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| Distant shot of oil tanker out to sea. Good zoom photo, Tom Lyman! |
“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”
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| The river next door is often used for washing motorbikes. |
The morning started weird. Awake at 4:00 am, I was unable to return to sleep no matter how hard I tried. With today, September 21st in the US (the 22nd here), it is our eldest grandson Nik’s 16th birthday and our youngest granddaughter Madighan’s 7th birthday.
Why not get up early and call to wish them both happy birthday? It was late afternoon in the US and a good time to call.
We couldn’t reach Nik but had a chance to speak to daughter-in-law Camille, son Greg and the three kids, including wishing Madighan a happy birthday.
We always send US gifts for the six grandchildren for birthdays, special occasions and Christmas, none of which are ever purchased from countries we’re visiting. Why suffer the inconvenience of an impossible international return?
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| Guide and one Ketut put everything in the villa back in order. |
After almost two hours on Skype using our Nevada phone number which allows us to call other phones that aren’t on Skype, mission accomplished. As always, it’s wonderful talking to family. Hopefully, soon we’ll reach Nik but, then again, most 16 year old boys don’t necessarily care to spend a lot of phone time with the old grandparents.
To start making the phone calls, I quietly wandered out the bedroom door, laptop in hand and almost, and I mean almost, slipped on the floor somehow righting myself just in time to avoid hitting the floor. That was all I needed, falling again and re-injuring the part that only recently has begun to heal a little.
In Phuket last month, the water dispenser leaked overnight, spilling all the contents of a new 5 liter bottle and I did fall smack on the marble floors, reversing my progress by many weeks.
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| Some of the digital equipment that became wet during the water leakage. The yellow items are decorative pieces. Luckily, our HDMI cord survived. |
Marble floors are extremely hazardous when covered with water. We don’t recommend them where the risk of injury is high regardless of one’s age or propensity for falling. It’s not that I’m particularly clumsy though stuff happens. Tom is always reminding me to watch where I’m going instead of looking for photo ops. I’m working on it.
The entire main floor and second level were covered in water. I knew I needed to awaken Tom to see how bad the situation really was. At 5:00 am, we were calling Gede to let him know we had an emergency. Tom had gone upstairs to the second story which we don’t use at all, to discover what was going on. Water covered the floors upstairs and was running down the steps in a relatively rapid flow.
Gede arrived within 10 minutes of our call. As it turned out, the hot water tank’s pipe broke (the hot water heater is on the roof) and the only way to stop the flow was to shut off the water to the entire villa. It’s now close to 11 am and it appears we won’t have water for most of the day while every effort is being made to get the repairs made as quickly as “island time” allows.
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| This space is where the flat screen TV was located. It’s now been removed after getting soaked as the water ran down the wall from the above stairs. Gede explained that homeowner’s insurance in Bali doesn’t cover such occurrences. |
Unfortunately, the water ran down the wall over the entire flat screen TV and sound system in the living room which we use nightly, connecting our laptops with an HDMI cord in order to watch our favorite shows and Minnesota Vikings games. Gede assured us all of the equipment will be working again by the time we return from Lovina next Friday, after our four day stay upcoming on Monday.
Luckily, no one was injured in the water fiasco. At the moment, all the staff is busy cleaning up the water and putting as much of the villa back in order as possible. They had to move all of the furnishings onto the veranda to dry the floors and the bottom portions of various items.
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| Ribud was washing the stairs after the water flow. |
Gede was very concerned over the inconvenience for us. We weren’t worried at all. If the water can’t be restored by the end of the day, we’ll shower next door at the empty owner’s villa. If necessary, the two Ketuts can cook our dinner next door and we’ll dine there. “No worries,” we assured all of them.
With the reality that none of this is really our responsibility as it would have been in our own home, nor did we have to incur any costs for repairs, it’s easy for us to sit back and patiently wait for everything to be back to normal.
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| Mr. Frog’s nighttime visit. |
Today, newly made friends are arriving at 2:00 pm for a visit. We met them a few days ago while walking the beach. When Thomas (yep, another Tom) stopped by last night to ask when would be a good time for him and wife Pia to stop by we suggested this afternoon as opposed to morning allowing us time to complete today’s post. Thank goodness we hadn’t suggested a morning visit! It’s been kind of busy around here.
For the first time in ages, I have yet to shower and I’m still wearing my long nightshirt while sitting outdoors on a chaise lounge. Today, will be a different day from our usual routine, but we have no apprehension or concerns. It will all work out fine.
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| Mr. Frog contemplates taking the steps. He managed rather well. |
This morning, during the water fiasco Gede helped us with some required paperwork for sponsoring us for the visa extension for Monday’s trip to Lovina where we’ll stay in a hotel for four nights to complete the five day process.
Also, Gede is having a new tire put on the van to prevent us from getting a flat tire on the long road trip when recently it had been repaired, but doesn’t seem quite right.
Otherwise, its a partially sunny day with outrageously high humidity, but we’re as content as we can be especially with our anticipated upcoming social event.
May your day be one of contentment and peace of mind.
Photo from one year ago today, September 22, 2015:
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| We never used this pool in Fiji during our three months stay. It wasn’t as clean as we’d like and there were no chaise lounges or places to sit while drying off. For more details, please click here. |