Family Life

14-18 August 2009

Steve and I flew to Bali to spend a few days with Sonya and Chris before Steve flew home. It was really nice to experience family life again and to show them around places I am now so familiar with. This was a particular pleasure with Chris who was on his first visit to a developing country. It was wonderful to hear his reactions and watch his face as he experienced all the new sights, sounds, tastes and smells. We were fortunate that the Sanur festival was on the week they arrived and they saw kite flying, fruit and ice carving, local races and lots more. We also hired a car and toured a lot of the east of the island including the largest Hindu temple and a ‘traditional’ village. Whist in Ubud we went to a shadow puppet performance – an experience that I will not bother to repeat but pleased I can say I have done it; particularly as the one we had used a real oil lamp rather than electric light to give a less harsh silhouette. The traditional plays last many hours but this was thankfully only an hour. The play is accompanied by music, the puppeteer knocking on the puppet box and him narrating the story. The story was also not totally traditional as it included references to usual local interactions with tourists eg ‘Transport’, ‘Maybe tomorrow’, ‘No problem’.

On the evening of my birthday we met up with Dorothea and went to a very good Italian restaurant as a special treat. I was horrified that we spent nearly 600,000 Rp for the five of us this equate to a weeks allowance for me but was less that £40 so for Steve was nothing. My adaptation to the different value of money was further illustration when helping Sonya and Chris to plan the rest of their trip after leaving Rote. To take a car rather than the bus to Moni from Maumere would only cost them an extra 50,000 Rp each a difference of £3,30. I see the car as expensive luxury they see it as a cheap necessity.