20-28 September 2010
“It looks like its letting up” Nick repeats for the 3rd or maybe 10th time today. It has been raining for almost three days and Nick is pacing from balcony to balcony, across the beautiful hardwood floors of our glass enclosed room overlooking the Sidemen Valley. I am comfortably reading my 13th book of the trip under a batik quilt, reveling at the novelty of being chilly, and peeking out from time to time to enjoy the view through the open sliding glass doors that comprise two of the four walls of our room. Being marooned here in this villa, tucked serenely in the Sidemen Valley, couldn’t be more relaxing for me or more frustrating for Nick. While I contemplate taking yet another bath in our giant black stone bathtub, Nick exclaims that he must go on a walk before dinner. I accompany him and it actually does not rain for a full thirty minutes, allowing us to enjoy the indescribably green landscape of the now misty and soggy countryside.
After a night of lightning and thunder, we awoke to clearing skies and great expectations for a day outdoors. After breakfast, we put on our running shoes and hit the road for a long run across the rolling green valley. On this and other runs during our stay, we ran up and down hills, through small villages, encountered many friendly children, drying peanuts and cloves, an impromptu roadside cock fight, eight year olds riding motorbikes, disinterested dogs, and a rain swollen river. In the afternoons it usually rained and as such we read, ate lunch, napped, did yoga, waited for the clouds to clear for a good view of Gunung Agung, took additional walks, and used the internet while drinking banana lassi’s. We originally planned to stay here three days, three turned to six, six turned into nine. We love this valley.
The next few days were spent doing much of the same. We soaked up the bright green calm of the terraced rice fields. I repeatedly tried and failed to count the number of terraces visible from our balcony-there are just too many. The intermittent bursts of thunder became almost comical as they repeatedly caused me to scream or for Nick to literally restrain me from jumping out of bed in the middle of the night (some of you may be familiar with my easy to scare nature). One day, in between rain storms, we climbed innumerable slick-as-ice stairs up a nearby ridge to visit a beautiful spire-like temple visible from the valley floor below. After our exhausting hike, we made it back to Sawah Indah (our hotel) just as the rain started to fall, fat raindrops threatened to soak us in the seconds it took to climb the stairs to our patio entrance.
On September 23rd, we walked the perimeter of the valley (the first of many such walks) and in the process were able to enjoy the preparations and processions of the bi-annual full moon festival to honor temple guards. We saw young girls and women dressed in lace and batik sarongs, balancing tall pyramids of fruit, beautiful flower arrangements, mirrors, and rattan-woven baskets on their heads while they headed in and out of temples. Later that day, one of the biggest rains in our 28 year old hotel managers memory bulleted through the valley, resulting in landslides and roads sloughing off the hillsides. We watched from our terrace as the neighboring farmers braved the rain and cleared out the drainage systems that keep their terraces from flooding over and sliding down the steep incline. It was likely the hardest sustained (three hours or more) rain Nick and I had ever witnessed. Ah, the tropics!
On another day, we purchased beautiful handmade tiles (about $0.80 apiece) from the same tile maker who makes the beautiful tiles that cover the floors and bathrooms at Sawah Indah. Nick kept me about my senses as I considered buying enough tiles to fill an imaginary kitchen floor in a home we do not own. Talk about the potential for buyer’s remorse.
In the evenings, we drank beer, and arak cocktails, watched the sunset, and anticipated the rain as it moved across the valley. We learned the joys of watching it head straight for us, a million pin pricks in each of the hundreds of terraced rice fields. Watching weather arrive is a strangely fulfilling experience when you have nowhere to go and nothing to do.
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