Nice shot of Wayan walking early in the morning. He is taking some time to process this place. Kind of neat watching him come to terms with it, and see what he's interested in. 

Another shot of Wayan drawing on the path to Ubud. Nice cool breezes on the ridge, plenty of lizards to spot.

Entering Ubud, we see a ghost town. This is the low season, but no tourists are around because of the October bombing at Jimburan. I’ve never seen it so empty, but on the bright side there are few men offering “taxi”. We see some prominent new construction, fancy storefronts that look out of place, but on the other hand we see some very run down buildings that were fancy new stores when we were here in 2000. The new building next to Casa Luna is still under construction. 

Wayan has been busy, mostly staring at all the new plants, finding leaves, flowers, squished frogs, and other interesting bits on the ground to carry around and show me. He seems taken by the forest here though. Several times he’s mentioned how much he likes it, and how he wants to go hiking in it.

Here he's off with Eric to do some drawing. 

We took off down the ridge to Ubud. Nice views, but there is lots of new construction across the Ayung, near the Neka museum. In the center of the grasslands we meet a rice farmer selling fresh young coconuts. He slices one open and rigs it with a spout for easy drinking, the kids love it. When the water is gone he slices it open and shares out the meat. The kids munch all the way down to Ubud. The trail ends at a temple and a small cement bridge across the woos, past a school and up to the main road out of ubud, just to the left of the entrance to Ibah (a very nice and very expensive hotel >$250/night). 

Niels likes the little-boy section of the pool, also known as “Bali”. 

Another early morning walk. Niels is convinced that there are "long necks" - dinosaurs, down in the forest. Here they are waiting to see if one will show itself. 

Next morning everyone is up early, ready for a pre-breakfast walk. We’re situated on a beautiful ridge, with views of the surrounding forest and rice paddies.

Niels has been a terror with his water wings, he takes turns swimming across the pool to the three singarajas that spit water. They’re named “Shaw Island”, “Beaux Arts” and “Seattle.” The three stools at the pool bar are “Dire Wolf Island”, “Harry Potter Island”, and “Dragon Island”. 

Niels doesn’t make it to Kokos, and is layed in bed even before we check in. He’s out for the night. Wayan is eager to try out the swimming pool. A nice swim after a long flight.

Wayan is getting good at swimming, including breaststroke and swimming underwater. He still can’t grab the Frisbee from the floor of the pool, but he does touch it. 

Arrive in Bali, just about the first off the plane, first through passport. While waiting for our bags Niels takes off with Julia in hot pursuit. He heads through customs and into the garden area he’d spotted on they way from the plane.

Grabbed the bags, out into the greeting area and are met by Ketut who drives us straight to KlubKokos. KlubKokos is situated about a mile uphill from Ubud on a ridge surrounded by tree-filled gullies and rice paddies. Very quiet and nice.

As you follow the road south from Kokos the ridge narrows and becomes steep, and the road ends after about 200 meters with a pave-stone path. The path follows the crest of the ridge through tall grass, with terrific views down both the ayung and woos valleys.

Point is that Kokos is only about 0.5 mile from the Champuan bridge, but about a 5 mile drive since the road must go around the steep gullies. Kokos is on the ridge, but surrounded by rice paddies, the water is carefully channeled down the ridge and distributed to fields. The routing looks pretty sophisticated, I’ve seen men checking meters several times, I wonder how the water allocation works, do you think there is plenty to go around, especially during the rainy season? Or is like the American west? 

No need to ask about our next seats, they are adjacent. We board early again to find, again, we’ve been give the bulkhead seats, and are again subject to many envious stares.

In this photo we see Eric enjoying the responsibility of an actual metal knife. I wonder if they restrict abrasives on the plane, otherwise that knife could be made into a deadly weapon!

This plane is an airbus and has individual screens, each seat has individual control of the movie that plays. Wayan and Niels each watch “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, I watch “The Island”, a movie about clones secretly and illegally grown in an ex-military base in the American desert. Grown why? They are clones of rich clients, and harvested for their healthy body parts. Of course they are kept in the dark as to why, given a story about the Earth being contaminated. The Island is a myth used to give folks hope, if they win the lottery they are shipped off to the last uncontaminated spot on earth, to start their life anew in paradise. Of course, winning the lottery means their patron is calling the organ loan due, and they’re going to be killed for their organs. I enjoyed it. 

We quickly find our gate and the kids spend the next 45 minutes watching airplanes take off and land, and the luggage trains/service vehicles driving past. 

In Taipei the kids are ready to run, we experience a moving walkway. Some time is spent running in place. Also soliciting smiles from the girls in the duty free stores. 

Niels wakes about 20minutes before we’re due to land in Taipei. 

Finally boarding is announced, we stagger forward to the gate to a throng of pushy Chinese, burly businessman in swishy silk suits, old women with tied bales over their shoulders, all are pushing, ready to storm the plane to claim the overhead, fill it with their assorted goods. Julia does a good job of staggering, looking overwhelmed by her sleeping infant while I carry all the bags and hold Wayan’s hand. Wayan is wide awake and very well behaved.

Again an Eva rep waves us through, “boarding for first class and families with children”, sweet, again we skip the line. On the plane we take a few steps and find our seat. Yes… El-Dorado! The treasured bulkhead is ours! No wonder the rep had to double-check our tickets.

Kids situate and are buckled, promptly fall asleep. 

Arrive back with Wayan, I lay him on the cart. Eva tells us we’re in luck that they have 4 adjacent seats. Too bad, I was looking forward to putting Wayan and Niels together in the back of the plane, getting some good sleep.

We hurry to security, they close at midnight, but arrive 2 minutes late, they are closing and won’t let us through, direct us to the main security entrance which is 120meters away. A rather long walk for Julia who is carrying Niels.

At Security we are separated from our cart. Who knows, maybe Al Qaeda is putting box cutters in the carts? Immediately on the other side of security are lots of closed duty free shops, wondering what sort of weapons could be constructed from those materials. Broken glass wrapped with tape? Scissors? 2 inch pocket knife? Bah.

Wayan and I leave Julia and Niels at security with the bags, off to look for another cart. We find a collection of them about 100meters from security, but they cost another $1.50 in change that we don’t have. We walk back to give Julia the unhappy news.

Lo! There is an electric cart idling at security, I ask what it takes to get a ride. The guy says “hop in” and drives us 200meters back to the escalator that leads to our gate. Wow, that was fortunate, and better than a cart. Wayan loved riding on it. Escalator leads to underground train, we sit in front and zoom through the tunnels to our gate.

We arrive at the gate at 12:30am, so look forward to a 2.5 hour wait. Niels is situated on the floor under the comfy airport seats with my jacket as a pillow. Time passes.

The Eva rep that found us the adjacent seats comes by, asks to see our tickets, checks to be sure that our original seats were not adjacent. Says something like “I want to be sure, I don’t want to get in trouble.” 

In the airport

Lots of heavy bags, Dad gave us money to purchase a cart so we wouldn’t have the sweat the bags through the line to checkin.

Julia went inside with the first load of bags, and Niels over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, I followed with the remaining bags, with the intention of returning to the explorer for a sleeping Wayan.

I arrive at the cart with the bags, and Julia is met by an Eva representative and escorted to the empty first class line “because you have infant.” Sweet, no waiting in line then. The lady needs to see all ticketholders, so I run back out and get Wayan. Meanwhile, Eva will check to see if they can find 4 adjacent seats for us… 

The final pile of stuff, waiting to be loaded into grandpa's car. 

Warming up. 

 

Grandchildren and the "Sherrif." 

Wayan and Niels at the pass. 

Niels in his new snow boots, ready to go to the pass with the grandparents. 

Wayan has adopted the backpack I used travelling as a kid. Here we see it full of books and cars, all set to go. 

Photo of our current pile of crap

Ag, its growing. 

Grandpa and Niels

Grandpa and Niels played this little piggy, this was a nice shot. Tomorrow he's taking the boys up to the pass so they can get some snow-time in before over-heating in the tropics.