Monkey Dance

Ok, so I need to pick up starting Monday morning...

Monday
We woke up early (averaging around 7am) and decided that it was a "lazy day".  Made, the host, told us that Made junior would be going to Dubai to work in a hotel,
so we wouldn't use him for driving anymore.  We asked if he would come to say goodbye and Made said that he could.

I decided that I would work a little, as I am trying to finish up something that I didn't finish before leaving.  An hour into work, the pool looked irresistible.
After a swim and a nap, I worked a few more minutes before deciding to walk with mom to the little store down the road.
We headed out, but I forgot how far it was and we had to break at a "warung" to get out of the sun for a bit.  We finally made it to the store
and picked up some extension cords and power strips to make things easier. On the way back, mom was getting pretty burned out and
made me promise to take the next taxi that asked us if we were looking for one.  One arrived, on queue, and we hopped in.  The driver, Wayun Bek Adil (he is the fifth child, which gets the name of the first and then "bek" which means "again").
In the front, rode his 2 year old, Ketut (4th).  He rode with his feet in the air, as if he was teaching us yoga!
Wayan was very friendly and spoke english well enough to hold a conversation.  He told us that he was from the wood-working village of "Mas" and that his wife worked at the next hotel up from ours as a cook.
It wasn't until he had left that I realized that we hadn't gotten his number.  So, Mat and I walked up to the restaurant, asked the hostess
about finding a cook with a husband named wayan adil with 4 kids from mas.  "Oh, I think that is Ani!"  She left to get her and Ani came back
with a few other giggling waitresses.  We asked for their number and she gave it to us, happy to hear how much we had appreciated her husband.
We called him later to arrange a ride for this morning to town and he was laughing the whole time on the phone, probably because I was trying to
explain who I was, but he already knew because his wife had called!  On the way back, we noticed a carving that we hadn't seen before which Made told us was done by his cousin

Later, Made invited us and took us up to his villiage, Junjungan, to watch a dance.  It was impressive, I will include pictures, and told the story of a prince and princess
with various troubles including monkeys, enchanted unicorns, and giants.  It was beyond impressive, and involved probably 100 dancers, most were in this outer circle of chanting
men, while less than 10 performed the story.

There was a rude lady who sat next to River and asked him to quit coughing.  He had cleared his throat a few times, but I hadn't even noticed, it was so quiet.  In fact, I could
hear the dancers clear their throats more than River.  When she asked him, I switched places with him.  She whispered "thank you" to me
and I wanted to tell her that I did it for him, not her.  Instead, I said, "he can't help it".  Something that bugged me even more
was that she was repeatedly taking pictures, with her flash, which was disruptive to all of the other viewers, not to mention the dancers.  It just blows my mind how
self centered people are. "Don't annoy me with your health issue, but I will annoy you with my need to get the perfect picture."
I had taken pics the whole time but did it without flash, as to not disrupt anyone.  A bit later, I realized that she had
her phone on the ground, recording audio, which is probably why she didn't want him coughing.  I was recording audio as well,
and wasn't bothered by him or anyone else.  Anyway, the passive-aggressive part of me got the best of me and I found myself dragging my feet across
the gravel to deliberately cause background noise on her audio (she couldn't tell because it was far from her ears, but I am pretty certain that it could be heard on the recording)

Anyway, besides the rude lady, the dance was a wonderful experience and it was very nice to go up there with Made.

When we got back, mom and I skyped Mandolin and Uchenna and then I fell asleep at about 9:00!


Tuesday
I woke up at 5:00am wide awake.  I took a bath and called Southwest again about the bag left in LA.  (I had called on Friday night and left a message, but they never called back).  I was lucky because when I called,
it was the end of their day on Monday.  They said that they only keep the bags 5 days and then send them to headquarters.  They had our bag marked to be sent the next day!  I priced around having
it sent to Bali, but it would cost 350-600 dollars and so we decided to pick it up on our way back home.  Until then, they said that it could wait in LA now that we called.
While talking to Southwest, I was sitting on the edge of the tub.  While still talking, I slipped and fell back into the full tub.  I didn't want to hit my head or drop my phone and for some reason,
my biggest concern was that I didn't want the Southwest lady to know that I was calling from the bath!  So, to break my fall, I gripped the side of the tub tightly with my legs and it slowed my fall
quite a bit.  Unfortunately, the outside of the tub is covered with sideways stones about the size of a good skipping stone and so when I grabbed with my legs, it dug in deep.  I now have two matching
bruises that look like an inch thick horizontal line, just below my knees.  For some reason, I have a ton of other bruises as well.  Some, I believe, are from the first massage as they look like the size of fingers.
I am starting to look like a victim of abuse, or perhaps just very clumsy.

After my call and fall, I went out to this open sitting area with two yoga gazebos that overlooked the river and rice fields.  I sat for a few moments and stretched and then went back by the pool.  I did a little more work and then
went back upstairs and read a little.  I woke Mat when breakfast came at about 9 and we all sat together and had another great breakfast.

We all planned to go into town and had arranged for a pickup a while after breakfast.  As the time approached, mom bailed, choosing to instead hang out by the pool finishing dolls she had made and brought
to give as gifts.  River, having the opportunity to stay at the house now, jumped on it and so it was just Mat and I.

Our driver gave us a ride to the Monkey forest and gave us tips for interacting with monkeys.  He didn't charge us for the ride, which was super sweet!  We plan to use him primarily, but I feel a little bad
because I know Made wants us to use his driver, which will be someone new since Made Junior is gone.

Anyway, Mat and I didn't pay to go in, instead we first walked around the nearby area, where there are many stores.

For some reason, the items displayed in the picture below were being sold everywhere.  And no, they aren't something else that resembles what you are thinking.  They are actually replicas of what they look like.  Some have bottle openers on them, some are keychains, some are stand-alone.

One of the hotels or stores was named after my dear friend!

We then walked through the edge of the monkey forest on this little side-path made for walking or motor bikes.

Once we got in a ways, we could stop and watch monkeys.

There was a family with new babies that were extremely adorable,
particularly  because they were clumsy.  They would nurse, then wander off and eat a piece of fruit from the ground, then try to climb
a 1in thick piece of bamboo, fall off, then go nurse again.

We also saw "teenage" monkeys wrestling, which was pretty cute as well.
We had hidden anything that a monkey may want to steal, as we were warned that they would take sunglasses or other loose items.
Mat had forgotten to hide a 4in bouncy ball that he had tethered to his belt and held in his hand.  It looked kind of like an orange
and he got an aggressive monkey starting to follow him eyeing the ball.  Mat stomped and yelled "no" and he ran off!

Our goal for going to town was to collect info about spas as Mat and I plan to have a "spa day" very soon where we will spend the whole day getting every spa treatment that we want.
We picked up probably 20 fliers and took pics of a few more.  Most have 1 hour massages for around 100k (7 bucks) and some as low as 60k.
Sometime soon, we will go through all the fliers and decide where to go!

One of the staff at our house, Esty, had been home sick for a few days.  We all adored her, particularly mom.  She had come and sat with mom before and just talked and talked with her and mom thinks of her like a grand-daughter (since she has only boy grand-children)
Anyway, Esty had been sick and Made said that he was going to bring her money for her pay and would we like to go with him and cheer her up.  We wanted to, so at the end of our day in town, Made brought mom and River and picked us up
and brought us over there.  When we arrived, she was surprised and said that he had told her he was coming alone.  She said something to him in Bahasa and fake-punched him in the stomach.  It wasn't
that she didn't want us, just that he had fooled her.  Apparently, they had talked while in the car and she had asked who was talking in the background and he had said "oh, it is just the radio".

We sat with her on her porch, and visited for about an hour.  We brought toys for the neighborhood kids and they took them, timid at first but within a bit they were playing catch with us and fighting each other over the toy truck.

We met her mother, father, sister and brother, although she had the best english.  Made translated back and forth so that we could all be in the same conversation.  I felt bad for the mom, because
she was at the rice field the first half of our visit and arrives home sweaty, ready to rest, and there are 4 Americans sitting on her stoop!  But she never showed anything but graciousness.

Made is very fond of River and often has his arm around him, holds his hands, and gives him advice about how to behave "smile when you meet someone or they will think that you are mean!".  River likes Made as well and lets
him tease him.  While at Esty's house, Made insisted that River tell him which girl from the dance the night before was the cutest and tried to teach him how to say "I love you" in Bahasa.  We were looking
at a picture on my phone that we had taken with the girls from the dance and Made said "why is your arm around your grandma, why not put it around this girl!".  River was blushing, but tolerating the teasing.

We came back to the house, but just before we got back, Made stopped and bought us a treat.  It was battered and fried potato and banana slices.  Kind of like Tempura but a little different.  They were amazing!  We couldn't stop
eating them and before we knew it we had emptied the bag (it was a large bag of maybe 15 pieces, the size of small pieces of battered fish.  He told us that the whole bag was only 10k which is like 70 cents!  We will be getting those
anytime we pass that store, or any other that might sell them.  They were called godoh and I would have taken a picture if we hadn't eaten them so fast.

Upon arriving back, we went for a swim and then had dinner.

After dinner, Made junior came by to say goodbye and now are settled back in our rooms for the evening.  

I did a bit of work and am now finishing up the blog.

Until tomorrow!  (or the next day)