Bali Update

5 June

Good Morning Momoots and Pops,

Today we leave the Bukit region here at Jasmine's house and head to our second destination - a beach town north of here named Seminyak. This is the villa that I told you was the former pro surfer's who lives half of the year in California.  We will have the entire house to ourselves. I'm excited to see what this next place holds, but I'm sad to leave Jasmine's home.

Staying here at Jasmine's has been a dream.  Since last night was our last night here, we invited her family out to dinner and we went to a place she recommended at a beach called Jimbaran (about 20 minutes driving from the house).  It was a delightful experience!  You arrive to a parking lot that is super smokey and is part of a string of restaurants that are literally built right next to each other.  As you walk past the open-air kitchens you see about 15 chefs in front of huge fire pit bbq grills cooking fresh seafood. They cook the seafood inside of the husks of matured coconuts so that the fire doesn't burn the seafood, and it gives the food a wonderful taste.  This is the first time that I've ever seen this technique used and it's a good way of using the brown coconuts since they strip out that brown mesh-like inside and cook the seafood on that bed of coconut mesh.  

She then proceeded to walk us up to a glass pane where you select which seafood you would like them to prepare: fish, crab, lobster, squid and prawns.  We chose a good sized Pompano, as well as about 25 large prawns.  You're given a number and find a place to sit. The most exciting part was yet to come!  You walk through this sandy alleyway and then into a large bohio and just beyond the edge of the bohio you get to the beach where there are about 200-plus tables and hundreds of people all sitting in front of whichever "seafood grill" they have chosen to eat from.  While we waited for the waiters to clear our table, we walked down to the water's edge to admire the full moon. 

When we were leaving the house, the moon was bright red and rising just beyond the trees on Jasmine's property.  The last time I saw a red moon was in Coronado about 10 years ago.  Now, at 7:45 pm as we stood on the beach with the waves lapping at our toes, the moon was massive and yellow.  Next to us, there was a man and his wheeled rickshaw cooking delicious corn on his fire pit. The smell was like creamy corn...soooooo good! Jasmine's son (Zen) told me that I should wait and have the corn for dessert since it's a specialty here in Bali.  I decided to take his advice and wait until after dinner.  

Once we took our seats at a candle lit table, we chatted about surfing with Jasmine's 12 year old daughter who had been at the beach while we were there earlier in the day.  She was telling Hector all about the local spots.  Hector and I had talked about how it must be crazy to live on an island where you enjoy world-class surfing waves while going to school. We laughed about how we would have skipped school all the time to hang out at the beach if we had grown up here.  What a life these people live.

Soon, dinner came out and boy was it a feast!!!  To accompany our seafood, they served us a large portion of steamed white rice in a bamboo tub with a lid on it, as well as a spicy watercress salad. The watercress salad was just the right amount of spice to perfectly accompany the coconut smoked flavor of the fish & prawns. They also give you 4 tiny bowls with different sauces you can put onto the seafood if you like (a garlic and onion in a vinegar, a sweet soy sauce blend, and two picante sauces). Hector and I ate the seafood without any of the sauces because it was just so incredibly tasty. I've never eaten fish or prawns that have such an amazing bbq taste to them!!!  Dad would have loved it.(Pops, I've thought about you many times on this trip as we have eaten some of the best food I've ever tried in my life...and we've had some pretty good food on our travels around the world). After dinner, as promised, Zen ran down to the man with the corn and ordered 2 sweet corn on the cobs.  It was the perfect ending to dinner.  They apply a honey glaze and brush it on the hot husks.  It melts in your mouth. 

We then all walked up to the restaurant and washed our hands and headed back home. When we arrived back to the rooftop, I started up the tub that sits under the moon and stars and let it fill up to enjoy a moonlight tub.  We all smelled like marinated bbq smoke, so it was necessary to shower before crawling into bed and passing out.

I woke up early this morning before the sun rise and the full moon was still out.  Hector is writing and checking his emails now and we have both had our 2 cups of coffee and are heading out on scooters to our favorite breakfast joint down the road called Cafe Moka.  I think I will have a chocolate croissant with breakfast this morning!  Yummy.

Thinking of you and love you very, very much!!!!

Seminyak, here we come!

Besos,

Kelly (and Hector)  

The Honeymooners

It has been our fervent prayer that Kelly would resume a full, healthy and fruitful life, as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend and neighbor. Those prayers continue to be granted every day as she heals and strengthens and perseveres. Her marriage to Hector on April 7th is another step in that progression, and in that reaffirmation of life's blessings.

And now Kelly and Hector have flown off to their honeymoon/adventure in Bali. Flying east, it took nearly two days to get there (with a layover in Amsterdam for a scooter tour). We expect numerous updates during their travels and we would like to share their joys with you.

So hold onto your hats! Here we gooo......

3 June

Hola!!!

We woke up this morning (June 3) as the sun was rising and boy was the sunrise breathtaking. Yes, our internal clocks are totally off as jet lag is in full effect.  Hector started up the coffee while I walked out onto the grassy patio looking over the Indian ocean...the view takes your breath away.  Apparently, as we look across the ocean, Australia is in front of us, although it's very far.  It really blows me away to think that we are half way around the world.
Hector and I proceeded to take a seat under the cushioned pagoda on our grass rooftop terrace as we sipped on hot coffee and watched the sun begin its ascent, all the while hearing cocks crowing, cows mooing and birds taking flight across the ocean blue.  It surprised me that the breeze coming off of the ocean is actually very cool, so much so that all you have to do is keep the windows open and it keeps the apartment cool (just a tad warmer than Volcan, but cool like it is there during the day).  

The owner of the chateau brought up our breakfast a tad later and I picked our host's (Jasmine) brain about the best way to get around, where she recommended we should eat lunch and also asked her about getting a massage.  My back was killing me from 35 hours of sitting in those cramped seats on the airplane.  It just so happened that she had a massage lady who was downstairs giving her husband a massage and offered that this young lady could come up, so I had a massage for $10 and it blew all other massages out of the water.  They really know what they are doing.  You can actually feel the immediate effects of your blood circulating better throughout your body.

Our scooter arrived to the house around 11 am and you've gotta love it...it costs $15 to rent the scooter for 3 full days.  Now that we had wheels to get around, we hopped onto the scooter and headed out to have lunch at a place called "Warung Yeye" that was rustic but in a beautiful setting with lilly flowers all around us in water-filled pots, lanterns hanging from the trees and tropical plants around the patio.  We each had a delicious coconut shrimp soup and then we shared a plate full of marisco fried rice.  The rice was the tastiest I have ever eaten. You didn't have to add anything to it like soy sauce as you normally do to fried rice.

Hector and I laughed since you have to drive on the opposite side of the road than you do in Panama and most other places in the world.  People here drive even crazier than in Panama too!  You share the lane with cars, more scooters, pedestrians, motorcycles, all sorts of rigged motor vehicles that are transporting everything from food, ice, water bottles on ice, bamboo and even building blocks as they go along their merry way.  You can't help but have a permanent smile on your face and everyone is very kind and helpful.  As we were "scooting" around, hundreds of other locals, surfers, families of up to 4 people on their scooters passed us.  Most scooters are rigged with surf racks so surfers just place their surf boards on this rack and head to the beach.  

After lunch, we decided to venture around and headed to a world class surf spot called Padang Padang beach.  You can see the 2 surf breaks (a right and a left break) from a bridge that sits above the beach.  We pulled up our scooter to watch on this bridge, along with about 25 other scooters who were all just checking out the action. I couldn't believe the amazing and massive waves that were going off right there before my eyes.  Panamanians DREAM of waves like this, and it was just a typical day here, there isn't even a swell.  I don't know if it was due to the time we were there, but there were only about 10 people out surfing these mega-waves and Hector commented on how you never get to be on waves like that and not have to share it will a bunch of people.  We will go back tomorrow to enjoy a day at the beach.  It's one of the nearby beaches that is good for swimming as well as surfing, so both of us can enjoy. It's about 15 minutes on our scooter, so it isn't far and the drive is full of sites to see.

After watching the surf at P.P we then crossed the bridge and happened to come upon a surf board hanging from a tree with an arrow pointing to another world class surf spot called Dreamland.  It's mind blowing that the beaches are lined one after the other and each has a massive surf break that is even bigger than the one you've previously seen. It's times like this when I wish I at least knew the basics of surfing to get out there and see surfers catch waves.  Oh well, I will watch from the beach manana.

Bueno, after a long and exciting day I'm headed to the shower and then to bed.  I hope all is well with you!!!

Besos,

Kelly & Hector