Ubud, Bali -- Catherine's post...

Hey Folks, here is Catherine's post with accompanying flickr pix. They are under the "Bali" set.

http://flickr.com/photos/65515862@N00/sets/72157605324315837/

Also, here is Sierra's latest blog entry...

www.circlepacific-sierra.blogspot.com

best,

Hersh

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Ubud was an interesting mix of great and less than great (but all worthwhile to have) experiences.

Great—rice field paddy walks along meandering broken cement and mud trails, past villas and local shacks made from simple fronds, wood and thatch. Less than great—the busy buzzing roads, often with no sidewalks or cracked sidewalks.

Great-- because we found a healthy restaurant named Bali Buddha that, while it took an hour-and-a-half to get our order, gratefully served some home comfort food like walnut spelt pancakes. Less than great-- a highly regarded restaurant set in a lush garden that took 2 hours to deliver food and put bacon in our salads (after fervently underlining our vegetarian moral imperative) not once, but upon rounds of clear understood feedback, another two times! The topper was the free dessert peace offering that contained a live beetle. Savannah swore off restaurant food after that.

Great –sounds of beautiful songbirds in the morning (after the ever popular 430-6 am rooster)…

Great—watching Batik painting. Not so great, seeing a police officer kick a beggar on the street inches away from us (whom we later did give money to). In Bali you can walk past a high-end coffee shop and within a block there are people with very few possessions, cooking on the street using a small pot over coals. It is dusty and cars and bikes are whipping past them every few seconds. Only the higher class can afford to shop in grocery stores. Everyone else goes to the market or makes do with what they can grow.

Great— shrines everywhere. Offerings are placed daily in front of every home and business. There are the offerings on the ground for their animistic spirits and on the shrines above for the Hindu gods. Incense burns and fragrant flower petals are everywhere, in offerings and on the streets.

Great—the girls and I take in the Ubud spa experience. I had a Balinese massage and intoxicating scrub and Sierra, a honey scrub, followed by flower baths and ginger tea and fruit. All this while listening to new age music, the sound of trickling water, and birds in the adjacent rice paddy. All this while smelling incense and the scrub of sandlewood and tumeric. Sierra and Savannah went back for manicures and pedicures. A spa treatment like the one I had costs 12 dollars and lasts one and a half hours.

Great—a trip to the Bedugal area for a rainforest walk, canoe paddle and waterfall experience. It was enlightening to see coffee growing and participate in their basic and simple processing techniques. The bumpy road to the rainforest goes over the top of the mountain with not a lot between you and the valley 1800 meters below. We saw papaya, cocoa, avocado, banana, tumeric, cloves, and every tropical plant you ever see at in our home stores, growing in the wild. Not so great, the drive back over the mountain in the thick fog with 2 feet of visibility, dark (because it is near the equator Bali gets dark by 630 pm) and zipping by motorcycles and drivers in our lane at times. We were ever so grateful that we had a careful and competent driver, Yudi, with us. This was the trip that confirmed that Sierra gets motion sick…

Great, the warm smiles, lovely, gracious, happy and kind people. There is no “not great” that could ever cancel this experience out. It will stay with me forever.