I’ve landed in paradise! It’s budget paradise, but still paradise to me!

Our poolside fountain art - the man and women are classic Balinese figures used to decorate many entrances (and poolsides, I guess).

We’ve moved into a hybrid family compound/villa. The Balinese traditionally live together — a village within a village – where uncles, fathers, brothers, husbands, and nephews sit around playing cards while aunts, mothers, sisters, wives, and nieces chat in communal work areas. The “streets” inside the encompassing wall are filled with activity as people come and go, children totter from one house to the next, and chickens cluck their way from building to building.

We don’t have chickens, aunts, uncles, nieces, or nephews, but Puri Duwur Abing still has the communal atmosphere of a traditional compound — with just enough privacy.

Does it feel safe to get on a motorbike with a woman half my size? No, it does not. Is it safe to cruise mindlessly down a sidewalk in Bali? No, it is not. But I would find myself engaged in both of these activities while on a quest for an apartment in Ubud, Bali — a gorgeous Indonesian island of international fame.

I don’t know how we fit so much fun into so little time! Here are the highlights from the final days of my parent’s visit to Bali:

Plantation Princess in the warehouse - the strips are bound into blocks of equal quality rubber (5 grades), then shipped for further processing.

We set out one afternoon, not knowing we’d end up on a fascinating, last-minute, happenstance plantation tour. I’d gotten a local to tell us where the government management office was. We showed up late in the day, played charades with a few security men who didn’t speak English, and wandered around the office grounds. We were about to take off when a man in a Panama hat drove up on a motorbike. Not only did he speak English, but he was the plantation tourism director! To our delight, he agreed to clock back in in spite it being after-hours.

A quick summary, to orient non-regular readers:

Starting in October 2010, Pat and I spent a year in New Zealand, two months in the Philippines, and a month-and-a-half in mainland SE Asia (Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia). My parents’ mystical calendar-of-things-that-shall-be decreed that they spend Christmas 2011 with me. Schedules and finances demanded that we move Christmas to the following March. I told them to pick someplace in SE Asia. As a result, we spent a week housed at Medewi Bay Retreat exploring the island of Bali, Indonesia!

So besides survive a flash flood, what else did we do? Tons.