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Garbage, Rain and Happiness – #11

hello from the island,

where the rainy season is at its fullest and it rains as i have never experienced it before. the noise is so loud that we don’t hear each other, everything is even damper than usually, washing never seems to dry, roof is leaking and the swimming pool is overflowing. some parts of the island were hit by floods and landslides, my kindle went mouldy (can you imagine that?!?) and i have experienced the rare moment of pure bliss while doing my practice on our porch – under the roof but so close to the raging storm i felt part of it.  i love the rain – not sure if that’s due to 8 years in the desert or because i don’t feel guilty doing nothing while the nature is going wild.. apart from the beauty of the rain we are hit by another yearly ‘natural phenomenon’ – garbage season. i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when i saw this sign:

Balinese creativity at its worst

as i have said before, the situation is appalling. all the rubbish thrown into the forests, rivers, by the roads.. usually at least semi-hidden from us all is brought to light – and to the ocean – by the torrents of rain. it ends up at the beaches that are no longer beautiful. sad is not a word to describe it. we humans are such a disaster for this planet. Continue reading “Garbage, Rain and Happiness – #11”

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Under the Smoking Volcano – #10

hello dear friends,
greetings from the island of fuming volcano!
at the very beginning of my ‘newsletter’ let me assure you that we are all fine, only a bit more grey hair in my case (or as one of my family members sweetly put it – i look knackered and grew older 🙂  as much as i’m trying to take it easy, it has been kind of rollercoaster-y here in the last few weeks, lot of good things happening as well as some serious ones, so this email is going to be a bit of a mixture!
Party time

Continue reading “Under the Smoking Volcano – #10”

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Never a Dull Moment – #9

dear friends,
my last update was sent when we just landed back in bali after summer holidays in europe. here we are, 2 months older and wiser (and better looking of course!) – a few things have happened since and are still happening.
have a read or scroll for pics!
we enjoyed our ‘old’ house for the last couple of weeks, making the best of our time there. puppies managed to kill their first and let’s hope last prey (poor chick..), lola went white-water rafting to celebrate her buddy’s birthday, dan enjoyed his new hobby –  dirt motorbiking..
Midlife crisis (-:

Continue reading “Never a Dull Moment – #9”

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Back to Bali – #8

hi friends,

hope you are all well. here i am after couple of silent months with my “little update”. read on or just look at some pics.
we spent our last weeks in bali (may and june) searching for a new house.
last year dan had rented first house he saw – so we were not entirely prepared for the pitfalls of looking for a new place to stay in this particular country. endless hours looking trough various housing web pages, Facebook housing , talking to friends and friends of friends who knew someone whose second cousin was renting his wife place.. ((-; maybe not so much different than looking for a house elsewhere. the string of house visits was a bit exhausting – never entirely sure whether the person was going to show up, whether a place described as “a peaceful haven in the middle of nature” would have a huge construction site on the very edge of property or a hungry python living in the basement, whether (after you look around and really like the place ) they’ll inform you – NO DOGS – even if you told them beforehand you have got 2.. it was also inspiring as we met some cool people we wouldn’t otherwise came across – like Mr. Lawrence Blair who was quite incredible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Blair , if you are into documentaries and would like to see what Indonesia looked like couple of decades ago, check his series Ring of Fire – http://www.indonesianodyssey.co.uk definitely worth watching!
after much searching we finally found what we wanted, agreed on terms with (what seemed to be) our nice new landlord and really felt relieved that the search was over. lulled into complacency we really didn’t expect (silly us..) a call 2 weeks later, informing us that he changed his mind.. no reason given. hm. not to bore you – we managed to find another cool house later and are supposed to move in September. will let you know how that goes ((-;

Continue reading “Back to Bali – #8”

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Bali Bali Bali – #7

good morning dear friends,

recently not much was happening in the calm waters of bali life apart from the usual shockers – like a coconut tree (i’m saying tree, not coconut!!!) falling on our roof and a snake in our bathroom brought in and RELEASED, STILL ALIVE by our cat while i was peacefully brushing my teeth. these things feel kind of ordinary by now (-;

Falling on our heads..

Continue reading “Bali Bali Bali – #7”

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Guests, Trash and Yoga – #6

hello dear friends,

sending you heaps of sunshine from lovely bali. the rainy season is over, snakes are still around (and abound..), puppies have tripled in size (guess what.. we are still fostering..), the biggest butterfly in the world hatched (do butterflies actually hatch?) in our garden, mosquitoes are as annoying as ever but we do not react as much any longer.. anything else i wanted to share? probably yes (-;
Wonders of our garden

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Returns and Perks of Civilisation – #5

hello dear friends and happy new year!!!!
some news – or just scroll down to see a few pics!
last time you heard from us was in mid december – nothing extremely exciting happened since then. do not expect any cobra stories! we visited a beautiful place called sanak in the middle of bali – i can recommend it to everyone visiting bali. and –  on the way home we went to bali tree tops – family rope park. kids and dan do that kind of stuff every time they have an opportunity – but i have somehow managed to stay out of it until now. i either don’t go at all, or i am a photographer.. however this time there was no excuse as dan couldn’t do it due to an injury – i simply had to climb up to the tree tops and take all those zip lines and tarzan jumps and who knows what.. quite an exhilarating experience which i’m not sure i want to repeat anytime soon. anyway – if visiting bali, go for it!
Treetops
Caught in the web

Continue reading “Returns and Perks of Civilisation – #5”

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A Bit of Bali Adventures and Merry Christmas!!! – #4

dearest friends,
hope you are all well!

i was starting to think that perhaps i won’t write any more ‘reports’. when you first move to a new country, everything is interesting, fascinating, strange.. and you are learning so much! you are also unlearning quite a lot (like expecting people to be on time, relying on google maps or shopping for clothes and shoes in this particular case ;-). as the time goes by, things get kind of ordinary and not so exciting any longer. i thought i have reached that point – and didn’t want to bore you!

Cat on the hot tin roof
but..
warning warning! i certainly shouldn’t complain (not even in my mind) that our life is getting boring!!! fairly speedy succession of an earthquake, attack of flying ants, visit of spitting cobra and mysterious deadly smell in the house have all proven me wrong!

Continue reading “A Bit of Bali Adventures and Merry Christmas!!! – #4”

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Little Pieces of Bali Life – #2

hello everyone,
can’t believe it has been 6 weeks since we arrived! we had 5 great (and sometimes rather surprising) weeks in bali and 1 week in gili air – tiny island 1.5 hours away by speed boat.
Gili Paradise
Gili Paradise
so far bali has been pretty good – what a generous place! it’s beautiful and it’s filthy… it’s calm and relaxed and crazy and frustrating at the same time…

Continue reading “Little Pieces of Bali Life – #2”