Kota Denpasar

I seem to have settled on 6 AM as my preferred time to wake up.

Much to Bob's chagrin, he did a great job over the years of acclimating me to very cold room temperatures. It seems that as he gets more and more body parts replaced with metal, his tolerance for cold has been greatly diminished. The poor guy has to go sit on our balcony in the mornings just to defrost from a night spent in the meat locker that is our stateroom.

Upon the defrosting of Bob, it was time for breakfast.

After breakfast, I went down to guest services to check on our excursion for tomorrow. In the description, it is unclear if the whole day will be spent in a vintage 4X4 or, if the portion in the 4X4 is only a portion of the day. I was told that we would have the pleasure of spending the entire day in a vehicle not known for its smooth ride or creature comfort (Hmm I am unsure if Bali has any vehicle made to be comfortable for Bob and I). With this information, Bob, being the wise man that he is, tapped out. I asked guest services if I could get a refund because I knew that there was a wait-list. I was told that it was passed the time for cancellation. I knew that Jenni was on the wait-list so I kept the ticket and left a message for her to let me know if she wanted to go on the excursion tomorrow.

Next I headed up to the onboard travel agent to pay for the insurance for our trip to Antarctica.

Finally, we gathered our daypacks and headed out to our bus for today's excursion which is to the Rice Terraces and the City of Ubud.

We walked by the ATM truck and decided that we needed more Indonesian currency. Bob took out his wallet and his ATM card was nowhere to be found. He asked one of the Viking Representatives who he should speak to about his lost ATM card. The Viking Representative contacted Port Security gentleman who said the he would contact the person in charge of the mobile ATM.

Bob and I proceeded to our bus. We had only been in the bus for 5 minutes when the Port Security officer came onboard and said the the gentleman with the ATM security has his card and all Bob needed to do was bring identification. Bob jumped off the bus and I followed. Bob was able to retrieve his ATM card and showed his gratitude by promptly getting more money from the ATM and giving the gentleman who had his ATM card a generous gratuity.

After that bit of excitement, we got back on the bus and began our trip to the rice terraces. As a side note, we chose not to sit side by side. Luckily, there were extra seats on the bus.

We traveled past miles and miles of shops selling what looked like to be the same merchandise. We wondered who would buy all this stuff. The Balinese seem to be too poor to buy all this merchandise and most of the items were simply to large for tourists to take home.

After many hours on the bus in the crazy Balinese traffic, we arrived at the Rice Terraces. The Rice Terraces were beautiful but they were cheapened, if you will, by having swings, zip lines and bikes on wires stretched across them for tourists to ride. It came across as a cheap version of Disneyland. We would have rather seen rice terraces in a village setting.

We spent a short time view the rice terraces before we continued to the town of Ubud.

We began our time in Ubud with a visit to a Balinese art museum. We did not find the art very compelling. In fact, we believe that the visit to the art museum was designed less as an art exhibition and more because it was a convenient place to park the buses in the busy city of Ubud.

We left the museum and began walking towards the markets. Bob wanted to go to the open air market. I wanted to go to the covered market because I had heard stories of huge rats in the main market. I wanted to experience where the Balinese shopped, rats and all. In the end, Bob's choice won out. We had only made it a few stalls into the market when the heavens opened up. And I mean, they opened up! I have never seen it rain so hard!

One of our favorite memories of the 2019 World Cruise was shopping in the Rocks in Sydney in a total downpour. So Bob believed this was our chance to recreate that memory in Bali. I attempted to be a good sport. I threw on a plastic rain poncho and tried to soldier on. My choice of attire for the day was a long pink sundress made of a lightweight cotton. This dress was a very good choice for the heat of Bali. It is not the best choice for a torrential downpour! The rain poncho was not long enough to cover my dress. Consequently, I found myself floundering through ankle deep water in a dress that was soaked through and clinging to me like saran wrap. The water was also wicking up under my poncho, soaking every inch of me. Every three feet, I would have to stop and wring out my dress. Bob continue to encourage me to continue. When the street started flowing and rapids began forming, I cried uncle. (I can't say that I threw in the towel because, right then, I would have sold a kidney for a towel).

Bob had mercy and we cautious made our way back to the bus wading through deep water. I was cringing because my mind was thinking with all the filth that I have seen in Bali ...what type of diseases were we being exposed to in this water???

We got to the bus. The bus driver met us at the door to the bus with an umbrella. I thought really? There is absolutely not an inch of me that is dry!

I might add that the pictures do not due the amount of rainfall justice. We had to put away our phones for fear of them getting ruined from all the rain.

There were not many people on the bus. And there was a rear entrance to the bus that had a few steps and no windows. Luckily, we had purchased a dress in the market so I told Bob to hand me the dress. He gave it to me and I stepped down into the stairwell and discretely changed my dress. I had also packed a pink scarf so I threw that over my shoulders and voila, I was dry again.

The moral to this story is that we now have another "Market in The Rain" story.

When we made it back to the ship, I immediately jumped in the shower. Now just praying that we were not exposed to any diseases in the water we were wading through. A trip to the covered market to view the rats may have been safer!Read more