The Terrific3 travel blog

We had a grand adventure planned today, and it was grand.

We signed up for an Airbnb tour “from 8-1” that was a cycling tour with Ketut Gun. We were picked up at our hotel at 8 am (even though last night we were told 730am, the host sent me a message right before 7am saying one person in the group had asked to start later. I did tell him that it was no easy task getting 2 kids ready and fed by 730, and I would’ve appreciated some notice. He was apologetic and later gave us chocolates, but I have to say, my sense of timeliness was highly offended that 1 person was able to derail everyone else for essentially what ended up being an hour; in Thailand, or even the US, that person would’ve lost out. But I get that people have a different sense of time here. And….

I would never live here_-it would drive me nuts ;-)) We started with a blessing ceremony at the guide’s family compound. It was amazing to see a Balinese family compound, with a family temple, and living quarters for many members of the family separate but together. Very cool. The ceremony involved placing somewhat sticky piece of dry rice on our foreheads and upper chests.

We enjoyed it.

We then received a bunch of food—Indonesian desserts, fruit etc (but were already stuffed from breakfast so couldn’t enjoy) and fresh coconut water (which the boys disliked and I was so-so about. These were yellow coconuts and I’m much more fond of the kind you find in India.

Next we drove over to the area the bikes were stored, as it poured rain, and I thought, uh-oh, let’s see. But it stopped around the time we started biking.

We biked on country roads and then through rice paddies. It is good we had mountain bikes as the bike paddy roads were rough and some up and down hills. There were a group of 7 adults besides us, but it seemed many were not in great biking shape and we were often going 5mph, which is very slow for all of us. The boys were fighting a lot as they were stuck going slow in the middle of this slow pack of bikers and they wanted to go faster and kept passing each other dangerously and too close. There were 3 guides with us so I asked for the three of us to go to the front and a bit faster and this seemed to help the issue. The bickering before was driving me crazy and not allowing enjoyment of the paddies. The main guide commented on how my kids were doing much better than the adults, and I thought, of course we are adventurous world travelers and triathletes . But what I told him is that we live in Portland, OR, the biking city, and we bike in the streets, and have bike lanes. And he commented on how that is the opposite of Ubud. It is, isn’t it? I would never ride a bike in the main part of Ubud unless I had a death wish!

The rice paddies were gorgeous. We ended at a hotel called the Coffee club, which sat on a plantation and had a gorgeous pool. We had Indonesian lunch- -vegetarian gado gado for me

and Z, and mie goreng (fried noodles) for S (in which I discovered meat and had to send back to recook. S was disgusted but I told him this was a good lesson that he should always check but especially in foreign countries). As usual, S didn’t like his food and Z ate his own and half of S’s.

We then headed to a coffee plantation. We were supposed to bike but the kids understood that they were done with biking so insisted on getting in the car that was following, and I felt I couldn’t or didn’t want to leave them as they are often mischievous or fight in the car. The plantation was fun and we got to taste some coffee and tea.

Getting back to our villa was more complicated than we expected but everything is here. We eventually got back, later than we wanted, as our nanny was to meet us at 2 and was waiting for us.

When we were grid locked in traffic 800 meters away, I told the driver we would just walk the 10 minutes back otherwise it would take him 30 to drive us and I really wanted to make the 3pm yoga class.

Our nanny was amazing with the kids, and I got to walk a mile to and from an amazing 1.5 hour vinyasa flow class through treacherous Ubud sidewalks, which was still somehow more relaxing than parenting 2 wild boys. I got to stop by and get some birthday decorations for tomorrow and some ice cream for today.

Kids are off to bed and then my birthday decoration time begins. S is SO excited about his bday that I’m almost worried he won’t sleep. I really hope he does!