Beautiful Bali

Friday, June 22, 2007--Ubud, Bali

Before setting out for the day, our local hostess serves Fahmy and me a local breakfast at an outdoor table on our porch each morning. Today, she served us satay (meat on skewers with peanut sauce), rice cakes, spicy strips made of peanuts and chile peppers, fried patties of corn and egg, and a plate of fresh fruit. We each had tea with the meal.

Fahmy and I had a long day of walking. We were following a suggested trail but got busy talking (as we seem to be constantly doing) and took a wrong turn that took us at least 8-10 km out of the way. By the time we returned to town, we figured we had walked 15-20 km (9-12 miles). That wouldn't be so bad except that too much of it was along narrow roads with lots of traffic and with little if any space to walk off the roadway. But we saw some beautiful countryside with rice terraces and normal rice fields, beautiful homes, old temples, etc. It is the "real" Bali that is seen in the photographs of magazines such as National Geographic. And the people are so nice. A man who was off work for the day visited with us for quite a while. We stopped at a local shop and bought me a sarong (required for entering temples) at a price 1/3 of what they wanted for the same brand in town. We stopped at local stalls and bought snacks of local food.

One of the nice things about traveling with Fahmy is that he speaks Indonesian. He talks in the local language and learns about places to see and things to eat that I would never know about, since only basic English is spoken by the same people. The landlords of our guesthouse fell in love with him. That was partially due to his speaking the local language, but the fact that he is handsome and charming helped, too. He has a positive, happy attitude toward life and is always smiling both with his face and with his eyes.

We were tired and hot and returned to the guesthouse in mid-afternoon. We cleaned up and rested. We decided NOT to go to another performance in the evening, since the one we had seen the night before was so good. Instead, we went back into town and went to a restaurant while everyone else was attending performances. We had a nice leisurely meal sitting on a mat at a low table. I had a nice spicy chicken and noodle soup followed by a plate of rice with eggplant curry. Unfortunately, the curry needed a little more flavor. I drank a banana juice with the meal--thick and creamy. We were back home before 22:00 and were exhausted again from the busy day.

Ubud is such a nice town. It has far more atmosphere than the beach area where I was staying. There are many more buildings of architectural interest and many more garden areas that can be seen while walking down the streets. The temples are lavish and so attractive. I'm enjoying being here.

Saturday, June 22, 2007--Ubud

Well, I said good-bye to Fahmy today. He wanted to attend some festival events in Denpasar today. And he flies out of the airport tomorrow to return to Bintang Island where he lives and works. It was sad to say good-bye. I get used to being alone when I travel. But when I meet someone like Fahmy where a friendship develops and we travel together, then I have to go through the withdrawal pangs again before I am adjusted to being alone. He and I seemed to really click. We talked and talked and talked. He is an interesting person. And he likes to travel, too. He is planning a great adventure in 6 years that sounds like fun. He has a 4 year-old car. In Singapore, a person cannot keep a car after 10 years; it's a law to help handle polultion problems. So he plans to try to leave Singapore in his 4-wheel-drive vehicle and see if he can drive as far as Jerusalem. He said he will go as far as he can get, but he hopes to make it for there, since it is the seat of 3 major religions. I hope he makes the trip and that he keeps a blog. Wouldn't it be fascinating to follow him on such an adventure? I would like to try something like that, I think.

Our breakfast this morning was another good one. We had rice with two vegetable dishes that were both spicy. With that were more peanut strips and pieces of tofu. We had another big fruit plate to go with all of that. It was so filling that both of us agreed we probably would skip lunch today.

On the way to catch Fahmy's bus we stopped at a travel agency and I bought a ticket for my next destination. I will fly from here to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi on Monday evening. A new adventure will begin then. In the meantime, I will spend today and tomorrow relaxing some and taking walks out into the countryside. I'll make a special effort to visit with locals to offset the loneliness Fahmy's departure has caused.

Note: The computer connections in Bali are SLOW. Therefore, I don't have the time to do searches and provide links related to the things I discuss. Remember that you can go to Google and search for pictures or information about Ubud, Bali, Makassar, Sulawesi or other terms I mention if you are interested.