Indonesia

SANY0096

SANY0091

We decided to go rafting and chose a company that would take kids from 5 which was Bali View.

We got picked up at 8.30 in the morning and drove to the drop off zone which is on the way to Kintamini.

The raft was great and our guide was excellent. Hayden was a little scared of the bumping bits so he controlled the raft and we did not turn over or got too wet.

We had to listen to his instructions and when he said boom boom we had to lie low as we were about to hit something, down would be when we were about to go under a very low bamboo bridge and we had to just duck, paddle was obviously when we could paddle (let me tell you that it was not too strenuous as the guide was pretty much doing it all).

We saw some nice waterfalls, some great gorges, and the water was grade II and III no where near what Frank did in the USA but we felt close to him at that stage 

We also went down a 4 metres drop which was pretty cool… highly recommended as again you can see Bali from a totally different angle…

After Isabelle and Xavier left to the airport we made our way to Medewi where I thought I could introduce the kids to surfing… The place is 100km away from Ubud and it took us 3 hours .. The road is dreadful from Tabanan as you join the road that all trucks take to go from Denpasar to Java… busy, smelly and just crazy!

Medewi is basically a surf spot so not much to do but surf.. the beach is dangerous so no swimming there. We did 2 days of surfing with an instructor each and 1 day body boarding which was fun.

Teo managed to stay up quite a few times actually so one more things on the list of things to explore a little deaper back in UK (even though no so easy as here….)..Hayden was just too small so he did body board on the surf board. He was just too light and would have flown over the board.

The instructors were great there was one for each of us and another one to oversee all activities. I think it was good and I felt safe.

We had no wifi so I found a very nice hotel in Medewi which was spa and all and we went every day after surfing or body boarding to play in the pool, have lunch and talk to Frankie… Great way to be able to keep kids entertained and still benefit from all modern facilities without paying a shilling.

We also made the most of Ubud and got our dose of dance shows … we did 4. They all take 1 hour and they all cost between 75000 to 100000 a seat.

Kecak is the fire dance… this is when a man in trance dances around a fire and walks on it .. impressive for the kids as there is no instruments but a chorus of about 100 men… You can also go to a women Kecak.

Wayang Kulit which is the shadow puppet show is not great as you cannot understand anything of the story asit is narrated in Balisese. So even though you get a leaflet explaining what it is all about this was my least favourite show and I would not recommend it.

Barong dance represent the fight between Barong a kind creature hald lion half dog and Rangda a bitter widow witch. She is evil and he is the good. One of my favourite show with a monkey that eats fleas and plays tricks on Barong… Very entertaining and funny…

Legong dance is more a dance show that any of the others. The dancers are young girls beautifully dressed who dance with their hands and eyes on the sound of gamelan. Again one of my favourite show.

The next thing we did was the mountain bike ride from Kintamini to Ubud…

This was again very nice however as we were with kids we had only 15 minutes of off road … in the rice fields but it was great. This is how I realised that there would be a cremation in Tampaskiring the following day !

Again we got picked up in the morning at 8.30 from the hotel and taken to Kintamini for breakfast (fried banana and tea). We then got kitted out with helmets and bikes.

We had an issue with Hayden bike so I thought we would have to cancel as his pedals were turning but that did not turn the wheels.

Anyway we managed to get a new bike and off we went… we stopped at a traditional Balinese house which was producing pigs… and we went through tiny villages and saw lots of rice paddies and people collecting he rice.

Very interesting indeed….

We went to the Puri Lukisan Museum on the high street and found out that they did some craft classes so we looked at the choice and the kids were keen to do masks so we booked and came back the next day to do them.

The artist was a local artist and we paid 300000 each mask… I was a little worried about the quality and hoped that for that price we would get some decent masks and as it turns out they were very good, wooden masks not just plastic.

The painting took 4 hours with the artist advising the kids on colours and touching up their work as they went along to actually give a great finished product… as you can see.

This was a worthwile activity and the kids really enjoyed it ..The guy we used is Wayan (+62 081 999 242 702 or +62 085 739 963 972, [email protected])