January 20, 2018

My intentions were good about keeping up with this blog but alas....I forgot to charge my Bluetooth keyboard before leaving home and on top of that neglected to bring the correct charger for it!  Thankfully my travel mates have devices that use the same charger as my keyboard and so here I am up and operational again.

Our flight from Vancouver to Taipei was pretty uneventful other than that it is a long time to be in a little confined space with a lot of other people!  12-13 hours depending on wind currents is a long time to do anything but when you think about the fact that those 12-13 hours takes you magically to the other side of the world it makes it all worthwhile.  The Taipei airport didn’t disappoint and we located three much coveted massage chairs that we were able to secure.  I went in hunt of tokens to make the chairs do their thing and a few minutes later had returned with enough coins for each of us to have a full 30 minutes of full body (chair) massage.  It was heavenly after that long flight!  We concluded our rejuvenating stop with a delicious latte and piece of cheesecake and then Tami left Barb and I as her flight to Hanoi would be departing about a half our before ours left for Denpasar.

The flight to Bali was just 5 1/2 hours and the time passed quite quickly for me but not so much for Barb.  Somehow she had ended up in a window seat (even though she had booked an aisle) and her seat mate was a talker but not all that interesting.  The three guys in my row (I was on an aisle) were all Balinese and on their way home after 8 months working on their respective cruise lines.  They were all so excited at the prospect of seeing their homeland and their families again that their elation was infectious.  By the time the plane touched down in Denpasar I was cheering and clapping along with them.  

Jati was at the airport to meet us and it was wonderful to see his smiling face among the throngs of drivers holding up signs in search of their clients.  We weren’t clients....we were meeting a friend and it felt good.  Although the drive from Denpasar to Ubud was still very congested with traffic it did seem like there were slightly fewer people around so perhaps tourism is still being affected by the volcano (Mt Agung).  We really noticed a drop in the traffic once we reached Ubud which was further  affected by the a change to the local bylaws about parking on the street.  Monkey Forest seemed almost deserted!  There are still vehicles (cars and scooters) on the road but not having cars parked everywhere along one side really opens it up.  Along the drive home we also stopped at a little store so I could buy a SIM card for my phone.  It is great!  For about $8 I now am able to make calls, text, use a little data, and just generally feel like I have communication whenever I want it.  As I need to I can just top up the card with another $5 and I’m good to go again.  Gotta love technology!

It was great to arrive back at Rumah Kita and see our comfortable home away from home ready and waiting for us. Pasek was out by the road to meet our car and carry in our bags.  It is different this time not having Ketut here and there are other changes too.  Pasek is no longer working at the Ubud Inn (he was there for 25 years as their in house engineer) and so he has taken on the jobs here at Rumah Kita that Ketut used to do.  Paul and Tess are back upstairs and the fountain in our yard still runs every morning during our breakfast on the patio but the vegetation has another 8 months of growth and so the yard looks a little different too.  Bottom line it is all still wonderfully comfortable and we’re happy to know we can call this home for the next couple of months.

We were so tired our first night here that we (Barb and I) just wandered across the street to find a quick bite, unpack, and call it a day.  We both slept like the dead that night and woke to a morning of sunny skies.  It was wonderful to hear the birds singing in the yard after having heard the geckos singing their croaky song the night before as we’d drifted off to sleep.  As we’d promised ourselves that first day was to be dedicated to the Verona Spa and what a great plan that turned out to be.  We each signed up for the Bali Bliss package which includes a 90 minute four hand massage, a half hour body scrub, a 20 minute soak in a flower petal bath while sipping ginger/jasmine tea and munching on fresh fruits, an hour long facial, a manicure, a pedicure, and a hair cream treatment that lasts another hour.  Yep.....its the full meal deal and we had it all!  Although we were feeling pretty relaxed from all that rubbing we were also feeling energized and so the decision was made to wander over to Mingle for a drink (or two) and then off to Paradiso for a movie (the 100’ Journey was playing). Thomas was (as always) working at Mingle and it was nice to be recognized by him again.  Barb and I settled into happy hour and made short work of a couple of cocktails.  Julie wandered by and joined us for a couple of drinks and then it was time for Barb and I to head to the theatre which we did.  The rain cooperated and only fell while we were sitting inside places until we let the theatre so we decided to opt for a taxi home.  Truth be told....I was feeling pretty done in anyway so the thought of walking home again seemed like a long way!  Thank heaven for the rain that night.  

Yesterday was another first for both Barb and I.  We had agreed to join Julie in a breathwork class with Vonny Stella at LJ Life Studio.  We hired a driver (Made) to take us to the location but the adventure began long before we got there.  The road in from the main road was so skinny that the driver told us we’d need to walk from the main road.  It was hot and humid and we were walking through the rice fields so there is no shade anywhere at all.  We began our trek thinking it wouldn’t be too far or too bad until we came to a hill.  I’ll just leave it to say that it wa a hill from hell!  It went down so steeply and so far and what goes down must come up or something like that and so down we went and up we went.  I won’t belabour this but I will say that I didn’t like it even though it was probably a very good thing to do.  We finally arrived at the studio only to learn that vehicles can in fact come down that skinny little road and so arrangements were made for our driver to plan to pick us up right at the studio rather than us having to walk back to the main road when we were finished.  Vonny was waiting for us in the studio and as luck would have it only the three of us were registered for the session.  Vonny explained to us the “how” and “why” of breathwork and emphasized that it is called breathwork because it is work to do it properly.  She described some of the bodily sensations we would experience during the 45 minutes of intentional overoxygenation/active meditation and encouraged us to just punch through those barriers to achieve the success that comes with going past them.  There was gentle music playing as we began our breathing journey in that studio in the middle of the rice fields.  There were just mats for walls and we were on the second story of the building so the breezes were virtually unobstructed and the blue skies were visible along the edges of the roof.  The roof was a beautiful newly thatched topper that looked like a giant peaked hat shading the building.  In a nutshell....the location was like something out of a movie and we were the only people there....it was perfect and it was meant to be.  We each lay down on our mats and began to breath through an open mouth....in and out.....no pauses.....it’s hard.....try it!  Over time and under the guidance of Vonny I began to feel my belly move in and out on its own and it all felt very natural and intuitive.  The journey of breathwork for me was powerful and I’m certain I won’t do it justice here on the page but I will say that it moved me to tears and I’ll be forever grateful for the experience I was gifted with that afternoon.  As much as I’d not wanted to hike that hill in hindsight perhaps hiking that hill was part of the gift of the day.  I’d pushed through that hurdle to get to the site and then pushed through the hurdles of discomfort in the breathwork to be given the gift of revisiting the time of my birth.  The fact that I was born in a very rustic tent-like hospital adjacent to the ocean and surrounded by nature may have been easier to ‘feel/see’ because I was having this experience in this magical place surrounded by nature as the winds blew over us and the rain fell on the new roof over our heads.  All in all.....it is an experience I will never forget and will always be grateful for! 

Last night both Barb and I were  d one in and so it was easy to decide to just skip supper and stay in to play cards as the rain fell outside our snug little room.  We’d stopped for a very late lunch at Ibu Susu on the way home from our class so we weren’t all that hungry and a package of the delicious crunchy peanuts they have here filled any hunger we were feeling. 

It poured buckets all night and this morning right through breakfast so we’ve enjoyed sitting here on our patio getting caught up on some email and this blog.  Just as I’m finishing up this blog the sun seems to be coming out as the skies brighten and the birds are singing a beautiful song.  As I’ve been typing Barb has been busy looking up events and things to do over the coming days and has us booked into a full moon event at the Pyramids of Chi that I’m super excited about as it sounds different than anything else I’ve done there.  I’m not sure I can wait till the 31st for a sound healing though and so might have to make my way there for a routine daily session between now and then.

Feeling fully engaged in Ubud already.....life is good.  

Till next time,

Lorrie and Barb