Outings

On the weekends we try to visit attractions around Bali, or as Dewa calls them, 'tourist objects'.

Tanah Lot

The Saturday before last we headed west to the Pan Pacific five-star resort located on the ocean near Tanah Lot temple.  Friends from Green School were escaping their small house in the rice fields for a weekend of pampering at the hotel, and we were invited to hang out with them for the day.

The setting was gorgeous as the hotel overlooked the ocean, with the waves crashing into the rocks below and sending sprays high into the air.  The kids loved the multi-level system of pools with water slides going from one level to the next.

Tanah Lot temple is on a rock outcropping just next to the hotel that can only be reached at low tide.  In the late afternoon, with the tide out, we crossed the tidal pools for a closer look.  The temple is supposedly at a spot where the priest who brought Hinduism to Bali once stopped for meditation and rest.

                                                            Alexa getting nowhere fast

Elephant Safari

We went to an elephant park north of Ubud for my birthday.  The Aussie owner rescued several malnourished elephants from Sumatra and gave them a home in Bali.  The elephants are much smaller than their African cousins, which is a good thing when you a perched precariously on top of one.

Charlotte in particular had fun feeding the elephants, including the baby elephants.  The elephants also put on a show, playing basketball, soccer, and painting, after a fashion.

Puppet Museum and Nyuh Kunning

Lynn had heard about a new Mask and Puppetry Museum not far from Ubud, so on Sunday we went for a visit.  The collection was assembled by a Javanese businessman who felt strongly that these cultural artifacts should be preserved.  He then constructed a museum spread across several small buildings to showcase his collection for the public.

It was a very impressive collection with masks and puppets from many different cultures and periods.  The museum hadn't officially opened yet so we were the only visitors and received a private tour from the guide.  The guide said that it wasn't possible to house the museum in Java because of the cultural insensitivity of the religious fanatics there.

I particularly enjoyed an exhibit of finely carved and expressive puppets-

the museum owner meets Obama, as puppets at least

After returning from the museum we joined a couple other Green School families for an impromptu picnic in Nyuh Kuning, as small village adjacent to Ubud.  Unlike most other places where expats live in villas built on converted rice paddies outside of a village, in Nyuh Kuning (which means 'yellow coconut') the Green School families live in existing housing among the local Balinese which makes them more a part of the community and there is more opportunity for the kids to play together.

There were several Balinese boys playing with the Green School kids at tug-of-war, frisbee toss, wrestling and a limbo line.

Rice Paddies outside of Ubud

One afternoon I went exploring on the motor bike.  Turning off a busy main road from Ubud onto a twisty, potholed road led to some farming villages.  Many farmers worked in the fields that stretched off into the distance, but there was a quiet unbroken by the sounds of any machinery.