Bali hai - DKT Page 16

Our one-night stay in Melbourne has reminded us how much we love Australia . . . birds galore and Tyler is happy. We rose early for our flight to Denpasar, routed through Sydney. Our concerns about flying on Garuda proved wholly unfounded. The plane was an almost new Airbus A3000, the crew was great and service was as elegant as we've ever had on a flight.

Huge thunderstorms as our plane approached Denpasar and we landed just in the nick of time. Getting out of the cool plane felt like stepping into a hot greenhouse, and moments later the heavens opened up with a deluge and electrical storm like we've never experienced. It rained so hard that traffic at the airport came to a stop and we didn't even bother getting into our bemo for a half-hour.

Eventually the rain let up a bit and our driver (Pottu) loaded us into his van and we drove north along the main 'highway'. This road is just wide enough for oncoming traffic to pass and has very narrow shoulders with billions of motorbikes going wherever they like, and old ladies with huge bundles balanced on their heads, schoolkids, chickens and dogs, and everybody honking and passing whenever the tiniest gap presents. Dan decides to forego driving in Bali.

Finally we come to the village of Sangingnan, where we checked into Vila Bukit. The view from our bungalow veranda is right out of a painting, overlooking the Ayung River gorge with terraced rice fields carved into the steep hillsides . . .

It's hot here . . . damn hot. Ty and Dan hiked to Ubud, taking a circuitous route up and over hills and through the paddies. Two hours later they finally met up with K. in downtown Ubud, both of them tired and overheated.

Walked and shopped Ubud. The village market happens every third day. We are so excited with the heady mixture of new sights and sounds and smells. Ty and Dan loved the buckets of live eels . . . they're harvested when the rice paddies are newly turned over. It took us awhile to get comfortable with the aggressive sales tactics of every vendor we passed. It felt rude to us to act so, but eventually we learned that avoiding eye contact and simply ignoring them was the surest tactic.

While we were enjoying a delicious lunch at the 'Beggars Bush' (the rupiah is getting cheaper every day and great food is ridiculously cheap), Kaaren struck up a conversation with a charming couple from Canada; Sheila and Richard Maclaren. They had recently arrived in Ubud after three weeks in Nagano, Japan. Richard works for the IOC as a sports arbitrator (arbiter?). They told us about their accommodations at the Kokokan. Our rooms at Vila Bukit are charming but we want more space, so we checked out the Kokokan and decided that we'd move the next day.

We went into town for Dinner at Murni's . . . a beautiful restaurant with many levels that tumble down a cliff to the river. Unfortunately, very mediocre food.

Breakfasted and Dan took Ty into Ubud and dropped him off at the Beggar's Bush where Ty was scheduled to meet up with some other birders for a three-hour bird-watching expedition.

D. and K. packed up and moved gear from Vila Bukit to new digs at Kokokan. It is a beautiful room built directly over a rushing stream and overlooking paddies climbing up the hillside on the opposite shore. There is a wide, expansive veranda with table and chairs, and a beautifully carved wooden bed draped with mosquito netting where Ty sleeps.

In the coconut trees in front of the veranda live these 'leaping-lizards'. They chase each other round-and-round, high up in a tree, croaking and flapping their yellow throat pouches at each other. Suddenly one leaps off the tree, extending the webbing between its fore- and hindlegs, and glides 40 feet though the air to another tree. The other one chases and they do it all over again. We loved to watch them.

This statue lived at the bottom of our steps . . . great attitude!

D. and K. explored Ubud while waiting for Ty to return from his expedition. We met up with his group at a cafe and joined them for lunch. They had a successful trip, identifying 27 Balinese birds in three hours.

An Australian couple is getting married at our hotel today in a traditional Balinese wedding ceremony. This pretty young thing is part of the dance troupe making preparations in rooms adjacent to ours.

Every morning this old man walks through the grounds of the hotel, placing offerings near doorways, under arches, along paths etc. Each offering is a miniature artwork, consisting of a tiny woven basket containing a flower, piece of bamboo, few grains of rice, etc. Their purpose is to appease the small, mischievous spirits; those who cause the little troubles and generally screw up your day.

After breakfast we went for a walk through the Monkey Forest. It's a small, wooded reserve at the edge of Ubud, in the center of which is a Hindu temple mostly inhabited by Gray Macaque monkeys. Ty followed an overgrown pathway along a small stream and found these beautifully carved dragons.

The monkeys hold an exalted position in the Hindu hierarchy of living creatures and are terribly pampered. They are frighteningly aggressive and start screeching and climbing all over you if you're too slow to produce the expected offering of banana or peanuts. This monkey ate our last banana and when we didn't offer another, quick as a wink it jumped on Ty and bit his upper arm hard enough to leave a large bruise that lasted for weeks.

A thunderstorm drenched us while walking back to Kokokan. We've never seen such rains. It comes so hard and fast it's like standing under a waterfall; within seconds it soaks through to the skin. At least it's warm.

On our return to Kokokan we met Ningah. He'd been the Mclaren's driver for the past week and upon their departure they thoughtfully willed him to us. This dear man guided, and taught us, and watched over us for the next two weeks.

This morning we visited silversmiths in the town of Celuk. Everything is too gaudy for our tastes, and too expensive by miles. We bought nothing and traveled a few k's further on to see the Bird and Reptile Park at Bunyang. They have a marvelous collection of all things feathered and scaly, and the apiaries and herpetaria are arranged so that you can get up close and personal with the animals.

Kaaren likes iguanas.

Next Ningah drove us up into the mountains, and down into the crater of still active Mt. Batur for lunch at the Gunawan Hotel, overlooking the caldera lake.

After lunch we walked to Pura Ulun Danu Temple, the second most important temple on Bali. It was moved up from the crater after the town of Batur was destroyed in a 1908 eruption. Everyone is required to wear a sari and sash before entering a temple.

We did not get to choose the colors.

Every time we approach one of these tourist attractions immediately we're besieged by hordes of hawkers and hucksters doing anything to get you to make an offer for their trinkets. It's annoying and tiresome.

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