Wandering Browns

Gamelan! Yay! Our last night in Bali, we hired a babysitter and went out for dinner at the hotel. Every night, they have a Balinese night market, giant buffet, and cultural performance. Typically it is held outside in this cool terraced area at the hotel, but since it was off-and-on raining all afternoon, it was moved to the Watercourt restaurant. Because we have been living at Hyatt hotels instead of a house this year, we were presented with special butterfly VIP pins and were shown to a very comfortable cushioned booth right in the middle to best view the stage area. The buffet spread was overwhelming! There was a ton of meat, which made Austin very happy, but also a good array of salads, including the traditional Indonesian salad Gado-Gado with peanut sauce, of which I ate way too much. There were different rice and noodle dishes as well and potatoes, which I had not eaten in quite a long time! Austin liked having pork, since that is hard to find on Java, and I enjoyed eating...

Eating leaves in the beginning of the play I have always liked elephants. They are one of just a few animals that start with the letter, E, like my name. When the convenient (and free if you book tickets online) shuttle picked us up from our hotel, little did we know that we would discover what we quickly dubbed, "The Disneyland phenomenon." When you go out of your way to do something over the top and super awesome for your kids, they must reciprocate by throwing numerous fits and trying to make the day as miserable as possible. I chalk some of our troubles to not having adequate snacks. I usually have nuts, granola bars, crackers and dried fruit for go-to day trip snacks. These were confiscated at the gate of the park, which was infuriating! I understand them wanting to make money on food, and not wanting people to feed the animals, but I like to keep my child happy with snacks. All they had at the park were weird flavored potato chips, traditional Indonesian food bei...

The stage prior to the performance After walking around the temple, it was time to go to one of the main reasons we came to this temple specifically- the Kecak dance performance. Kecak is a very interesting form of chanting/singing that involves about 50 bare-chested men in checkered skirts. Balinese music is all very multi-textural so they chant the word “cak” at different rhythms and times in order to create a very interesting sound and enough rhythm with which to dance. I just thought we would be seeing the kecak noise makers dance around in formation, but what we ended up seeing was a version of the Ramayana which is a traditional Hindu story about the gods Rama and Sita. Rama and Sita are in love and Rama sees a deer and goes after it to hunt it, leaving Sita in the forest by herself. She is captured by the evil Ravana and taken away. Rama realizes this and enlists the monkey king and his white monkey servant with magical powers to save Sita. Sita is saved and Ravana is kill...

Pictures of Animals! Almost as good as the real thing! On our last day in Bali, we ventured out to Bali Safari and Marine Park. It was our latest pick-up thus far for excursions outside Nusa Dua, so it was a welcome day for a little sleeping in. Because we booked our safari online, we received free shuttle service to the park, which is totally worth it for those in Nusa Dua. Our driver was ready to take us home afterwards as well, so it worked out really well. Our day started on a sour note once we arrived at the park. We exchanged our vouchers for wristbands and then we were going through a bag check prior to entering the park, when the security lady took away ALL OF OUR WATER AND SNACKS. Except for Landon's sippy cup. We were like, "Wait a second, those are for our young, snack-eating child." She explained that no outside food and water are allowed, and that we could purchase snacks inside. Only baby food was allowed. That sucked because we never know when Land...