The Three Stooges Visit Tanah Lot Temple

Today the Long Island Girls decided to venture out alone with our driver Eddie to visit the beautiful Tanah Lot Temple which stands on a rocky island just off the southwest coast of Bali. One of Bali's most sacred sea temples, Tanah Lot is dedicated to the guardian spirits of the sea. The word Tanah is interpreted as a reef looking like gili or isle. Lot or Lod  means the sea. So Tanah Lot translates as the small island floating on the sea. The temple itself is said to be guarded from evil by the sea snakes that inhabit the caves below.

Once again the drive through traffic was as exciting as an amusement park ride, especially from the front seat.  We arrived at the temple and were in awe of the sheer beauty of the structure which rises from the sea, waves crashing around the rocks, thankful for the sea breeze and the smell of the salt air. There was a ceremony of some kind about to begin as Eddie tried to explain to us. Poor Eddie, he doesn't speak very much English, and we speak no Indonesian, and the little I have attempted I have really butchered something fierce. He tried to explain to us that we should come back later as the ceremony was about to begin. (just let me take a moment here to say that the Balinese people have a ceremony for everything, and they are happening all the time. God should be very very good to them) It took a few minutes of duh, and what, and ok, and just let me go see, before we finally took his word for it, and decided we would go and do some shopping in the stalls that line the walkway to the temple.

Being kind and not wanting to drag poor Eddie along on a torturous shopping expedition, we pulled out some Balinese money and stared at it for a while, gave him about $.13 and told him to go and have lunch, we would see him in about two hours.  He was very sweet, and went and sat on a rock over by the sea looking out at the temple. Not sure if we offended him, maybe he wanted to shop with us, maybe he liked to sit on a rock, whatever, but then we decided, maybe we gave him the wrong money. Snooky dug around and got some other kind of money and gave that to him and we apologized and waved goodbye.

We shopped until we found a really cool bat hanging from a perch, he was super cool! I will never look at Dracula and be ascared again! He was just primping himself, like a cat, lickin his cute little legs, looked me right in the eyes! Two beings, both blind as "bats." It was a moment...   It was time to eat again!

Lunch was at a little place that had food, we didn't care what it was, it was food, we were hot and thirsty.  The waiter came over and asked us what we wanted to drink, and pointed to these huge green melon things. WOW! What could they be? "You whan yanconnana?" Huh? "You whan yanconnana?" What? We all looked at each other and decided we better get a pencil since we were never going to remember what this thing was, had to write it down because it was freakin' impossible to spell...."You whan yanconnana?" DUH! The lightbulb went off for all of us at the same moment, it was a COCONUT, a YOUNG COCONUT!  We laughed so hard we started crying....lunch was fairly entertaining for the patrons who were there as we did a bit more laughin until we finally decided the temple awaited us.

Off to the temple...you have to make your way across the sea, well not the entire sea, but a good bit of water which can be tricky if you aren't careful or you slip some booze into your yanconnana, which we didn't.  With some assistance from some very nice Holy Guys, we made it to the other side and waited patiently for the Blessing where you put your hands in the small waterfall, get sprinkled with the water, annointed on your forhead with rice, a fllower is placed behind your ear, and then you are given a blessing by the priest. Time to make your way back across the water to the other side. Quite lovely.

Now we were only about 30 minutes late for our scheduled meetup with Eddie.  When we reached the beach, we passed the sign where the Holy Snake lived. I wanted to go and check him out, but it was late, and there was Eddie waiting for us!  The ride home was filled with trying to take pictures of trucks packed with water buffalos, motor bikes carrying loads of goods, "groups" of people on a bike, chickens by the hundreds in cages on trucks and watching Eddie play chicken with oncoming traffic, watching rice drop off our foreheads.....just another day in Paradise...

Rice doesn't come from a box?

One of the more interesting things we did that also ended in another wonderful eating experience, :) was taking a beautiful walk to a restaurant located in the middle of the rice fields of Ubud. Sari Organik is reached by walking along a very narrow and sometimes slightly treacherous path that wanders through many rice paddies.

I never thought much about it before, but rice is pretty cool looking when it grows. The fertile volcanic soil of Bali has made rice a central dietary staple. The island's steep terrain resulted in an intricate irrigation system locally called subak which manages water storage and drainage for the terraces. The sounds of the water running along the ditches breaks the stillness of the evening. We pass a number of small shrines where offerings are placed to ensure a good outcome of rice yields.

Earlier in the day we had seen a rice paddy filled with ducks. They are very prominent in the rice fields and are of importance for a successful rice yield. Every day farmers lead their ducks into their rice fields so they can eat the pests. The ducks also provide a natural fertilizer with their droppings.

Along the way we have to step to the side to let a passing motor bike, or ten,  share the path, tricky...interesting coconut heads adorn a fence like scarecrows or jungle Gods guarding the rice fields against something I don't want to know about.

We reached the restaurant in time to watch the sunset.  Dinner was great, and we shared a delicious rice wine that was light and not overly sweet. The walk home was by moonlight, and the stars were amazing!  My camera could only get the simplest shot of the moon through the palm trees, but you could still make out the stars, sort of.....

As we reached the end of the path, the sounds of a Gamelan performance was somewhere close by.  I laughed because it reminded me of the Blue Man Group, the sound was so familiar, and so strange to hear Blue Man music in such an exotic place.  I will never think of them in quite the same way ever again...

Swimming in Sanur

When you wake up at 6AM at home, dragging your butt out of bed to face the day is one of the toughest things to do.  When you are visiting a tropical paradise and you wake up looking at the jungle foliage a few feet from your face, it is quite a different experience. It doesn't seem so horrible having to face the day knowing that today you get to see the ocean, the Indian Ocean.  Almost forgot about that one...

We traveled through the traffic, which actually is reminding me more and more of a video game,  to Sanur, a town on the Southeast coast of Bali. It was a tough day today, a one hour massage for $5,  followed by lunch by the ocean, then a swim in the Indian ocean, then back for an hour facial for another $5.....exhausting.

Checked out a few shops, and got to see one of the little temples that seem to be everywhere. If you aren't careful, you may step on one of the small baskets called ‘canang sari ' that Balinese offer to their Gods three times a day.  They are filled with rice and fresh tiny flowers. It is basically a ritual of giving back what has been given to you by the Gods. It is a sharing that is not based upon fear, but on gratitude for the richness of life. Offering appeases the spirits and brings prosperity and good health to the family. It is considered a duty and an honor at the same time, and in Balinese perspective a very natural and almost logical thing to maintain a good relationship between people and spirits.  Very touching and to see the size of the flowers and the work involved in some of the displays is quite impressive.

We had a great dinner at an Indian restaurant where we all sat around discussing what to do for the following week while watching lizards run up and down the wall. Neato! Dragging my butt back to bed early tonight....Lord knows what is in store for tomorrow!

The Continuously Crowing Cock

Somene, PLEASE, answer the poor rooster that starts crowing sometime around 3-4AM and continues, WITHOUT STOPPING all day long. Seriously, he needs a date!

Bali Family :)

We all arrived in one piece, feet swollen like small balloons, weird!  Must have been the four gallons of water consumed on the planes.  No problems until the airport in Bali when we discovered, well, the blonde traveler in our party, MOI, was approached and asked, twice, if for a fee, the lines of 1,000 or so people could be made to easily disappear. Being the upstanding citizen that I am, and also afraid I might end up in a foreign pokey, I said I was traveling with a small tribe and thought it best I play by the rules. BIG MISTAKE! Two

hours  1,200 people (the line grew) and a rising temper later, I went up to the same guard and decided to give him just a wee piece of my Irish mind....the only thing it accomplished was that no more of those graft payers got into our line, and those guards disappeared.  It was the only annoying part of the trip...

On to customs, snicker, snicker, all 5 seconds of it, and then we met Joel, Simona and Oskar! :)  HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!!! We piled our 400 pieces of luggage into two vans and were off through the streets of Bali to the Green School campus.  Traffic, HAHAHAHA!!!  We shall not be driving here!!  Motor bikes, some with entire families of 5 on them, cars, vans, little buses, weaving in and out never signaling, three and four deep in two lanes....skilled drivers,  I was super impressed, never once did I flinch! I was in the back of course.

  The things we passed on the way were just so cool.  Nyepi, Balinese New Year had just passed,  celebrated with a full day of silence and meditation, one reason why we came later.  A few days before, the Bhuta Yajna ritual is performed in order to vanquish the negative elements and create balance with God, Mankind, and Nature. The people create these magnificent figures, Ogoh-ogoh, made of bamboo and paper painted in fabulous colorful detail. All have fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair and are illuminated by torches. Ogoh-ogoh monsters symbolize these evil or malevolent spirits surrounding the environment which have to be eliminated. They are paraded around the village and the evening before Nyepi, the devout Hindus celebrating Ngerupuk, start making noises, light burning torches and set fire to the Ogoh-ogoh  in order to vanquish the negative elements and evil spirits. Luckily for us, some of them were still  around, appearing between some of the smaller buildings like fabulous colorful giants.

The sun was setting and the trip had been so long, everyone just wanted to get to Rumah Bambu.  We arrived just as the sun was setting, and were amazed at what we saw....the house is breath taking. The pictures cannot do it justice.  Made entirely of bamboo and circular in construction, it is two stories high, but the center pole rises at least another story to a point.  Thatched roof, bamboo floors open walls look out on to the jungle growth, with geckos living along the towering support poles. Simply enchanting!

Simona and Joel made us a wonderful dinner of chicken, pumpkin, papaya, rice, lemongrass, galangal, garlic, tumeric, lime leaf, I might have missed something else here, but it was so delicious!

Oskar, their little 4 year old, cute as a button, explained how to use the 2 toilets; one is the composting one, and the other is the whizzer. Exciting, different, similar to Girl Scout Camp, but fancier. Then, it was a wonderful shower, open to the evening air, and off to bed for a great night's sleep under the mosquito net!

Paradise.....

Anticipation.....

The time approaching this adventure has been surprisingly calm, especially for me.  I usually get wound up to the point that I need a vacation to come down from the preparation, but this time has been different.  I have spent more than a few moments being thankful for the many  blessings I am leaving behind. My wonderful family, my cats, friends who mean the world to me, and the security and familiarization of everyday life.

From the first time I heard about Green School, I was touched by something I cannot explain, a pull I felt deep within me.  I am not a hot weather person; I enjoy the summer, but the Fall and Winter seasons, especially the change of the seasons, have a special meaning for me.  So what this pull is I cannot explain.  I am intrigued in a way I have never been before. A calmness has settled over me, unusual for me.  I am trying my best not to be overly obsessed with the knowledge that this beautiful paradise is infested with giant spiders, the one thing in this world that I am totally frightened of, to the point of being phobic. I have accepted this, and moved on, but an adventure is just that, good and bad, take it for everything it is, face your fear, live for the moment, spiders or no spiders, I am going for it, facing life with an open heart.....

We are at the airport, bonding for the long ride ahead, hugging and refamiliarizing ourselves with family who love each other even though we may not be in each others lives every day. Sometimes that isn't really necessary. Knowing someone loves you means more than money in the bank, and in that case, we are wealthy beyond measure.....

I hope for this journey for relaxation, reconnection with my family on a different level, spiritual peace that is new to me, seeing the world without ambient lighting, NOT seeing giant spiders, becoming more ecologically conscience, meeting new people, experiencing new culture, trying new food, doing NOTHING, breathing new air, seeing new bugs and monkeys, laughing until it hurts,  Snooky says being drunk out of our socks, open to whatever the universe has to offer me. Once again, I am the luckiest damn woman I know......

Flowers For My Daughter

All the excitement of my trip goes on the back burner today as I celebrate the birth of my second child, my daughter Jennifer Lynne. In the garden that is my life, two extraordinary flowers bloomed. I am blessed to have a handsome son and a beautiful daughter.

38 years go, I asked my sister Susan to baby sit my little red headed Bob. I knew I was going to go to the hospital that night. It was Susan's birthday and she was excited that the baby was going to be born on "her" special day. At midnight she finally got disgusted and went to bed. I left for the hospital not long after.

Jennifer has become a beautiful, successful woman, someone I have grown to admire and regard with tremendous pride. All parents hope that their children are successful in this world, but how do we measure success? To me success is not so much what we acquire as it is what we are, what we bring to the world, and how we help others succeed and grow. My child is a gifted teacher who has found her niche helping children discover the desire to learn. It is more than memorizing and writing; it is instilling a deep hunger for learning that ignites a fire within a young mind.

As a parent, I have made many mistakes, but I never regret anything for I truly believe that we learn some of our most valuable lessons from the mistakes we make along our journey. I am not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. I also am a firm believer in "it takes a village" to raise a well rounded, happy, well adjusted and successful child in today's world. Coming from a large family, as I do, and again, being the "luckiest woman I know," I had a lot of valuable help in this department. Bob and Jenny were surrounded by lots of love and a great family from the minute they were born. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my extended family for all the love and support they have given me throughout my life.

It isn't easy to tend our garden and produce the most beautiful flowers.....not without lots of hard work and lots of helping hands.

Happy Birthday Jennifer Lynne♥