killed. But, Pak stayed and has transformed this village- paved roads, helped give opportunities to the kids, built water pumps and invented easier ways to thresh rice and other things like those that have greatly aided this and surrounding villages. Now, after maybe 10-15 years Pak is a respected member of the community. He travels all over the world (has been to Winnipeg and he couldn't believe how cold it was there) and aids alot of villages in getting access to clean water. Its such a beautiful story of forgiveness and mercy, and I feel privelged for being able to meet him.

We spent the night there, and got the chance to eat some amazing village food, meet some beautiful people (who work harder than I ever will for $4 a day- seriously, women carrying buckets of dirt and also rocks on their heads) and look around at the absolutely stunning landscape. My pictures do not do justice to this place and the things I saw there.



The afternoon we got there, there was a flash flood in the river:




This is the next morning, after the flood was done:

A Day In Ubud

On Saturday the 20th me and Lindsay decided to go to Ubud for a day trip. It was about a 45 minute Taksi ride. When we first got there we went to the Monkey Forest. There are gajillions of monkeys there and they are wild! You can get really close to them, and buy bananas to feed them, even though this is not recommended.

You can soon see why feeding the monkeys is not recommended- they can smell them on you and will climb all over and basically attack you if you don't give the food to them! We almost had as much fun watching the ridiculous tourists as we did watching monkeys!



We rented a motorbike too. Lindsay drove, and I was on the look out for any obstacles. It was alot of fun to be able to get around on our own, and we didn't die! We went to the Ubud Pasar (Market), which is crazy packed and like a maze. Also, we explored around Ubud a little, taking some dirt roads and meeting some local rice farmers. We went to a huge, old, Pura (Temple) as well. Ubud is the art center of Bali, and there is alot of historical preservation there.


One other funny thing we saw was a flock of ducks thinking they were a car and causing a traffic jam! We were on the bike, wondering why traffic was so backed up, but then we saw a bunch of ducks and ducklings waddling along in the middle of the road- not even caring about all the honking or anything. It was a fun trip!


Below are some baby grasshoppers I saw in the middle of a flower,
and a giant one on the leg of my table!



I also got a package from home this week, from my mom (Love you mom!). Inside were magazines, gum, chocolate bars and my one true vice- Lay's Salt and Vinegar chips!!! This is what they looked like after their trek all the way from Canada: