SE Asia - Jimbaran, Bali - 1

Bali, Day 6, January 14

Jimbaran Bay, Bali, Indonesia

The heavy rain showers that started last night continued most of the morning. It was still raining heavily when we left for a walking tour of the market at 7:00 am. The market is for the locals to buy their daily food and some other goods. From the market we walked to the beach and back to the hotel for breakfast.

The heavy rains continued all morning so it was a good thing this was a day at leisure. It did put a damper on my plans to put on my swimsuit and lay out near the beach, however. Most of us hung out in the lobby/bar area, where there was free wifi, catching up on correspondence.

By noon the rain had stopped so Paul, Erika and I walked south to the Inter Continental Hotel to have a delicious lunch. Eventually we took a cab back to the hotel to get ready for the evening activity.

At 4:00 we left to drive toward the southern part of the island to attend a performance of the Kecak Ramayanan & Fire Dance. The small outdoor arena overlooked the Indian Ocean where we hoped to see a pretty sunset, but there were too many clouds. The dancers were mostly men who chanted the story (which was spelled out for us on a handout). It was very interesting and the main characters had on elaborate costumes.

Following the show and a 45 min. drive back to the hotel, a number of us joined our guide at an OAT approved local Chinese restaurant where we had their special rice dish. It was then just a short walk back to the hotel.

Hopefully tomorrow will be dryer as we have a city tour. The only good thing about the rain was that it cooled everything down a lot.

That's it for now. Grace and Paul