January 15, 2006
Truly decadent
Some more happy pictures from Bali. I was there for the 3rd time (Kaj for the 4th!), but every time we go there the experience is fresh, new and exciting. It feels like coming back to mökki... (did I say that before?) :) Bali is amazing, - it is small enough for you not to spend too much time traveling. In few hours you can reach beaches, hills, mountains, rice padis from wherever you are.. Nature in Bali is extremely beautiful, arts and culture thriving, people friendly, food delicious... In a way its sad, how huge parts of the island are developed into a circus for tourists and how everybody works for the tourist industry one way or another. On the other hand, there's still relatively untouched parts (especially in the highlands and north) and many of the developments are of somewhat humane scale..
This time staying in Ubud was exceptionally cool, because Natalia and Borzin with Kian (their baby) are renting a house in the rice padis for a few months. We spent few days over the New Year with them and it was really great fun.
Kian seemed to be enjoying being in Bali, but I never realized that there are so many complicated things about babies and tropics. The baby has to be sheltered from sun, moskitos, bugs, spiders, his hands have to be washed with bottled water, etc. There's really nothing a 6 month baby can do on the beach and its something I really never thought about... On the bright side is that everybody is completely crazy about babies, so they are very likely to be snatched and carried and entertained by restaurant staff or whoever is around.
Of course, another great thing about our stay in Ubud was the HOUSE that we rented just next door from Natalia and Borzin.
This was probably the most decadent holiday that we ever had.
We had a whole 2 floor house with beautiful furniture and amazing decoration, a huge garden with several coi ponds, a "meditation parlor" and of course - a pool!!!
A pool that I could swim diagonally in 5 strokes, lenghtwise in 3 and widthwise in 2 strokes. Great fun!
Some other fun things that we did in Ubud - Kaj is washing our laundry and in the small picture on the right there's Natalia's and Borzin's house (also 2 floors and made in very contemporary "zen" style! :)
Of course, everything has a price. Our house had a resident cat Tilly that was the most annoying creature. We both really like cats, but Kaj is alergic. So we tried to keep the cat out of the house. Somehow this cat was so sneaky and persistent that it always ended up under our bed or sleeping on the matrace or smth like that. And, of course, it needed food. I realized that a whole tuna can could appease the cat for about half a day. But as it got used to the luxury of food lying around, it became even more demanding.. At the end we were somewhat happy to leave that particular house and the cat behind.. :)
Our New Year celebration was exceptional this year - it was raining so hard that we had to order food from Made's warung (the next door place where we usually had our breakfast, lunch and dinner most of the days). The greatest delicacy was potatoe chips, the guests left around 9pm and we with Kaj dozed off around 10pm...
Next day's brunch at Indus restaurant made up for the "rustic" dinner on the New Year's Eve.
Natalia and Borzin have been to Bali many times and they know some interesting places and some people who live around. One of the places that we went with them was Tanah Merah - a resort owned by a Danish dentist.
Who also became an arts collector. He has an amazing gallery of works collected in the region and all the rooms in his resort are decorated using authentic arts pieces. These days he's also a "social dentist" - he travels to different places in Indonesia and fixes people's teeth for free.
We walked down the hills to the river.
And bathed in the natural streem that comes from the hills.
Living in Bali for several months must be completely different from what you experience if you come for a week or two. There's no rush, no list of things to accomplish, just relax...
Maybe that's something we could do before going to whenever and wherever we're going to after Singapore :) Just an idea.. :) We've been checking out some beautiful new houses around Ubud. This one in the picture above would cost around 300usd for a month. Food is cheap, living expenses almost non existent. You can actually save money by living in a place like that for a month or two!!! :)
We'll keep you updated!
Posted by gkligyte at January 15, 2006 12:30 PM