Good morning! It is the third full day in Bali at 7 am, and I assume my position in front of the ocean with my morning coffee for some peaceful me time. Yesterday was another amazing day with the family that I will never forget. In the morning, we took a boat out 20 mins to the shore of a nearby island to go swimming and hang out. Swam in the ocean all day long!
One of the little girls is up and wants to hang out! I'll have to continue later.
4 days later, back in Singapore...
I haven't had much time to blog since all of my time has been sequestered by the kids! And I wouldn't have it any other way! So I'll make this a quick one bulletting a few interesting things I have observed in Bali thus far:
Rural Balinese women can be quite educated, up to 12th grade. One set of masseuse we met in Bali was a younger group and were hilarious! The young generation spend their spare time at the beach hanging out with their friends.
Bali has 2 active volcanoes on the island. The last eruption was in 1963 (I think) and killed thousands and thousands of people. Because of the volcanic activities on the island, you can find black sandy beaches! They were really quite a sight to see! The black stones get harvested and can be made into concrete. Around Bali, you will find temples or big mansions with black exteriors, black walls, or black statues. The black stone and concrete are very very expensive and strong, and can only be affordable to the very rich.
When going around you will sometimes find a tall, flexible, decorative straw structure swinging and hanging in front of a home. This is a happy announcement, like a wedding in the family. Every family and business will typically also have a small alter in front of the home or the store with a statue of one of the gods. This is to help bless the home or the business with health, happiness, prosperity, etc.
My family tried to catch crabs off the terrace of the vacation home because there were so many of them!! We spent all afternoon taking turns hanging over the railings with a koi pond net, a pool cleaning net, and a string with a prawn tied to the end. All we caught were a single medium size crab and a tiny baby crab. That wasn't gonna feed even the fish in the koi pond! So we let them go. It was really fun to chase the crabs along the wall of the railing though!
The staff at the villa told me that when there are no guests, they fish off of that terrace! They catch these big black jacket fish that are smooth with no scales. The fish has a very thick black skin, hence the name black jacket. Supposed to be really yummy! Sometimes when they can't catch the fish off the railing, they get one of their friends on the boat to go out a bit further and catch the fish with a spear!!!! So cool! You have to fish for black jacket fish only around 7 in the morning, they're not around much longer after that.
My stories on Bali would not be complete if I didn't tell you about our adventurous day at the shore I started to 4 days ago. So we took a motorboat out to another part of the island where there was supposed to be a beautiful white sandy beach. We had so much fun playing in the ocean! I was in the water all day with the kids and one of my cousins. The water is PERFECT in southeast Asia! But i think the water is better in Bali than in Vung Tau, Vietnam, when I was there 2 years ago. The temperature of Bali water is a bit cooler and muuuuuch more clear! Theres nothing like the feeling of swimming in the ocean and floating with the waves...I have always loved it since I was young. Anyway, around 4 pm we started to head back to the villa. The water was starting to get quite choppy. Once we got closer to the villa, the boat was basically swaying harshly from side to side. The little girls (except my 5 year old niece who was totally passed out in my arms!) were screaming because they were scared the boat was gonna flip! So the boatmen tried to land the boat in the small sandy beach where they originally picked us up, but because it was high tide, the landing strip was no longer there! They circled around and tried to land us in 3 other places but the water was too choppy and the tide was too high for them to get to shore. Then we heard: "there's only one way out: we have to swim to shore!!!" imagine the reaction of a group of 5 little kids!! Screaming and crying followed that announcement! One of the boatmen, and the husbands jumped into the water, "kids first!! Kids first!" like it's the sinking of the Titanic!! The water came up to their shoulders and the kids reluctantly jumped into the water and onto their dads' shoulders and were taken to shore. I jumped into the water in my long summer dress because I thought this was the coolest funnest way to end our day at the beach! They were all yelling if I was okay, but I had already swam halfway to shore! My cousin had avoided getting wet all day at the beach but all that effort was useless because she now had to jump into the ocean to exit the boat!! Lol!! The 10 of us were drenched in water when we had to walk through a rural village for 10 mins to get back to our villa, like a bunch of escaping refugees! Lets just say that that was the most adventurous end to a nice day at the beach most of us have ever experienced!
Ok I should go, my cousin is having a big luncheon at the house with her Tai-tai friends In about an hr so I should probably get out of bed. Is tai-tai a derogatory word? Why do ppl laugh whenever I repeat it? Tai-tais are rich Singaporean housewives.
So much for a quick blog! Until next time.
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