Day 16-18 (Sun-Tue) - Birthday and Beach

Day 16 (Sunday)

(Tina) Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday Dear Daddy! Happy Birthday to you! Jim turned 44 today but unfortunately is still feeling sick and fevered. Sophie is feeling unhealthy too and even passed on pancakes this morning because her tummy hurt. We’re staying home today eating bread, bananas and plain rice so we’ll all be healthy for the beach tomorrow. The kids made birthday cards for Jim, Eliot drawing a pictorial of our trip so far, day by day. Charlie and Sophie wrote: “Happy Birthday Daddy. Get Well Soon” That’s a sad birthday when your wishes include feeling better. Hey at least he’s in Bali being sick and not at home with the flu and freezing, right?!

Here’s a new revelation about the bats: Jim heard the bamboo wind chimes going at about 4am this morning and when he looked in there when he got up, he saw not one, not two, but THREE tiny bat faces sleeping inside the biggest bamboo chime! The kids keep peeking in there and clanging the chimes in the process, but somehow those little rodents keep sleeping (thank goodness!). I hope to not witness them waking to hunt mosquitoes this evening.

On a nicer note, there are so many beautiful butterflies here of all colors and sizes. We saw one today that was as big as the bats.

Charlie’s comments on Bali: It’s Daddy’s birthday today and we’re going to the beach and we’re staying in a hotel. We’re swimming every day. I can dive for the penny. I could glide underwater also. And I caught a mini gecko. I rode an elephant and I got to feed them also. People like to take pictures of me.

Day 17 (Monday)

(Jim) Today is beach day – we are heading down to the Westin in Nusa Dua. Ketut came by at 10 to pick us up and brought a birthday gift for me from his wife. I was touched that he remembered and that his wife picked up this nice carved wooden figure. It sounds like there are plenty of people that Ketut supports at his family house, so I imagine he is grateful whenever we need a ride somewhere.

The approach to the resort at Nusa Dua was a little more Disney than Bali. The area around Ubud has beautiful landscaping, too. The difference was the wide streets and nobody out walking, and then the high security to enter both the whole area and the Westin.  Once we pulled up to the hotel, we had a very warm reception. Someone greeted us all with a “welcome elixir” (I think it was fruit juice) and walked us over to a couch area to check in. The kids had a small play area in the lobby and they each received a goodie bag with a hat, water bottle, coloring pages, and crayons. Our rooms weren’t ready yet, so they offered use a free upgrade to a family suite! That was a total score. We got two connected rooms – one with a king sized bed, and the other with three twin beds. The kids ran in to their room to see huge teddy bears on each of their beds, and then we heard the yell… “TV!” OK, they were going to be able to watch some cartoons for the first time in a couple weeks. Everything was really nicely done, and it was great to have such a huge air conditioned space.

After lunch, we checked out the swimming pools. It was pretty amazing. We swam around in a salt water pool, then a larger fresh water pool with a swim up bar. The water slide was a little bit too fast for comfort, though later we saw other tourists who managed to scoot down more slowly. One of the pools flowed right up to a beautiful lily pond where Tina liked hanging on the edge watching the dragon flies and other wildlife including a pretty big monitor lizard. We missed the ocean swimming today since we had forgotten about low tide. The inlet here goes down to less than a foot at low tide and about 8 feet at high tide. We thought that the resort would have mostly Asian guests, but actually most of them seem to be Russian. Most have big bellies and swim suits that are too small (women and men included). One man walked around in his little speedo with his big belly sticking out and a skipper hat on. It was hard not to laugh.

We didn’t do too much after dinner. Charlie pleaded with us to figure out the PlayStation while they were getting ready for bed, so I hooked that up. The only little kid-appropriate game they had was soccer, so we played a couple games of that. I’m not really looking forward to when we get one of the game stations at home – there are so many buttons! I guess I’m more of a Pacman type of game person.

Day 18 (Tuesday)

(Jim) Today was all sun and swimming! We swam in all of the pools and then hit the beach. There was a sign at the entrance cautioning about sea urchins and jelly fish at low tide, so it took the kids a little while to get up the nerve to go in the water. But once we played in the surf a bit and then floated on the waves, they were hooked. We couldn’t get them out! We ended up getting a little sunburned despite a couple applications of sunscreen. Sophie ended up getting really tan on her legs rather than burned – don’t know where she gets that. Now she has a cute little tan line on her buns! When we finally left the beach, they each brought about 10 pounds of sand in their swim trunks.

The hotel area by the beach had an ice cream stand, bikes, and ping pong tables – so we spent some time down there after swimming. We ended up having a really late lunch, so crashed in the rooms for while to save up energy for a later dinner. I didn’t want them falling asleep on their plates like when we first got to Bali! We went walking around the hotel area and beach at sunset. They were setting up one area with lavish decorations, food, and massages for a business conference, and another area was being set up for a Kecak dance / dinner buffet. In another area there was a lounge singer belting out the Carpenters song “Close to You.” I embarrassed Sophie a little by picking her up and dancing. She just wanted to stay in one spot, transfixed by a couple kids feeding squirrels. Scary if you ask me! I made the mistake of feeding squirrels back home and then they harassed us every time we went outside.

We walked on down the beach path toward the pier, and had a great view of the volcano across the bay. We saw a Japanese family squatting down looking at something, and to Charlie’s joy, they had a little crab. That sparked the next adventure and we caught the little guy and steered clear of the much bigger crabs on the rocks.

We had dinner at the Japanese restaurant – it looked good, quiet and air conditioned. Unfortunately I was still keeping close to my plain rice diet, so I didn’t get to have the better stuff. When we sat down, they brought us each a small bowl with two pieces of eel in it. Charlie chowed it down and wanted more! I defied my tummy and had a bite – very tasty despite my apprehension. Eliot was feeling pretty tired, and maybe exhausted from the sun. He kept telling me how cold he was. I was worried maybe he was fevered or something, but it was just the long day. It doesn’t bring out the best in everyone. One of Tina’s sushi rolls had fish eggs on it, and Charlie commented as he was nibbling on them “looks like the eggs in the beginning of Nemo, before the big fish ate them all.”

After dinner we walked outside and listened to a little bit of the Kecak dance. The one was performed by younger group, maybe 10-14 years old. They were all set up around the pool, performing on the island in the middle of the pools. We are planning to see the Kecak one more time back in Ubud so Eliot can stay awake for the whole show. It was a short story time before everyone was fast asleep in their “heavenly beds”.