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| Cake #1 |
Bali is a great place for a person to wake up on his 50
th birthday, even if it is raining. It was our last morning at Legian Beach, and we’d planned to go boogie boarding before heading up to Ubud. Oh well—we’d had three perfect beach days in a row, so couldn’t really complain. Besides, now we’d have time to go see a temple a little way up the coast before going up to Ubud, the town known as the cultural heart of Bali. We had a leisurely breakfast first. When I told the nice lady our room number, she said—“oh, it’s Paul’s birthday!” “Yes, it is!” I replied. I guess they get that from the passports at check-in and make a note of guests having birthdays during their stay. So after we’d had breakfast, the nice lady appeared with a little cake and the staff sang Happy Birthday! Paul was so tickled. Cake for breakfast! Even better, it was chocolate and had “Happy Birthday from the Legian Beach Hotel” written on a nice piece of dark chocolate. It was pretty good too! Even small, it was too much for us to eat, so we shared with the two little girls at the next table.
The best way to get up to Ubud is to hire a car and driver. Very
inexpensive in this part of the world. Since we wanted to make a stop along the way, Paul ended up hiring a driver for the whole day since that was the most economical and practical way to go. It was definitely not a beach day, so we had plenty of time to visit a few places before checking into the next hotel. Pura Tanah Lot Temple is just a few miles up the west coast of Bali, but the traffic is so bad (and the roads so narrow) that it took more than an hour to get there. Once there, we’re in tourist heaven/hell, with multiple shops selling—well, pretty much every touristy thing you can imagine: food, dresses, jewelry, tee-shirts and flip-flops (Bali gives Hawaii a good run for its money in the flip-flop department), sarongs in patterns ranging from traditional patterns to Hello Kitty, superheroes, Bob Marley, and even an anime character with a British flag (no clue). Oh—and a Ralph Lauren Polo store. Wait—two Ralph Lauren Polo stores. No three. Four? Stopped counting after that. WTF?
But finally we get to the temple grounds. “Tanah Lot” means “Land in the Sea,” and the name is quite literal: at high tide, the temple is surrounded by water. At low tide, you can walk over the moss-covered rocks to get up close and personal. The temple itself is up on what in England would be called a “tor,” a craggy hilltop. I mention England because the setting reminds both of us of Tintagel castle in Cornwall: waves crashing against rock cliffs, an overcast sky like the one we had that day in Cornwall last year, a lonely sort of feel to it despite the crowds of schoolchildren and other visitors. Still: it’s definitively Balinese: the temple was built in the 16
th century to honor the Balinese sea
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| Tanah Lot |
gods, and was later influenced by Hinduism. Only Balinese people can go up inside the actual temple. The rest of us can climb a short staircase up one side to get a view of the sea; to do even this, we must first wash hands and face at the holy spa (yes, they called it that) and then be doused/blessed with water by one a smiling monk, who then affixes rice to our foreheads and tucks blossoms behind our ears.
It’s nearly 7:00 by the time we get to Ubud. And dark! This near the equator, day and night are always of equal length, and where we are in Bali also seems to be near the eastern edge of the time zone. The sun’s been gone by 6:30 every day that we’ve been here. We get a look at the main street of Ubud, a pass a cross street with the happy name Monkey Forest Road, possibly my favorite street name ever. Our driver turns onto a startlingly narrow street and heads up up up—after asking directions, he learns that he’s turned up the wrong narrow road. Even better: there’s another car coming down the hill. Oops! This road is barely wide enough for one car, let alone two. The other car nicely backs up quite a ways till we can both get past, then we need to drive up far enough to turn back down! Traffic here isn’t as insane as in Hanoi, but it’s got its own kind of crazy—very few stop lights or signs; it seems to be all about merging—cars, buses, moped, pedestrians, everybody merge!
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| SpiderPig hanging out with the statues at our villa in Ubud |
Even on the right street, the hotel is hard to find. But at last we arrive, and what a beautiful place it is. The Purist Villas and Spa, oh my! We do indeed have a villa: a big roofed but open-air living area with sofa and dining table and a big patio beyond. Separate bedroom, then sink and dressing area, and an open-air shower and bath. Magnificent art throughout. Heaven.
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| Cake #2 |
We still had the driver for another hour so he drove us back down into the village for dinner. The place we’d hoped to go was booked, but they recommended a few places on the main street. We ended up at a place called Arang, on the corner of Monkey Forest Road (I just like typing that). A very nice dinner with fish and skewers of poultry (chicken, duck, chicken liver, quail eggs) and the most delicious pork dumplings ever. A bottle of Balinese white wine, which is surprisingly good. I’d mentioned to the waiter that it was Paul’s birthday, so after dinner they brought out cake #2! Small chocolate brownies with Happy Birthday misspelled just enough to make it charming.
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| Gamalan musicians and legon dancers |
There was a performance space across the road and we ate to the sounds of
gamalan music. A curtain had been drawn across the space while the dances were going on, but afterward, the musicians kept playing and the dancers took the opportunity for an open practice session. Paul has quite taken to Balinese music and
legong dance, so we stayed and watched the graceful dancers and purple-clad musicians for a while before having the restaurant phone the hotel for a ride.
When the driver picked us up, he wondered what we’d been up to. Oh, dinner and dancing, we said.
Again in the hotel reception area, they said: “oh, you’re back! What have you been doing?” It seems they actually meant: “where the heck have you been!” When we got back to the villa and started getting ready for bed, there was a knock at the door and all the staff came in singing Happy Birthday with yet another cake! Beautifully done too. (Paul said the cakes started out good and kept getting better.)
As lovely a birthday as anyone could wish for. Happy 50
th, my darling husband!
