Bali, Indonesia Day 3

Since I knew that today would be a long day and that I may or may not get lunch ashore, I had breakfast with Dale and Jenni.

Jenni had agreed to take Bob's place on our excursion today on the Vintage 4X4 which was titled: Soul of Bali by Vintage 4x4. So I met her in the hallway at 7:45 AM. We made our way ashore and met Henry and Krystal where we get our excursion assignments.

It was confirmed that we would be traveling the entire 8.5 hours on what appears to be an unairconditioned vintage (1970's era) land-rover.

Jenni and I crawled (and I mean literally crawled) to the rear seats which were less than a foot and a half high so Brenda's knees were elevated to about her shoulder level. Henry and Krystal sat in the middle seats, the guide and driver were in the front seats.

Once everyone had crammed themselves into their assigned vehicles we were off.

We had all the windows open but it was so hot! Our clothing was completely wet from us sweating so much. I think that this was the hottest I have ever been.

We drove through the Capital city of Denpasar. It is evident that more care is taken to remove trash in this city but I am still amazed by the volume of trash everywhere.

At the edge of the city, traffic came to a complete standstill as a funeral procession was occurring. We were able to get out of our 4X4 and observe the procession.

Back on the road again, we began to get into more rural areas. Here we saw farmers working in rice fields, cattle, pigs, and large chicken 'hotels' that smelled to high heaven.

Today's rice fields were so much more interesting to me because we were seeing local people in their everyday lives working their land.

We stopped at a farmer's family compound. It was very primitive but had a huge area dedicated to their shrine. We were shown how they prepared offerings. In addition, they offered us coffee and a small snack. I declined both.

Next we proceeded to a temple that was 1000 years old. The natural setting was beautiful. Jenni and I opted not to participate in the gifting of offerings. Instead, we observed all the different plants on the temple grounds.

Finally, it was time for lunch. We were escorted on a path with moss covered stepping stones through a bamboo forest to an open air restaurant. We had an amazing lunch.

As we were finishing lunch, it started to rain. I thought yesterday's rainstorm was impressive. It was nothing compared to today's. We tried to wait out the storm but were told that we had to go. So we donned our rain ponchos and began braving our mountain path. The moss covered stepping stones were now very slippery. As we continued, it rained harder until the path became a stream bed. We were walking in ankle deep water.

By the time we got to the vehicles, there were deep puddles in the parking area. My white tennis shoes were totally mud encrusted.

We hauled our dripping bodies back into the 4x4.

The windows in the 4x4 were completely fogged up. I handed our guide one of my cooling clothes to use to wipe down the windows. The windows in the vehicle were all closed due to the rain. But, what do you know, it was semi-cool in the 4x4. I asked if it had air-conditioning. I was told yes. I then asked why we didn't use it before. I was told that it was company policy not to use it since not all vehicles had it. I said that this was ridiculous!

While driving through the rainstorm, the sunroof began leaking a steady stream of water all over Krystal and Henry, I took out another cooling cloth and they stuffed it in the crack of the sunroof.

The ride home was fairly uneventful now that the air-conditioning was on and the leaks stopped.Read more