Our Favorite Things

One of my favorite things about Bali is that you get to make your own rules. In Canada, there are always signs telling us what we can and cannot do; don't touch, don't climb, no entry... You can't even climb on the fake mountains in the prehistoric park at the zoo. In Bali, if you decide to go to the Water Gardens and you see a random staircase leading down to an unknown area and you go down because there is no sign saying not to and you see a bunch of crazy masks and you try them on because they aren't locked up so why not, you end up with something like this: --->






Also, you could set out one day to find the ever-evasive Elephant Caves and then spend about two minutes in the actual cave because you first got distracted by this awesome little fallen Buddha oasis. You have to climb down into it and hop over a little river to get there. In Bali, both men and women must wear a Sarong if they want to visit the temples (women who are menstruating are expressly forbidden entry :0) Ryan is actually quite taken with his sarong and wears it often :) What ended up being even more awesome on the misleadingly titled `Elephant Cave Day` was our stumbling upon a tiny little dirt path leading to... well, we didn`t know where. But because it`s Bali and we do what we want we decided to go on an adventure. We passed some caves which we kind of explored until we disturbed a bunch of bats in one of them. Little did we know we would wind up going on a jungle trek in our flip- flops (mine were totally treacherous and liked to fall apart every few minutes) and wind up in this river which USED to have a bridge leading to some underwater caves. Turns out the bridge had collapsed only a few days before (according to the lady selling drinks in the middle of the jungle who also miraculously and very kindly fixed one of my shoes for me). You think that stopped us?THINK AGAIN!!






Yes that's right.






We river trekked like true adventuring champions. I'm talking holding my bag over my head to protect it from the water trekking. Ryan is heading towards some of the caves in this picture, and I am soaking wet up to my chest in the other one. It was an awesome accidental adventure. We saw some gorgeous views and I only got slightly eaten alive by the mosquito population on our walk back through the jungle.

Walking through rivers is not the only way to get a good view of the jungle though. Our host Denton and his girlfriend Emily recently moved in to this beautiful house on the edge of a ravine. They invited us over for drinks and the sunset which we witnessed from their top balcony. Best seats in the house. Can you imagine THAT being the view from your balcony?



Today was our last day of school. Ryan and I are both really sad about it. The kids are just so interesting. We got completely schooled by a 6 year old today about dinosaurs. This little boy was brilliant, using terms that we had never even heard of. With the help of the gym teacher, Pak Widi, we managed to get most of the kids gathered together at snack so we could take a picture. They are all most definitely as hilarious as they look.

Final exclamation of the day is holy KITTENS! Cats are essential in a Bali house because they scare away rodents and reptiles. Our previous little hunter cat moved when the couple in the room next to us left because this cat was best friends with their four adopted dogs and no one wanted to separate them. But it's okay because look how adorable her replacements are :)

The Swing of it

We're nearing the end of our third week of adventuring, and Ry and I are starting to get into the swing of things. This was our first week volunteering at the International Pilangi school here in Bali. Ryan has led a sporting revolution, ousting the previous reigning tyrant (the dreaded dodge ball; an all day / every day activity) and replacing it with the more awesome games we all know and love. I am, much to my original dismay and embarrassment, RE-learning 6th grade mathematics and grammar. I ask you, who here remembers how to use long division for dividing decimals?? But we're both enjoying the experience and learning a little something ourselves :)

Invaluable to us is Ryan's total badass bravery on the scooter. This is me attempting to upload a videos... so here's hoping it works out. But this is tip of the iceberg, even just from a passenger perspective, the driving here is crazy with every man, woman, child and baby (often all on the same bike together) for themselves.

Having said that, it is an awesome, way too much fun way to get around. And theres something to be said for being able to keep moving forward so long as somewhere on the street is a tiny gap big enough to fit your bike through. I barely even fear for my life anymore... :)

One activity which has pretty much become a Bali weekly special is a trip to the beach. The first beach we went to was the uber busy party time beach called Kudo Beach. The second could not have been more different, with a little trek through the wilderness before coming out on this beautiful, isolated white sand beach. King of the beach was very clearly this tiny little puppy who I snapped a picture of in his ONLY moment of semi stillness all day.

The other thus far weekly staple is a trip to the spa. We honestly can't help ourselves. With an 80 minute massage costing us the equivalent of 10 Canadian dollars... we would be fools to say no. Ever. I have rarely felt so very pampered in my entire life; I have even made a spa convert out of Ryan :)

The last thing I'll talk about this time was our viewing of a "Traditional Indonesian Fire Dance". 100 topless Balinese men provided an on-going musical narration with their voices; a rhythm that was stuck in our heads for days after. They were joined by a small cast of dancers and together they told a story I recognized about Rahma and Rhavannah. If you've seen A Little Princess then you know what I'm talking about. The woman in this picture was our leading lady, and you can see a small chunk of the many singing men who surrounded the dancers behind her.

Arguably even more entertaining, though somewhat less relevant as far as we could tell, was the man who came out after the dance was done. He was wearing a horse outfit made of straw and he.. well.. he just walked through the fire. That's all he did! He just walked back and forth through the fire in his bare feet several times. Weird... but totally impressive.

More to come! Thanks for reading.