The villa we're in is a few kms north of the centre of town and is surrounded by working rice fields. The villa itself is mostly open air - ie. there are no walls closing off the living areas from outside, so the view of the rice fields and trees beyond it is uninterrupted and the sounds of the birds, crickets, frogs, geckos flow straight in. It's nighttime now and in addition to us, the villa is housing geckos in every room - mostly the tiny ones, although there are one or two large geckos, the size of... Well it's a hard size to describe. Say the size of a packet of fettucine. No, that's really not working as a description. About this size:
Thats not my hand btw and our geckos are cuter, but you get the idea. Anyway, big enough to give your heart a jump when you walk into a room, esp when you're a paranoid arachnophobe like me. (I shudder even typing the word arachnophobe) But the geckos are both harmless & beautiful.
Most of today was taken up by a long walk through a series of nearby villages. It's so beautiful walking along surrounded by lush greens, walking through a village and past a dozen or so lazy guard dogs - one of which was so hot and lazy, he actually barked himself into a frenzy all while laying down on his side. Seriously, he's barking his little doggy head off from this position and did not move from it at all:
Hilarious and not very intimidating!
Apart from guard dogs, the walk yielded, cats, roosters, baby chicks, ducks, parrots, a cow, a monkey, two squashed frogs and a pig - if you count the babi guling or suckling pig that we ate for lunch in Ubud. Soooooo good!! Between the skin, crackling and deep fried porky bits there is a punishment lurking in the form of a heart attack for this nice Jewish girl, but it was worth it.
The most interactive animal experience of the day (with live animals anyway) was passing by a bunch of kids fishing for teeny feeder fish in an irrigation channel. 3 boys about 8 or 9 y.o. fishing with a net in this little muddy channel of water and balanced carefully on a ledge was a tiny plastic cup full of fish!
No idea what they wanted them for - maybe as pets?? Phil suggested maybe to put in water logged rice paddies... In any case, they were taking the whole enterprise very seriously. One flopped out onto the grass while we were watching them, and I rescued it from the grass, only to (accidentally) drop it back in the muddy waters from whence it came.
These kids were NOT impressed with my fish handling skills - I got a look of death from the biggest kid - it was as though he'd just encountered the world's biggest moron! I had to laugh - a bit of humiliation is probably good for the soul. At least I hope so, since after the walk I realized I developed a tragic sunglasses tan, that looks a bit like this:
Okay, it's not quite that bad...
The plan for tomorrow is to get up at 5.45am and walk to a nearby village to see hundreds of roosting herons fly out of their nesting place at dawn. It's meant to be fairly spectacular. And a bit messy. As you might expect from thousands of newly awoken crapping birds.
- Posted using the wing of a bat and the eye of a squashed newt
Location:Jalan Tirta Tawar,Ubud,Indonesia
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