Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

Li Tsun's homepage

Atom RSS for your feed reader

 

Ubud: Lazy morning; Tingklik man; Japanese dinner; police; rain

Daddy and Mommy took a ride through the rice paddy fields surrounding our bungalow this morning. The green terraces look beautiful, especially in the morning sun.

Jay and I spent a lazy morning in the bungalow. Jay finished "The Da Vinci Code" and Mommy made us soup noodle from fishballs and noodles she bought in the market this morning. Daddy and I looked over pictures from our Kenya trip and this trip.

We rode our scooters to the tingklik man in the afternoon. Seven years ago the tingklik man taught Jay and me to play the tingklik, a traditional Balinese instrument that looks like a bamboo xylophone. The tingklik man's family hasn't changed much in seven years, except that the newborn grandchildren are now seven years old. The sons and wives look the same. We took lots of pictures of the family so that we can give them the pictures tomorrow on a CD.

We played a tingklik song with Made, the second son, but I think Made was more interested in playing guitar and drums. He remembered that Jay and I played "Tears in Heaven" for him seven years ago! He showed me his studio where he has a drum set, two electric guitars, a bass, and a microphone. He showed me a video of his band.

The tingklik man's family's main business now seems to be making Native American wood sculptures that they ship to Alaska. Made showed us how he carves American Indian heads topped with feathers and an eagle. The family carves about four a day and I think they get US$10 for each. The heads probably sell in Alaska for US$200.

Daddy and I ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We had nabeyaki udon, soba, capuccino ice cream, beer, and eda mame for US$12. That's about five times the price of two masakan padang dinners. The food was tasty. The noodles could have passed for entrees at a Japanese restaurant in the States.

On our way home, the police stopped Daddy and me and asked for our driver licenses. I was sure that they would ask for a bribe but they didn't. One officer asked my dad for his license and another asked for mine. I told the officer who approached me that my license was at Nyoman Sandi's bungalow. In the meantime, Daddy showed his license to the "boss" officer and the boss waved us both through. We'll carry our licenses tomorrow.

I'm sure the locals are loving the rain that's falling right now. Ubud has had a drought recently and it shows in the rice paddy fields. Many that we've passed are brown or light green instead of the healthy deep green. A couple locals have said that this is the first rain in two or three months.

We're paying US$20 a night for our private bungalow at Nyoman Sandi's. We get two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen in the middle of rice paddy fields.

posted by Li at 4:12 AM