Thursday, August 5th

DONNA We arrived in Bali late Wednesday night, so on Thursday we relaxed in the morning. This is, without a doubt, the most beautiful place I have ever been. The people are so warm and peaceful. Always smiling, helpful, happy to have you. It smells like orchids everywhere. The landscape is spectacular. Rice paddies (there is one behind our villa), rolling hills. Pinch me, I can't really be here. It is just spectacular, more than I even expected. We had a great breakfast the first morning (there are always choices on the menu... American or Indonesian style breakfasts) and then relaxed by the pool for a while. We took the shuttle into Ubud in the afternoon. I am surprised none of the kids mentioned the contrast between Singapore and the town of Ubud. Ubud is a small town near the center of Bali that is known as an art community. This is clearly a 3rd world town. The town center itself is busy, with motorbikes zipping by and people crowding the streets dressed in native garb or carrying things on their head. The sidewalks are unsure, and you can't tell where to walk.....and the kids just took it in like any other place. We walked into the center art square, where hundreds of vendors sold beautiful things from carts. Carved wood bowls, clothing, silver....this was Balinese "junk" but at home these are treasures! It was overwhelming on the first day but I got the hang of bargaining with a purse for Allison. It happens very quickly. The hawker always has a calculator in his hand to type it when he says a price. For the purse...he said "special price for you...125,000 rupies (12.50)." I laughed and said no thanks...he runs after you with the calculator. Clears out the screen. Types in 75,000. Ok, very special price, last offer. No, sorry, too much. You give me price he says. You give me price. Luckily I read ahead of time and have been told you never ever give a price unless you are willing to buy the item for a price in between your price and his lowest price. So I said 20,000. He said you come in between and we settled at 40,000. Quite a process. There were 3 beautiful wooden large bowls, nestled together....a hawker saw us looking so he started offering it to us for prices starting at $15 and coming down to $3....and I hadn't even said a word. This is something that would easily sell for $100 at home. You almost feel bad about it. I was too overwhelmed on that first day to buy anything else though. We will go back, we wanted to get the hang of it. There was a ceremony going on in the town for a local politician who recently died, and it was even busier than usual (we were told). We had dinner at a small warung (shop) where we all had 3 course meals. I had chicken curry, soup, spring rolls....Winslow had a similar meal....we had a few drinks, the girls got (finally!) pizza....it was terrific. All for under $25 US. A wonderful day. Tomorrow we meet Putu, who will be taking us around for the rest of the trip. It will be better to have someone with us who knows the lay of the land....but it was fun to try it out on our own first.

UbudAlliePurse Originally uploaded by DonnaM123.