Day 6-7 (Thu/Fri) - Barong and Bird Park

note: sorry if the blog gets out of order. Every now and then I log in and the site shows a posting from a few days ago. I guess it is free software from Google, so I can't complain too much. Just a little frustrating sometimes! Plus, we have pretty sporadic internet connection at the house. The owner has a little modem that plugs to the computer, and connects to an antenna up on the second floor.

Thursday

(Jim) We decided somewhat spur of the moment that we needed to get out of the house today, so we decided to go to the Bali Bird and Reptile Park. Made told us that the village near there performed the Barong and Kris dance every morning at 9:30; so we had a good chance to do both. Ketut was available to drive and picked us all up at 8:30. It’s nice to have someone trustworthy able to drive us around sometimes. Some of the drivers are motivated to take you only to certain places where they get a commission.

When we first arrived, we were the only people at the play and thought we might get a private showing. An Italian couple came in and were fighting, or at least speaking very passionately about something and not sitting next to each other. I took Charlie to the bathroom and the Italian couple left while we were gone. When we came back, Charlie looked around at the empty seating area and said, “Hey, where did everyone go?” as if there had been a ton of people there and they all just left. Funny kid. Later I heard another couple coming in, seemingly from one of the beach resorts. I overheard the wife saying “we come all the way to Ubud and someone forgets the camera!” I’m glad we aren’t the craziest tourists invading this island.

The dance was really fun, and not too long for the kids. The women dress in beautiful costumes, performing this intricate dance with their eyes, fingers, and body posture. The men wore big, scary masks to represent the good and bad creatures in the story. Charlie was a little scared at times and grabbed my arm tightly. He knew the Rangda monster was only a guy in a suit, be he must have been swept up in the drama even without speaking any Balinese. I’m glad the kids got to see a dance performance in the morning. We saw lots of them at night before, and I’m not sure if the kids would make it up that late. We’ll have to stay up one of these days to catch the famous Kecak and firewalker dance. They will love that.

We drove on to the Bird Park, which felt a bit touristy, but was amazing even at the outset. There were fanciful parrots right at the entrance, then some huge crested peacock looking birds walked by. They reminded us of “Kevin”, the big bird from the movie Up. We even saw a couple Thanksgiving style turkeys run loose. After enough fried rice and noodles, I’m surprised the kids didn’t run after it! Many of the rare birds were in aviaries and were pretty fascinating to see. Tina did have some bird anxiety walking through the same confined area with so many birds. It was feeding time for the owls, which was a bit freaky. Cute baby mice. Yuck. We ended up eating lunch there – the restaurant was nice and catered to little Western kid tastes. They even had a small play area. The highlight at lunch was probably when a bright blue peacock wandered through the restaurant right by our table.

It was getting late, so we left the bird park to find Ketut again. He was standing there waiting by the door, and said “don’t worry about the time, you have to see the reptiles!” That ended up being super fun. Everyone but Tina held the iguanas. Even Sophie proudly put out her hands to pose with the big green thing. I was a little freaked out by the guy handling the lizards – he had three inch fingernails on one hand.

We got back to the house around 2 or 3 and had a long swim. The boys are having so much fun jumping and diving under water with their goggles. Reminds me of how much time I spent underwater during the summer as a kid. Hopefully Charlie won’t get swimmer’s ear like last summer. Every two minutes he says “Dad, watch!” and does some new under water pose. We chose a close restaurant for dinner – Murni’s. It’s just across the old Dutch wooden bridge. We had a great dinner and this fantastic black rice pudding for dessert. It is unique to Bali, I think. Wish we could figure out how to make it back home.

Friday

(Tina) Ketut made French toast this morning and it brought Sophie to tears. She just loves the pancakes so much and said she wants them every day – not French toast. Ketut felt sorry for her and wanted to make pancakes for her, but we said no. What big meanies we are! To make a long drama short, she LOVED the French toast and said I should get the recipe so I can make it like that at home. Ha! It was very hard not to say “I told you so”.

Eliot and I went to get a big beaded pot that he’s had his eye on since day one. We stopped to look at some other fun things along the way and bought books on Indonesian Folktales and Bali Stories. Eliot is excited for me to read one to his class when we get back. We wound our way through the big market and eventually found the pot he wanted for a good price as well as t-shirts for him and Charlie and an adorable batik dress with grasshoppers on it for Sophie. A successful trip albeit hot, so we took a taxi home.

Jim took the kids swimming while I went to get my first massage and it was only $8.50 with a very generous tip. Nice! It too was outside like everything else around here, but a beautiful but noisy bird kept me distracted from the heat. It’s hard to believe how strong this petite Balinese woman was. The song ‘Hurt So Good’ comes to mind. Oh and she makes house calls. Yes, I see a very relaxed back in my future. My biggest surprise so far is that the Balinese know how to make a terrific margarita! Yum! I should have known since they use fresh lime juice in tons of recipes. No yucky sweet and sour mix here! At $8.50 a pop, I nearly balked at it (that’s the same as my 1 hour massage!), but Jim convinced me to try it. Needless to say, I guzzled it down and ordered another. That’s a luxury I’m willing to spring for at almost-American prices.