So,

Fun fact #1 about Bali: Every Balinese is given one of four names at birth, depending on the order they were born in. Say you are first to be born, then your name would be Wayan, second Made (mah-deh), third Neomin, and fourth Ketut. After the fourth born, the cycle starts all over again. If someone goes by a different name, it is most likely a nickname or they are from another island. I've met many Wayans, Mades, Neomins and Ketuts. It gets a bit confusing after a while for me, but they seem to get along just fine.

After we left our hotel in Legion and on our way to Ubud, we stopped at the Bali Bird Park. I've never seen so many beautiful and colorful birds before. In fact, I saw some birds that I had no idea existed. The majority of the park is open and the birds just hang out, fly about. We even got to hold some of them.
Ubud is much more appealing than Kuta and Legion. There are less tourists tromping around, more rain forest and rice fields. It is a very peaceful place and the perfect location for a villa. Felice's villa is so beautiful. It is set directly in the middle of rice fields. The dining room table on the front porch looks out over the rice fields. So, you get to enjoy your dinner and a scenic view. Her back yard is lush with tropical plants and (my favorite part) an infinity edged pool. In the northeast corner of the yard is the temple, at which daily offerings are made. Felice rescued a frog from all the construction in the back yard and created it's own little home--we call it the Frog Villa. We also have cecaks (chee-chaks), which are little lizards that crawl arounnd on the ceilings in the evening waiting for the bugs to come out. The bathrooms in the villa only have three walls, leaving them open to the outside. I can't complain, though. I get an amazing view while I'm showering. My favorite part of the bathrooms, is Felice's bathtub. Literally, it is a carved out and polished boulder. This place is like a palace. Felice has hired a couple people as house staff. Kadek is our maid of sorts. She is so petite, quiet and very sweet. She is a five star chef too! We also have a security guard, Dewa, who comes at night to lock up the house and watch it. I still haven't gotten used to the whole house staff thing. It's hard to adjust to having people do almost everything for you.

Fun Fact #2 about Bali: The Balinese only eat with their right hand, because their left is always uncleanly (you wipe/clean with your left). I've found this a bit difficult to adjust to, considering I'm left handed. I find myself cheating at every meal. Otherwise I just look silly (it's harder than you think).

The first night at the villa, Legut (the head of the construction), brought us a traditional Balinese meal. Wrapped in brown paper is rice with small toppings of chilies and meats. There are no utensils involved, so you just eat with your fingers (I ate with my right this time around). At first I was really enjoying the meal. Then my mouth, my lips and my throat started burning uncontrollably! I looked up and I recognized the agony on the faces of the other three. Whatever the rice was mixed with was VERY SPICY! I tried to finish it, but I thought it might burn a hole right through me. We ended up laughing histarically, because of our reaction to the food. The next morning we followed Felice on her usual morning walk into downtown. She took us through the monkey forest, where hundreds of monkeys were just hanging around, picking at each other and chasing the tourists. My favorite were the babies, clinging to their mamas. I felt like we were in the Wizard of Oz, following the yellowbrick road to the kingdom of Oz. We spent the rest of the day downtown, shopping and spaing. I was given a spice bath. Basically, the woman rubbed me down with the roots of different spices and wrapped me up like a mummy to marinate. I waited for about 20 minutes while the spices heated up. It actually got really hot, but was very relaxing.The next couple of days, we barely left the villa. You don't really need to. In Bali, doing nothing is possibly the best thing to do with your time. In fact, time hardly exists here. One evening, Felice dressed us in traditional Balinese wear--a sarong, plain shirt and sash around the waist--and took us to a Kechak dance (dance of the frogs). The chorus consisted of a large group of village men, with flowers in their hair, sitting in a circle and chanting. Different characters came out from the temple to dance, dressed in very detailed and vibrant costumes. When the dance was finished, all of the women--still made up and beautiful--hopped on their motorbikes and went home.

Another morning, we were all eating breakfast at a little cafe and the book Eat Pray Love came up, which is a book I read previously to coming to Bali. It is about a woman who spends four months in three different countries for three different reasons. Her last stop is Bali. In the book she stays in Ubud and describes all the different characters she meets there. Anyway, Felice mentioned that the healer described in the book actually ran the shop right up the street from where we were eating. I thought that was very cool, but was surprised when Felice insisted on taking us to see her right after our meal. We ended up spending the entire day with Wayan the Healer and her crew of mini healers. She spent some time "reading" each of us (including palm readings), to decide the remedies we needed to keep healthy. I don't want to lay out what she said about me in this email, but if your curious ask me when I get back. She eventually took us upstairs, where we were rubbed down with beetle leaf and given our first dose of medicine (herbs really). Then we were given long massages with hands and heated limes. During this whole experience, I met Wayan's daughter, Titu, whom is mentioned in the book. She is a very beautiful little girl. Despite my beliefs about some of the things we had done, the day was an experience I have never had and will probably never have again.

Then next day, we went on an Elephant Safari and whitewater rafting. We rode elephants for about 45 minutes through the jungle, which was a very bumpy experience. Our elephant played the harmonica. My favorite part was feeding them. They know you have food, so their trunks just search you up and down. We got to feed the babies too, who were much less disciplined and smothered us. They'll get the food, even if it's in your mouth. After we finished with our elephant friends, we walked down 400 concrete steps from the top of the gorge to the Ayung River at the bottom (Ayung means beautiful in Bahasa). There we met Neomin, who would be or river guide for the day. Rafting through the jungle was phenomenal. I felt like I was Indiana Jones or something. We saw tropical birds and stone carving son the walls that weren't covered with lush vegetation. We swam a little too and stood under waterfalls. When the trip was over, we had to walk up the hill 200 steps. On our way home, Wayan picked us up some Arak, which is the Balinese form of moonshine. Interestingly, it comes only in plastic bags, not bottles. Felice invited her friends Rex, Catherine and Sandi over--three very cool cats--and we had an Arak Attack party (no pun intended). We had some great conversations but Meg, Katie and I pooped out before the adults (around 9...Selena, you would be so ashamed).

The following day was our July 5th, but July 4th in the U.S. So, we had to celebrate somehow. We couldn't find any sparklers, so we decided to try something Felice had been raving about--ear candles. What are ear candles? Well, basically you lay on one side and the lady lights what looks like a really skinny ice cream cone made of some kind of hide. Then she sticks the non lit end in your ear and you wait while it burns down towards your head. Meanwhile, it sounds like fireworks in your head, crackling and popping. Afterward, they unwrapped each of our ear candles and let us gawk at the wax that came out of them. Sandi had the most. Quite an original Independence Day celebration, I'd say.

A few days later we left again for the Melasti in Legion, because Felice was flying out. The evening before she left, we had a farewell dinner and group bonding on the beach.Felice spent the majority of her last day at the spa, while we swam in the ocean and laid on the beach. Rex and Catherine drove up with Legut to have a drink with us and drive Felice to the airport. Now it's just the three of us monkeys left here in Bali. We went out to experience Kuta's night life again and had a great time and made lots of friends. Our night may have ended around 5 or 6 am. The next day, we lay on the beach in recovery and then went boogieboarding in the huge waves. Something I can do! That night we went out one last time, before we had to leave in the morning. Though it was fun, we ran into a lot of uncomfortable situations.

On our way back to the villa, Wayan took us to the zoo. At first I was annoyed that I was paying $20 to go to a zoo, but I soon found out it was money well spent. All of the animals were very close, and moving about. I saw lions and tigers and bears! I also saw a black leopard (which looks like a jaguar with faint spots) and a GIANT orangutan, who spit at everyone. Rightly so, I think. I wouldn't be happy locked up in there, either. The crocodiles were enormous! We actually got to hold a baby croc.

The next couple days were spent recuperating from lack of sleep at the villa. One night, we found the key to the motorbike parked in the garage and braved the Bali highways. Katie speaks Vespa, so she was pretty well versed with the motorbike. I trusted her enough to drive us to a jazz bar, where we listened to Bali jazz all night. One of the traditional instruments is the gamelan, which looks sort of like a marimba and is played with something resembling a hammer. The gamelan in this band was a very nice touch. Overall, the band was very impressive.

The last couple of days we spent at very peaceful resort in Pemuteran, a coastal town in northeast Bali. On our way, we stopped in Lovina to see if we could swim with dolphins. We hadn't even gotten out of the car, when a flock of locals surrounded us trying to sell us this and that. The dolphin thing was a miss and we decided just to head to our hotel. The sand on the beach in Pemuteran is created by volcanic rock and is black. Mixed in the sand is all kinds of broken off coral. The water is turquoise blue. Our first night, we hiked up a small mountain behind the hotel. We reached the temple at the top and watched the sunset. From the top, we could see miles and miles of Bali's valleys and the volcanoes on the island of Java. That hike is probably one of my favorite parts of this trip so far. The next day, we had a boat take us out to the reefs so we could snorkel. While our first adventure snorkeling was amazing, this time was phenomenal. The water was crystal clear and the life on the reef was so colorful. However, I started to notice that every now and then I would get a twinge of pain somewhere on my body--kind of like a bee sting. Come to find out, there were tons of tiny jellies floating all around me and stinging me. I noticed they were getting the other girls as well. Nonetheless, snorkeling at those reefs was unbelievable. We basically spent our time at Pemuteran on the beach, relaxing. Our last morning, Katie left to go horseback riding through the jungle and on the beach, and Meg and I went snorkeling again. This time we went just of the beach. I forgot to mention that Indonesia heads the world's reef restoration projects and the largest, most productive one was right off our beach in Pemuteran. Reefs everywhere have been deteriorating and bleaching due to human activity, pollution, dynomite, global warming and other reasons. In Pemuteran, a non-profit has placed metal structures where the reef is dying that are hooked up to a low voltage cable. This structure releases energy, which attracts the coral and gives them more energy to live. Of course, this attracts all the species that live in and off of the coral. Like I said, this is the largest and most productive reef restoration project in the world, and it survives solely on donations. It has no funding. Pretty impressive I think. Anyway, Meg and I wanted to check out these structures, so we snorkeled again right off the beach. It was very cool to see them in action, but the jellies were worse in this part and we were being stung left and right. So, we got out pretty quickly.

Now, I am back at the villa with about a week to go and more adventures in store. Sorry about the rambling. It's late and I am tired. I hope home is happy (or wherever you are) and I miss you all!

Love Meg

P.S. One more fun fact about Bali: the elite class here are called the Kok. Fitting?