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| Notice the buffalo in the back of this photo when we carefully strolled along the road where Tom had his buffalo experience. |
“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”
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| Misty morning with river and sea views. |
First, we would like to send our love and prayers for people experiencing the wrath of Hurricane Matthew. We’ve heard from several friends in Florida and hope that they along with millions of others in many locations in Matthew’s path, stay safe along with their families, friends and homes.
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| A new home in the neighborhood. |
Yesterday, we spotted numerous online stories of the inconvenience experienced by cruise passengers when their cruise was diverted to New York (instead of the Caribbean) as a result of the hurricane.
Many passengers tweeted about their frustrations when they ended up in New York without warm clothes and shoes. Certainly, we appreciate the inconvenience and disappointment in discovering their cruise has changed or been canceled, as has been the case, for many US eastern seaboard, Caribbean sailings scheduled over many days.
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| When we encounter gates such as this, our curiosity tempts us to explore what lies beyond. Respect for the owner’s privacy prevents us from further exploration. |
The cruise lines have been working hard to find ways in which to compensate their passengers and many have offered reasonable compensatory packages. But, human nature prevails and many are irate.
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| Another property protected with a gate to discourage the curious. |
Instead, we think of all the citizens of the many countries, islands, cities and states who’ve lost and will continue to lose much more than a cruise vacation. They run the risk of losing their lives when millions are unable to evacuate while making every effort to protect themselves and their loves ones.
I suppose it’s all relative. It’s easy to feel frustrated when plans change beyond our control and we’re left to the decisions of others to determine our next step. We have no doubt those passengers would have chosen their personal safety over so many days of sunbathing or shopping on a tropical island.
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| This path was particularly tempting, but we didn’t go beyond the opened gate. |
Not intending to be facetious in regard to the irate passengers, long ago we decided that regardless of any inconveniences, we’d always choose safety and well being over possible annoyances.
We’ve been left waiting in less-than-safe airports for hours at a time when flights had been delayed or canceled. We’ve experienced outrageous inconveniences going through security at various airports. We’ve encountered the endless power (and subsequent Wi-Fi) outages (including an outage only a few days ago).
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| Many of these types of gates are kept locked. |
We’ve had countless everyday items confiscated at security checkpoints, items difficult to replace in the upcoming location. Oh, we could go on and on. As frustrating as such situations may be at the time, we’ve always tried to remind ourselves that safety comes first. In doing so, we find ourselves diffusing some of the frustrations able to continue on with an alternate plan.
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| A food cart on the highway attracted several children after school. |
Inconveniences? Ah, they go with the territory. Traveling the world is wrought with frequent surprises we could never anticipate regardless of how prepared we may think we may be. We’re prone to check and recheck before each travel period and arriving at each new property.
Were we provided with a map and/or directions to find the property when many aren’t available in online maps? We spent hours in the middle of the night trying to find the property in Madeira when our map wasn’t as specific as it could have been. Lesson learned.
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| Bridge over a river. |
Is there a way for us to enter the property once we arrive? Is bottled water available upon entry if tap water is considered unsafe to drink? Is the Wi-Fi user name and password readily available? Is the power turned on? Who do we contact in an emergency? It goes on and on.
We have no doubt any of the residents in the path of Hurricane Matthew would gladly trade places with the cruise passengers as they board up their homes and determine where, when, how and if they’ll escape the wrath of this massive storm.
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| Many markets such as this are found in every village. |
Inconvenience, we can handle. Loss of safety and well being is an entirely different matter. We pray for their safety.
May your day be safe.
Photo from one year ago today, October 7, 2015:
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| Badal, the neighbor Sewak’s dog, stopped by each night while we were having dinner in Fiji. We give him something good to eat, usually whatever meat we’d prepared for dinner. For more details, please click here. |