But in Bali, the hotels are huge and beautiful and indulgence is the tourist life in Bali. There are very nice malls with anything you can image. Very nice dinning venues. There are lots of nice cars and a good number of luxury cars. The locals rub shoulders with the rich and famous then go ack home were they live on $100 usd a month. My driver today pays $30 a month rent for sell and wife and 2 kids. He thinks he has a good job for Bali and has done it for 5 years. His Mother and other family members live in another shack behind his. Sounds like Brock to me but not sacks. They are truly living on top of each other as far as sizr of house goes. There seem to be no building codes and many homes are made of native bamboo. They build them for temporary housing but stay for long periods of time cause there are no options. Like in Nepal, there are no addresses. Some of the major streets are named AO you give crossroads as addresses. My hotel was off Sakwa. So you go till you find Sakwa then you find the sign for the hotel then you walk doe the walkway till you see the sign again. As you are walking down this walkway, you pass about 20 private compounds. There will e a temple for the group of homes, then each individual residence in the compound, maybe 8-12 all built separately and with a little dirt yards maybe 3-5 feet wide around the house. But each house has a little private temple where you always see the little baskets offerings to the gods. Usually the people in this compound are related. I learned today that hen someone dies, they are always cremated...when they can afford it. When is important here cause they are put in the ground until the family can save enough money or sell enough property to have them dug up and have a cremation ceremony. So many of the families have had to sell property to bury properly the family members.that is why my young friend is renting. Daddy died and they sold the family land to cremate him. Ceremony is ASAP so sometime same day, sometime years later when they can afford it. This nice young man does not write Balinese well cause he had to quit school at age 10 to help his Mother earn money. He said he is Stupid. I guess labels are toss around carelessly here. He was not stupid and I told him so. He, like most Balinese have never left the Island. He considers himself fortunate because one day his boss took him to Lombok. E saw how a different island looks and lives and saw a difference. Now he would love to travel and see other places. The island he went to is about an hour by boat. So he has not traveled far but far enough to want more. HE has an opportunity to go to Canada to work with a friend, but is afraid to fly and would have to leave his family behind. To me, thoses very limited choices would be like being in jail.again, we don't realize how blessed we are. He has a great deal, but sees enough on his Island to realize he is missing a lot. The Aussies have come over and built a lot and continue to do so. Things like amusement rides and parks. If they only saw the value in what they have and the fact that anyone can have an amusement park.. As I looked at the rural countryside yesterday, the though occurred to me that in 2years of Americanization, we could destroy that beautiful place and make a modern resort out of it. What a shame progress is.
Back to yesterday. Wonderful day. My ar picked me up at 8:30 and off we went to find 2 other girls for our adventure. We drove into the rural area and because of the addressing issues I mentioned it was difficult to find them but beautiful to see the. Countryside. After 2 hours, a dozen phone alls, stopping to ask 5 different villagers, we found them. It was a nice ACd van so I felt like I was getting a free tour. We got to the gathering site and got our helmets, and paddles and waterproof bags and life jackets. Then drove always to the trekking point. You could not see or ear the river cause it was so far below and such think forests. We walked a very long time very steep. I had noticed before that all their stees are really stall. They must have very long legs, cause it is difficult to climb and they are not evenly spaced. Now it s also very HOT and very Humid. There are about 20 of us from 10 -66. Carrying all the aforementioned stuff.for some reason, I am leading the way, can't get lost, no options. The guide started us off and I was ext but then he went back to help someone so I'm lead dog. I am wet head to toe and water just pouring off of me. There are 2 little boys behind me and I keep encouraging the, to go around me but no takers. There really was no where to stop cause it is about a 3 ft wide path with no rails of course. I knew I needed to stop my hands were so wet I could not hold my stuff and my glasses so drippy that I could not see, and at the next curve, and their were p,entry, I was going to find a way to stop, about then my right foot caught a rock just right and slid to the left, dropping me flat on my bottom, as it scratched my leg against the rocks on the path. I was so made. If I had stopped when I needed to it could have been avoided. I just sat there and let everyone go around then pulled up my dignity and tried again. They told me we were almost there, and I could hear the water rushing, but could not drink it or cool off in it. You could not see it yet,but very soon I was seeing it. I slowed down and made it to the bottom and immediately knew it was worth it, but could not keep from wondering how the heck we were going to ake it out of there. I was not alone in my struggle.. Everyone was exhausted and struggling. And being the lead dog, I don't know if anyone else fell or not. Several of the men and guides were bragging on me for doing so good, one said e would have thought I was as strong as a man. That gave me a perfect opp to announce that women can do anything they want to do and are as strong as they need to e and sometimes can o better than men. Didn't hear a lot of cheering but the lad from Maylasia agreed. Anyway the 2 hour river rafting was incredible. So deep within nature, the waterfalls amazing. It was very nice and cool and often quite and serene. Whitewater was beginner level and perfect for me. When we finished, we left our life jackets and took everything else to the top. A guide took all mine, for me. OK being and Old lady has its perks. If you've walked much with me you know I do better going up than I do coming down, so had I not been previously injured, I would have been fine. But I took it slw and easy with lots of breaks, I made it. Another gent from Maylasia was there with asthma so we kept up with each other. I do t think I would have gone if I would have known how hard it would have been..I'm glad I did not know cause I would have missed an adventure of a lifetime. And beauty that could not have been seen any other way. Thank you Lord for keeping that secrete from me, and for helping me make it in and out
Had lunch but I couldn't eat it. I've just been so blessed with no food problems that eating out like that kinda scared me, so I ate some rice and drank some packaged water. When I got back to Ubud I had the driver let me out a bit from the hotel so I could walk around and find some food. I knew if I went home I'd crash and be starving at midnight. Well I was really tired and after lunch tried to be creative in finding my way home. Unfortunately chose the wrong shortcut and turned my walk into a 2 hour effort to get home. With creeks, rivers and forest, lots of streets did not go all the way through, so I knew where I was, but could not get there from here. Got home, showed red,and went to bed
Pic of the day. We are following this guy on his motor bike carrying about 6 trays of raw edges down Main Street
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