Day 27 (Thursday) Herons
(Jim) Eliot and I walked over to town in search of a last couple souvenirs and a big cardboard box to pack everything up. We had our eyes on this one wall hanging at Murni’s restaurant. It is Dewi Sri, the rice goddess who is unique to Bali. It is a pretty cool sculpture, made of antique offering coins (metal discs with square holes punched in the middle). After the shopping, we made our way to an internet place to connect for a few minutes, then we began the long saga to find a box. I thought Eliot was going to have a heat stroke walking down the main street – the sun beats down hard here. But we finally found the elusive box (I hope it is big enough!) and we caught a cab home. It was getting on lunch time, so we asked the cab driver to wait at the top of the hill while we rounded up the rest of the family to go to lunch.
Tina had taken Charlie and Sophie to get their last Bali massages this morning. They really enjoyed the massages, but Charlie started complaining about ear pain on the walk home. He said that he felt like he needed to “burst out crying”, so she brought him home and he laid down for a nap. Eliot and I ended up just taking Sophie with us over to Lotus Café, and we brought take-out meals home for Tina and Charlie. On the way home, we stopped at the clinic and picked up some ear drops for Charlie. There is a clinic pretty close to our house, and they are very accessible to pick up medicine. I just need to have them translate the dosages from Indonesian for us!
Charlie felt a little better after lunch, and perked up when he saw a large praying mantis. At first he moved him around on a leaf, but then Papak showed him how to pick up the praying mantis behind the head. He is much braver about bugs than I am. Charlie was happy with his new bug friend until a few minutes later when he came running up crying saying that the praying mantic bit his finger! He really wanted revenge on the praying mantis and I tried to explain that it was just an accident. It all worked out about a minute later in a very “circle of life” way when we saw the baby chicken run through the yard with that same praying mantis in his mouth!
We decided that we should probably do one more sightseeing trip this afternoon, so I walked down the hill to find Ketut. We worked out a plan for 4pm, then Ketut asked me if I needed a ride anywhere right now. I was going to walk up to the market to get a little more coffee, and Ketut told me to hop on to his motorcycle for a quick ride up there. It sounded better than a hot walk up the hill, so I threw caution to the wind, held on for dear life, and we zipped up to the market. The scariest part was actually riding the motorcycle back down the steep path to our house – felt a little like horseback riding down a hill!
Ketut picked us up at 4, and drove us over to the Ayung River Gorge. There are huge rice terraces in this area, so many five star resorts like the Four Seasons build hotels with amazing views here. We drove past the hotels and found a walking path down some stairs to see the gorge. The river runs through the bottom of the gorge, and we saw some white water rafters. We had considered doing that earlier on in the trip, but opted against it. Maybe when the kids are a little older, and we’re a little closer to home! From the gorge we headed over to the village of Petulu. Since 1965, thousands of herons all started nesting on this one street. The local villagers attribute this to a large ceremony that they had, and they consider the herons a sign from god. Maybe there is something to it. Amazingly the birds fill the trees in the village, but on the way out town you notice that the first tree on the other side of the temple has no herons. We were all in awe of seeing so many herons at once, and we covered our heads when walking under those trees!
The drive back had Charlie feeling bad again, so we just went home and rested up before dinner. When he felt better, we walked down the hill to one of the closest restaurants – Murni’s. He actually wasn’t feeling 100%, so I carried him down the hill. Man, it’s hot carrying a sick five year old down a hill in this weather! At the restaurant, the waitress totally fawned over him – one made him a little bed on two chairs, and another fed him his scrambled eggs dinner bite by bite. Charlie commented how nice people are to you when you are sick. I decided that we should probably see a doctor tomorrow morning before we get on the plane. I hate the thought of a sore ear going bad before a 26 hour plane journey!
Day 28 (Friday) Homeward Bound!
(Tina) Wow, it’s a HOT one today! I’m trying to resist hiding out in the air conditioned bedroom so I can take in all this heat and hopefully will appreciate the relief from it more when we get home. The itchy heat rash on my arms is driving me a little crazy though.
We’re packing up preparing for our late night departure tonight. I hope we can fit everything into our luggage and extra box! Later, we’ll all shower and get in our travel clothes and try not to get too sweaty before getting to the airport. The doctor gave Charlie the OK to travel, but I sure hope his ear ache doesn’t bother him too much on the plane (for our sake and everyone else’s on the plane!).
This is the last post before we get home. Cold weather here we come! We’ll have to write about “The Journey Home” when we are able to keep our eyes opened again. Let’s hope the flights home go as well as the ones here!
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