Day 271: Morning Trek for Teddy — Kids Return to Play
We all slept badly last night. Villa Idanna relies on fans and screen windows and mosquito nets at night, which ideally provides an outdoorsy, breezy tropical paradise sleeping situation. The reality is that it’s ten degrees hotter inside the mosquito net, and the room is ten degrees hotter than it is outside in the night. And it’s not that cool outside at night here.
You’re just sweating your ass off inside the four poster bed, too scared of critters to crack the net.
I could just hear my dad, who insists on cold temps and some kind of airflow at nighttime, going “I can’t get any AIR in here!!” Hahaha.
Around 5:30 am, once I finally fell into a deep sleep, I was jolted awake by some kind of critter battle royale up in the rafters. The first thuds and thumps sounded like a ferocious beast was body slamming our front door. I honestly thought it was James in a panic trying to get in the room.
Nope, just animals overhead doing god knows what. Neither Willa nor I went back to sleep after that. Probably got five hours of sleep total.
Today was Teddy’s turn to do the steep temple hike, this time with Wayan, another of the guys who works here. Again we waved to each other from afar.
While he was out, I sat and did school with Willa and James.
At one point we heard a loud, “SPLAT!” and when I looked over I saw a dead gecko on the floor that had fallen from the rafters.
Come ON.
Literally the only thing keeping me sane with all these lizards swarming overhead is knowing that they stay in their little territories, and, more important, that they don’t f*cking fall from the ceilings!!
Almost called the whole trip off right there.
The first ant was on the scene in a matter of seconds.
Deep breath.
Around 12:30 we headed out in Nengah’s car to try a third Sideman lunch spot. This time he took us to a restaurant up on a steep hill that had sweeping views of the rice paddies. Another family-run, super chill spot with fresh juice and Indonesian staples.
Indonesian food is simple, but I’ve come to really like it. It’s more like tasty, flavorful comfort food — fried rice or noodles, tomatoes, fish, chicken, lots of herbs, etc.
We haven’t been to any restaurants where the food looked iffy or gross. Even the places where it’s being whipped up on a rusty hot plate in someone’s family kitchen.
There weren’t many (any?) other patrons, but two faded photographs framed on the wall told us that both Mick Jagger AND David Bowie had been here. In 1990 and 2001, respectively.
We hit this little boutique store on the way back to the villa.
The afternoon played out a bit like the others. Tangi came for day three of 90-minute massages for the grownups. (If you had the massage of your lifetime and it cost $15 and you had nothing else to do, wouldn’t YOU repeat it every day that you could??)
Meanwhile the kids were super excited because the playdate local kids came back over and they spent hours drawing, pillow fighting, kicking the ball, pulling each other with jumpropes — both across the smooth tile floors or in the pool — and more. They had a blast until about 6. Our kids then showered for the first time all week.
After a tasty simple chicken dinner, we retired to our separate rooms. Willa spied a baby gecko on the ground of our room and in my attempt to shoo him out the door, drove him further inside and….lost sight of him.
Grrrrr…..this critter situation is SO not my cup of tea….
I tucked the mosquito net into the mattress all the way around and used tape at the headboard. I’m not afraid to admit I did this. I needed to sleep!! It helped with peace of mind a little bit, but we were sweating our asses off all night.
I liked our time here, but the nights were pretty miserable. On to the next thing tomorrow!
