OK rain, you can stop now. It was impressive but now I'm done. The storm carried on all night and raged into the next day. At first light (about 530 on the north coast), I could see that the sea had turned brown and muddy from the earth being pushed off the mountains by the heavy rain. Later that day Made said that it was unusually heavy rain, even for the rainy season and some of her friends up the coast had been flooded out. We were worrying about a bit of water getting in to the living room! Finally a break in the weather and we hit the pool with the kids. Afterwards D remembers the kite he was given for Christmas and desperately wants to fly it on the beach. Incredibly with all the rain theer is barely any wind and our attempts are fairly futile although the site of D running up and down the beach dragging a kite behind him was quite cute. And boy, he didn't give up either. He eventually got it into the air for a few seconds and was as pleased as punch with himself! Then the intrepid boys (me and D) 'discovered' a coconut on the shore. Fascinated, D was desperate to take it back to the villa. I was less enthused but caved in eventually. Out came the trusty old Leatherman and I hacked away at the husk until a little voice next to me said "daddy, what's that smell". The smell was of putrid old coconut sullied by seawater and now, frankly, making me want to vomit! As I hoiked it seawards the little voice turned into tears, "my coconut!". Ah, bless him.
Then the rain came back and the rest of the day was spent inside mainly watching
Polar Express. Thank goodness for the massive amount of not entirely legal DVDs that were in the house. We sat through a fair few that day.Can't get the kids down to sleep on account of them having too many hours sleep during the day (entirely our own making then). Finally when peace was restored we had that Beef Rendang we'd been dreaming about since last night. Superb!
Happily it didn't rain all night so we were up at 630 (a veritable lie in) with a spring in our step. So it started raining again just to put us in our place! It finally stopped long enough for D to have another go at kite flying, this time with more success even though there was still no wind. The technique must be improving. Rain back again. The kids get showered outside in the rain (seems a bit pointless but they enjoy it). More daytime sleep and mum and dad have fresh made spring rolls and Rose wine for lunch. Loverly!
Next day (Monday), there is no rain! In fact there is blue sky, sun even. We are in the tropics after all! As arranged the previous day, Putu picks us up and takes us to
Bukti, his home village, where he has lived since he was born. Literally a five minute drive and the kids, as well as us, are very happy to be out of the house. It's warm by now and we walk up towards Putu's family's homestead, a fruit farm.
They supply the village (of a few hundred people) and also take some to market. A very simple and effective way to live. His family are lovely and dad is very smiley. I think they are happy that there son is making a success of himself (even though he won't be taking on the farm later in life). D at this point is bored and only perks up when it's suggested we feed the cows. Can't drag him away. Z wants to have a go too but is little apprehensive (understandably)! They very kindly give us papaya and pineapple to take home with us. Made later makes scrumptious sweet and sour using some of the pineapple. The rest is scoffed whilst hanging out at the pool. A much more pleasant experience now that the rain has ceased!
The evening brings an explosion of
lace-wings that go nuts for the lighting. The fly around the lights in an insect cloud for about half an hour and then just as quickly as they appeared, they disappear. We, of course are inside watching this natural phenomenon, drinking some of the various spirits that have travelled with us from duty free. Rum and pineapple, mmmmmmmm.
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