Agung Villa, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia - Has It Only Been One Day

5 hours due South of Hong Kong as the plane flies is Indonesia. It is a country of many islands, and the massive island we are on is Bali. We landed in the city of Denpasar, and even as the plane was descending, it was clear to me that I was entering a realm of only-in-the-movies or fairytale land or detached reality...words can not describe it. I couldn't have wished for anything more.

After debarking the plane, I began to sweat. The sign that said "Smuggling illegal drugs into the country carries a penalty of death!" was not the reason, it was the humidity. 120 degrees of Phoenix summer heat is a breath of fresh air compared to the overbearing dense tropical moisture. I love it!

Exiting the terminal, after buz let slip and broke 1/3 of our duty free liquor allotment, we were greeted by our driver/house assistant and began the drive north to the city of Ubud. I've jumped out of an airplane. I've stood inches from a 6,000 foot drop into the Grand Canyon. I was less than 30 feet from a 300 pound wild black bear. I would try near any adrenaline rising adventure I could think of, but I know I would never try to drive from Denpasar to Ubud. The drive took a little over an hour, and probably only covered 40 miles into the center of the island, but it seemed an act of magic that we made it with no accident or fatality. The straight narrow roads had our car driving on all sides of the lane markers as swarms of small motorcycles passed us and were surpassed by us. The rhythm of the road and traffic was hard to comprehend yet our driver deftly maneuvered around all obstacles. Well, not all, on the final dirt "road" to out villa, he was out maneuvered by a duck herder and his ducks. For nearly the final mile, we had to go at a ducks pace as the 40 or so ducks in the roadway had no intention to let us pass. It was frustrating to be so close and have to move at a web footed pace. Let's just say that I was feeling quite smug when I had crispy duck for dinner last night.

We arrived at Agung Villa, a few kilometers outside of Ubud, around 5PM and my euphoria had me often sying things like, "This is awesome." And, "I love it here." And, "I can't believe how great this is." And, "Look at that, look at this, hey there's a frog on the sofa." I even proffered that I don't want to leave and perhaps I'll find a wife and live here forever. And this after just being in Bali for 2 hours. It is a day later, and I am tempering my words to others, but the euphoria has not abated. This is awesome!

In a future post I will probably go on at length about the Balinese cuisine, so I'll save the details for then, but we went out to dinner around 7PM and had a meal that tantalized. After returning to the Villa, I was impatient to get out last nights Hong Kong blog to clear the slate for this. So on to today...

The cock crowed. The frogs roared. And a multitude of animals I don't know yet pounded a steady beat in my ear drums til the sun came up. The villa served a standard fine breakfast, and the rice paddies beckoned. Villa Agung isn't much. A rich ex-pat came here and built 4 "luxurious houses" in the middle of a landscape of rice paddies. 5 feet from my bedroom window a farmer toiled over his paddy with rudimentary tools for his family's subsistence. I'm theoretically homeless and jobless right now, but a bit of guilt of our wealth creeps into my conscience with all we encounter. I could slip a twenty dollar bill to a farmer and it may be more than he earns all month. I wish I could give them all a twenty. Buz and I encounter many of them as we trod through their paddys.

We headed out of the villa, leapt over the first of many aqueducts we would encounter and proceeded along the extremely narrow paths the farmers use to access their plots. To us it was a puzzle, more a maze, where we had to determine whether we could proceed or needed to backtrack to find a solid footing around the waterlogged paddys. We passed many shanties where the farmers rest and their wives trudge to bring them their meals, simple wooden covered two person huts of existence. Perhaps we walked a mile, and all along we encountered the locals who smiled at us blatantly obvious tourists and gave us a hearty happy "Hello!". Oddly wonderful it was.

After returning to the villa, the masseuses had arrived and after they finished with sis and dix, we passed by our pool and for $10 we had an onsite hour long massage that was worth every penny and even a few thousand more pennies. Labor is cheap here and perhaps the best advantage of visiting a place like this. Yet it is a guilty pleasure, which we shall repeat every chance we can.

After some swimming in our pool and leisurely reading, our driver took us to the center of Ubud where we had another dining extravaganza before sampling the dense shopping district and checking out the wares of this artistic enclave that makes it such a popular vacation destination.

My words can only scrape at the bountiful experience that this amazing adventure. It's a gotta be here experience. And I am here! I find it hard to comprehend, and I find it amazing that I have only been here one day. And I have 7 more days of this mind blowing journey to come! I'm almost jealous of myself.

BTW, for the first time in my life I am south of the equator, and yes the toilets swirl counter clockwise.