Bali!

Sam had a long weekend off of school last weekend due to a national holiday here in Singapore so we took the opportunity to go do a little traveling to Bali, Indonesia. We have been previously spoiled during vacations and have left Q with grandparents or had the grandparents with us to take care of him when we wanted to relax, so we weren't sure how enjoyable a relaxing beach vacation would be with the little man, but we were very pleasantly surprised with just how enjoyable it was!

We left our urban apartment in Singapore (complete with constant construction noise and the smell of traffic) behind on Friday afternoon and after a short flight we stepped off the plane in Bali to the smell of the ocean and one extremely disorganized airport. After some confusion we made it through immigration and found our driver to take us to the resort.  The drive to the resort was a cultural experience... I've never seen so many motorbikes and scooters with 4 person families piled on zooming in and out of traffic which in general seemed to have no real organization.

When we made it to our resort, The Grand Mirage, and got checked in. It was Q's bedtime so we put him to bed and ordered room service and sat on our balcony listening to the ocean and chowing down on the best room service I have ever had! Yet again, I am in trouble with my doctor for losing weight during this pregnancy and was told to "eat as much of whatever I want" until I start gaining weight.  I definitely took that advice very seriously over the weekend! Sam kept complaining that he was going to get fat if he tried to keep up with my eating habits. Unfortunately, I managed not to gain a single ounce... I'm really not sure how that is possible based on the massive quantities of delicious food (and virgin coladas) I consumed!

The view from our balcony at the Grand Mirage

Saturday we got up and spent some time at the pool and then went on a glass bottom boat ride. We got to see colorful fish swimming under the boat and we stopped at a "sea turtle conservatory" which made me cringe. They let everyone pick up and handle the poor turtles and other animals they had there including huge snakes that had their mouths bound with plastic. I was relieved to get back on the boat and away from that place. The boat ride itself was a similar experience to the drive to the resort.  There were boats, jet skis, tubers, banana boaters, and parasailers everywhere and as a licensed boat driver and former waterski/wakeboard/tubing instructor and lifeguard I was a pretty concerned! It is a miracle that the parasailing lines didn't get tangled. I can just see my previous boss and camp director having an anxiety attack if she could have seen the mayhem!

Upon returning safely to the resort we enjoyed another delicious meal and Q and I took a nap.  In the afternoon we arranged a cultural tour for the following day and spent some more time at the pool.  We managed to get a babysitter through the kids club at the resort for the evening so that we could enjoy a late dinner and cultural dance show sans baby. I am generally not comfortable leaving Q with people I don't know, but Southeast Asia is the most child friendly place I have ever been.  People loooove kids here and somehow this makes me not as up tight about leaving him with sitters. The lady who kept him was wonderful and Q immediately bonded with her. Dinner was great and we got to talk to some other guests.  Most of the tourists in Bali (and most of Southeast Asia) seemed to be Australian. The show was... interesting.  Kind of like a boring version of hula with extremely elaborate costumes.

Little lunch buddy I noticed staring at us after finishing our picnic lunch on Sunday.  He may not look it, but this guy was large and I was not to fond of having him staring at me and my baby! When I noticed him, lunch was o-ver! Our driver said, "That's not a lizard, lizards aren't that big, that is a gecko." And I said, "where I'm from, gecko's are tiny..."

Sunday we had a private driver that took us around Bali.  We went to another cultural dance, a textile demonstration and market, a silver jewelry making demonstration and market, a wood carving demonstration and market, the "sacred" monkey jungle, the old royal palace, and the rice terraces in Ubud. The monkey jungle we almost skipped because we thought we'd seen plenty of monkeys before in the zoo.  Well, I'm glad we didn't skip this! The monkeys were all over the place and they were not shy.  There were signs warning not to take any food (even wrapped and concealed) into the jungle because "they will find it." And not to panic if a monkey jumps on you. A monkey did try to grab Q's foot while Sam was carrying him in his Ergo. It was fun watching the monkeys play, especially the little baby ones! And the jungle was really cool too including old temples and statues all mossed over. One of our observations while driving around Bali was that it seems as if about 50% of Bali is covered in Hindu temples.  Our driver explained that every house has it's own family temple in addition to the many corporate temples.  It was crazy walking around the busy streets of Ubud and all of a sudden you would pass a house that looked as if it had been there for centuries complete with a large family temple.  When we got back to Singapore we looked up Bali online and found out that 93% of the population is Hindu amidst the largest Muslim country in the world (Indonesia). We also observed that the cultural dances were choreographed to tell elaborate Hindu stories. Very interesting how the religion has infiltrated so much of the culture including the dance, textiles, jewelry, wood carvings, and architecture.

Not the best picture, but I like it because it reminds me of our family. The parents had just wrangled this little rascal away from his buddies and as soon as they think they have him settled, he goes flying back to his friends.

Again, not the best picture... but I named the 2 mommy monkeys sitting on the wall doing their best to ignore their squabbling babies behind them, Stacy and Molly, and the 2 baby monkeys playing in the background, Dawn and Quinn :-) 

The main temple in the monkey jungle

One of the entrances to the random homes we walked by in Ubud

Monday was our last full day and we spent it enjoying the resort and the lovely sunshine. Quinn and I played in the pool all morning and drank lots of delicious (always freshly made from whole fruit) fruit drinks while Sam went on a sea walker tour. They submerged him with a pressurized mask to look at the fish.  He said that one particular fish kept trying to eat his finger. We all had lunch together and Q and I took a nap before I went to the spa for a wonderful beachfront massage.  It was so nice that even at our 5 star resort, things like hiring a private driver for a day and getting a spa treatment were still super affordable.  Later in the afternoon Sam played beach volleyball and that evening we enjoyed some delicious Mongolian BBQ which unfortunately was accompanied by Q's only bad behavior during the trip. (I guess we should be really grateful that was the only real behavior issue we had the whole time...)

Tuesday morning we had a morning flight back to Singapore so we reluctantly got up early and left the jungle paradise and headed back to the urban jungle.