Leaving Balian

Well, you can all rest easy, we are not about to be arrested and thrown into a Balinese prison. I called the passport office today and hurrah, the passports are in and ready for collection tomorrow... and as if that wasn't enough, we are on our way to Sanur tomorrow to meet up with Jess and Al. Sam as you can imagine is the most excited child in the world. Will is also very excited, but can't stop thinking about what he is going to do when we get back home, build houses, build vans etc etc... The other good news of the day is that we weren't savaged by mozzies last night. Our bed has a temporary kind of mozzie net (with a few holes) but the spare net we brought came in handy as we rigged it above the bed.

The balinese cottage we are in now is gorgeous. It's constructed from bamboo and beautiful Balinese wood with a kind of thatched roof and it overlooks the pool. It also has a little open aired hut to the side, kind of a platform and you can sit cross legged on cushions and play a traditional instrument which looks a bit like a glockenspiel and is called a gamelan. Sam sits there cross legged and plays amazing tunes (well kind of amazing and kind of cross legged). Sadly we had our last yoga lesson with the lovely Maureen today. It has been really nice learning a different style of yoga (she teaches Hatha yoga which is less intense that the yoga we do in Bristol) and has been brilliant for keeping us chilled and opening up our hips!!

So all in all, we will be very sad to leave Balian but are equally looking forward to our new adventures in Sanur and catching up with Jess and Al.

Pic attached of the gorgeous Sammy.

Subconscious working overtime...

I don’t know if it’s because we are on the home straight but I seem to be visited by moments of ridiculous anxiety at the moment. Let me give you an example. When we drove to Balian, Sam kind of hiccupped in the car, ‘was that a hiccup?’ I asked. ‘No, It was just a strange sort of noise,’ he replied. Of course I spent the rest of the journey convinced that he had developed tourets due to the trauma of being taken around the world... obviously he doesn’t heave tourets and hasn’t madeany more strange hiccupping sounds.

Last night I woke up at about 3am and started worrying about the passports (which are still with the agency who are renewing our visa). Our visa was due for renewal yesterday and last nights thoughts went something like this: ‘I bet they’ve lost our visas and passports...that means we are now over our visa period and we have no passports. What if we don’t get our passports back and they have lost them and then they will charge us £100 per day per person for overstaying. Perhaps then we will get put in Balinese prison...then all our friends and family back home will have to go to the media to get us released...no, don’t be silly... but what if they do? I’ll call the British embassy and meet them. They will have a nice cool, air conditioned building and I will drink tea with the official and explain our situation...but he will be corrupt and make us go to prison unless we pay a massive amount of money to them. Then we will miss our flights home and have to pay for new flights but we won’t have any money... and maybe they will give us a temporary passport but they won’t let us use it in Hong Kong and aaaaaarghhhhhh.....

As you can imagine it was a restless nights sleep and with the light of day came Will’s logic which seemed much more reasonable. That we had taken them to a reputable agency and he was sure it would be fine. And, if it wasn’t then we would deal with it at the time. Rather than worrying about it now. So there you are, although I am cool calm, chilled and collected in Bali, there seems to be something bubbling under the surface in my subconscience. Perhaps it was watching Bowling For Colmbine before bed, which was a brilliant and disturbing documentary. Sam was riveted and was surprised by a) the coverage of the plane flying into the twin towers which he hadn’t seen before and b) Just how stupid George W actually is. It was good to watch with Sam as he had some perspective on the documentary having met an American in Guatamala who sleeps with his gun under his pillow and having seen the devestation that the US has inflicted on Central and South America first hand.

Tonight is our last night in the Beach House and we move to another villa by the river for the next two nights. This is also two bedrooms but is built in a more traditional style and the bathroom is partially open air...hmmm open air by the river, I think it could be a mozzie fest...still there are nets over the beds so we should be ok. Only three days now until Jess and Al arrive.

Peaceful

It's difficult to describe how gorgeous Balian is. We have been here for nearly a week now and the days are just flying by. The hotel is run by a lady called Tati (although hotel is the wrong word to describe this place as it's more a series of cottages) she is a gorgeous, welcoming, silver haired Javanese lady who is obviously adored by all the people who work for her. In fact we love it so much here that we are not checking out tomorrow but have booked to stay for an extra week. Perhaps if I describe the walk to the internet cafe it will help you to experience the place.

Leaving the house you walk out onto a windy road which is probably about 2k and winds up to the main road. Along the way you pass banana trees growing on the side of the road with kites attached to them to scare of the birds. Behind the banana trees are terraces of rice fields just like you see in the films and men and women work in the fields wearing the pyramidal straw woven hats. As you walk up the road there are small Balinese houses each with a little offering of flowers and incence burning outside. The Hindu offering to the gods. And the people here are so gentle and each one greets you with a Hello and a wide cheery smile. It highlights even more the contrast between the busy streets of Legian and the peaceful village life enjoyed here. It feels incredibly safe and welcoming and you get the feeling that if you stopped to chat people would invite you in for a drink in their homes. Every so often a motorbike passes driven by an 80 year old and his family or a 14 year old and his brothers and sisters. They don't go fast so even that feels quite safe. And of course all of this is punctuated by tall palm trees and the occassional fat looking cow standing in the field.

Our days are steady. We have breakfast of pancakes and fresh fruit and then Sam does his school work. After this we walk the 2 minutes to the sea and Sam has a surf - the swell is pretty big here and he is doing really well. Then me and Will go to yoga for an hour and a half and Sam watched a DVD in the house. After this we are usually starving and go to 'Toms Garden Cafe' for Balinese food (my favourite is the fish curry). It's a great place to end the trip and I would recommend everyone to come here.

The picture attached is of a monkey sat on the temple wall that we went to in Uluwatu at sunset. Only 7 days til Jess and Al get here....

Beeeeeauiful Balian

We have now found our Balinese spiritual home. Balian is a small village with a long road leading down to the beach. It's the Bali we imagined. As yet unspoilt by Aussie tourists with plaited hair and bintang singlets. Along the road are a couple of places for surfers and surfing families to stay and these places are pretty rustic. We are in a house called The Beach House and it's beautiful. There is a loungw area with a nice little kitchen, a double bedroom with a really comfy bed with extra cushions and fresh flowers...and a single room for Sam with a very Balinese looking bed. It's like a four poster with a mosquito net around it. Then there is a gorgeous bathroom, with a stone walled shower and decorated Balinese doors. The place is a series of small, unique villas, they are run by a couple and the staff are all super friendly and want you to feel like family... it's gorgeous. There is also a flat screen telly and a DVD player, so whilst me and Will go for an hours yoga session with Maureen, Sam watches a DVD in the house. The walk to yoga is also lovely as we walk through the fields and past a few cows to get there.

Balian is like El Zonte (our favourite place in El Salvador) this is because it's so quiet and beautiful. It's like Bali used to be before the tourists came and I'm surprised more don't come here (but very glad they don't.) The beach itself has mellow waves which roll in all day. The beach is black sand and surrounded by cliffs. There are fishermen on the beach and kids playing football barefoot...we tried to get Sam to join in but he is in that embarrassed teenage stage at the moment and won't go over to play.

So we could stay here quite happily until it's time to leave Bali...give us this over the 5 star hotels any day...still we will make the exception for Jess and Al when they get here... although I know they would have loved it here...Sam is till counting the days...only 10 to go.