Balinesian Bowman's

I kinda like the sound of that! We went to Bali over the Japanese Golden Week Holiday. We ended up taking the kids out of school for almost a week but it was worth it! We had a great time. Must admit, up until a few months ago, Ididn'teven know where Bali was. It is part of Indonesia. Must also admit that up until a few days ago, I didn't understand completely why they were using mirrors to look under our car/taxi every time we came into or out of the resort nor did I know that Indonesia apparently is has a large following of Taliban. Apparently there have been several bombing of Westerners in Bali in the past. Hmmm....maybe it is better that I didn't know these things until AFTER we got home.

We stayed at a great resort....too pricey for the food and other things but at least they let us all stay in just one room! That is hard to find in Asia. The room had the master bedroom upstairs and the kid's room downstairs. It was perfect for us! The resort itself was dated but the grounds were absolutely gorgeous! On our arrival day, we immediately changed and headed to the pool for a refreshing and relaxing swim.

Day 2, we headed to a water park near Kuta Beach which was called Waterbom.....and the kids would say it was 'da bomb! Looking back, we probably could have just done a two day pass there, they loved it so much. After 7 hours straight of water slides, pools, etc. (except for me....forgot that pregnant ladies can't go on water rides!), the kids STILL weren't ready to leave! We bribed them with dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp....can it get any better?

Day 3: We headed out for shopping and the Bali Safari and Marine Park. This was my favorite day because of this:

And this....

And ESPECIALLY this:

Yes, we are actually HOLDING a baby orangutan. I was ALMOST willing to trade my real baby for that one but then I remembered how aggressive and violent orangutans get when they are teenagers and decided I would take a human teenager over an orangutan teenager any day!

Day 4: Mother's Day. We have found that vacationing on Sundays in a tropical climate is not always easy and is very often downright difficult. Our original trip we had scheduled to avoid being gone on a Sunday but since we had to reschedule our trip and didn't really get to be choosy with the dates. It also doesn't help that every single time we have been somewhere 1) there is no church nearby 2) it is the sunniest most beautiful day on vacation. We try to keep it low key and try to avoid anything too crazy. We took a quiet family walk on thebeach (kids found a sea urchin, dead snake, jellyfish, and red coral), ate lunch on the patio, and spent time in the room playing lots of games after a FHE. The kids even sang me a song which brought me to blubbering tears! That evening I got to choose where we went to dinner. I had heard about this place on the beach owned by a beach bum from California who married a Balinese girl. It was supposed to have good food and great atmosphere and cheap. A MUST go to place. We got dressed up and hadthe hotel taxi take us there. We were enjoying our trip until we turned down a dirt road where literally we were in theghettos of Bali. The houses were made of tin and had fires lit in them tocook. People were out in the open changing their clothes and we were practically off roading in the taxi. We got to the restaurant to find that it was a building on a dirt floor with kids half dressed sitting in the middle of the dirt floor. Needless to say, we got back in the taxi and ended up at a very nice ItalianRestaurant for dinner. Funny experience....however, the family didn't let me choose any more that week! :0)

Day 5 and 6: We spent most of the day beachin' it and stayed poolside. Actually a whole lot more poolside than beachin' it because of all the topless sunbathers. There are many Europeans in Bali and they are much more comfortable without tops on than our little American Gaijin family. In fact, the whole situation pretty much freaked Isaac out. After seeing the 2nd or 3rd woman walk past, he blurts out, "This is just completely inappropriate!" We had to explain to him the cultural differences as well as how our religious perspective is a bit different, too. Nevertheless, even with that being said, it was PLAINLY obvious that some of the women were looking for nothing more than attention. There was one that went up and laid directly in front of the path to get to the beach chairs (there was only one opening in the fence) and not more than a yard or two behind where are two had already been laying in thesurf for a while. Oh well! That is why we spent more time at the pool on this vacation!

The evening of Day 5, we headed to a temple and 'fire dance' which I believe is called the Kekak dance. It is a temple on the side of a steep cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. There are wild monkeys running around that are quite mischievous, too. We were told not to stare directly at them, to hold on to all our things...tightly, and to stay away from the mothers and their babies.

The actual fire dance takes place at sunset overlooking the ocean. It is a Balinesian cultural dance/performance. There is a 70 men chorus which each man makes a different noise or sound effect with his mouth for the entire one hour presentation. The actors and actresses act out a story while the men make their noises. It was something that I have never experienced before!

We really enjoyed our trip to Bali and loved just spending this time together. After the kids got off the plane (2 1/2 hours to Singapore and then 6 1/2 hours to Japan) which was an overnight flight, they all three said, "We do not want to get on another plane for 6 months." I looked at them and said, "You have 28 days until we head to Indiana!" :0)