Bali Calling

Yes, it’s me again, your Bali correspondent.  I was so hoping to share amazing pictures of a volcano and a market and a temple, but alas, I cannot do so.  Why not, you ask?  Because we haven’t seen any of that stuff yet.  For yet another day, we did not leave this spot.

I know it is a bad reflection on us and shows a total lack of cultural curiosity, but so far all we have done is read and sleep and play in the surf.  As of this afternoon, my daughter  has read Bossypants and half of The Spellman Files.  I have read Wild (a memoir of a woman who tackles the Pacific Crest Trail with boots that are too small and a pack that is too big) and most of my daughter’s copy of Bossypants (Tina Fey’s hilarious story of her successful career on NBC. I am so thankful that Mlle Cordon-Bleu turned me onto Thirty Rock before I read it.)  Even my husband has gotten into the reading thing.  So far, my Bali trip can serve as the platform for several book reviews but no real source of information about this lovely island.  I’m so sorry to be disappointing you.  Here is what I’ve got.

How can you really expect me to leave my beach bed when they bring me things like this?

I can report that the Balinese people I have met have been ever so nice, and more earnest than any people I can remember meeting.  It’s like they really CARE how your dinner was, or your beer, or whatever.  This guy works in the lobby bar at our hotel, and he is very interested in learning “our language”.  By “our language” he means French (but he calls it “France’s”) , because we told him we are living in Paris.  He asked us how to say several things (all of them pretty basic, thank God) and he actually wrote them down for future reference.  If he only knew how funny that was to us for so many reasons.

So I can’t tell you much about Bali as a culture or an island, but I can tell you that the beach here at my hotel is lovely, the water is warm, the drinks are cool, and the waiters are precious.

Check back tomorrow or the next day for more deep insights into this island called Bali.