A guest post from my hubby, David. His letter to a friend was so good that I thought I'd post it here for posterity....
"Vacationing in the third world is very fun but stretches our adventurous spirit. Ellen and I didn't want to spend $350 a night to stay in a pricey place, so she found a cheaper recommendation that looked good on Air B&B. It was a group of bungalows that had been converted into a sort of hotel. We got two rooms for about $75 a night. Plane flights were at crazy hours, so we arrived in the Bali airport around 11:30 p.m. where (thankfully) a smiling Indonesian man was waiting to take us to our hotel. He spoke decent English but was hard to understand because of his strong accent. Because it was a drive, we arrived at 1:30 a.m. or so.
When I woke up in the morning, I heard the happy sounds of roosters mixed with other birds and perhaps other creatures. It is definitely a wild sounding mix. The roosters, of course, were cock fighting roosters, some of which were being raised by the owners of our Air B&B. We saw them in baskets later After breakfast, we walked to the Monkey Forest. Admission is $14 for all of us. The monkeys are crazy. If you stand near them, they climb on you. In the course of 15 minutes, a monkey gets angry at Ben and is growling at him (I think because Ben pushed him), another one has opened our backpack and stolen a pack of paper towels, and a third has bitten Evan because Evan make the mistake of reaching his hand out to the monkey who had climbed on his head. Thankfully, we all had rabies shots, so we just had to get Evan two boosters when we get home. It still amazes me that after all that, Ellen was still willing to return to the monkey forest. We left our backpack behind this time at the desk, and we instructed the kids not to encourage the monkeys to climb on them anymore. Everyone had had a monkey on their head except Ellen, and she was ok with missing that privilege. The park was beautiful, and we saw baby monkeys carried by their mothers and a lot of other cool things. It was also fun to see the monkeys harassing other people, I admit. One lady make the mistake of wearing a long dress, and the monkeys thought it would be a great way to play hide and seek, so they took turns grabbing and pulling her dress and then jumping underneath it. Everyone was amused but her.
That night, we decide to go to dinner at an Indian place recommended by our Indian neighbors in Manila. So we ask our "hotel" if they can get us a taxi. But the uncle who does transport isn't available, so they offered to take us on motorcycles. I am literally on the phone with my parents updating them on the trip, when Ellen asks me if it is ok if we take the kids to dinner by motorcycle. Sure! So, Evan and I were on one motorcycle, Ellen and Ben on another, and Seth on a third, all being driven by family members of our Air B&B. When we arrived at the restaurant, they told us no charge for the transport. =) (No helmets either). After a wonderful meal, we then went to a fire dancing ceremony, which was pretty cool. The boy's favorite part was where the dancer kicked the fire with his bare feet. The dancers were elaborately dressed, some to look like kings and princesses.
The next day, we took a 30 kilometer bike ride (downhill) through the Bali countryside. On the drive to our starting point, we stopped at a place where they grew coffee. We all tried a variety of different coffees (free samples) and even had some of the Luwak coffee (not free- $3.50 for a cup that we shared) which is the kind made from coffee beans that are eaten by a wild cat, soaked in its stomach acids, and then pooped out. After they are washed, pealed, and roasted, you get coffee. Yum. The bike ride required little peddling because it was mostly downhill, but you had to use the hand brakes a lot. My hand brakes didn't work very well, so my left arm got quite tired squeezing the hand brake for dear life. Evan and Ben each rode on the back of a bicycle of Ellen and mine.
The countryside was quite pretty. We saw a lot of women carrying baskets on their heads, rice fields, and other cool things. On a hill up, we had to all get off our bicycle and push the bikes up the hill. It was hot work. One of the locals saw Seth struggling and took his motorcycle, grabbed Seth's bicycle and drove it up the hill. He then drove back, picked up Seth, and drove him up the hill. Seth went without question. When Seth arrived at the top on a motorcycle with a big smile, Ben said, "No fair!" Ellen (far from being worried about Seth) was hoping the guy would come back and offer her a ride. He didn't, so Ellen had to struggle up the hill herself.
At the very end of the ride, there was another big hill, and Ellen decided we should just be picked up there. So we waited at a small local store (think of a very tiny convenience store except outdoors) that was closed with two dogs guarding it. Our guide took the others in our tour group (two ladies from London) on and said he'd send the car. After a few minutes, the owner of the store (or perhaps son, uncle, etc.) showed up, and we asked him if we could sit down. We then bought five wafer crackers for $0.65, but I had no idea how much it cost because at that point, I was tired and having trouble calculating the currency, so I thought we'd actually paid $6.50. 15,000 rupiahs to the dollar is a little hard to calculate, especially when you are tired. Ellen and I spent millions (literally) on the trip. The store owner then gave us all several bananas for free.
All three days, we spent time at our hotel pool, which was shaded and had two statues of ladies with pitchers pouring water. It was small but had a shallow end that all the kids could stand in and a deep end that was over six feet deep. On one side of the pool, there was a steep drop off into the woods. We told the boys not to stand on that edge. That night, we found a good pizza place. Because it is Indonesia, our meals (even good international food) all cost $20-30.
The next day, we went to the elephant adventure park and rode and fed elephants. For $50, you could buy a shirt painted by an elephant (I'll never understand modern art, but the elephant art looked just as good as a lot of other modern art). They had a modern artist in a video saying that the elephants were surprisingly talented (which I think calls into question the field in general). The kids loved the elephant art gallery, which included works made of elephants, not just works made by them. We also saw a chocolate factory and bought the kids ice cream. After another trip to the pool, we had dinner, shopping, and then our ride to the airport to catch an 11:20 p.m. flight (arriving at 3:30 a.m. in Manila). Ben fell asleep on the airport floor and all three boys slept on the plane. Ben said it was the shortest flight ever and thought it had lasted 30 seconds or less. Our driver met us at the airport and drove us home. We were back by 4:30 a.m. Seth and I didn't go to work/school on Monday."
