#863 Saturday 16 March

After the plane landed last night the terminal was amazingly busy.  I think there were at least three planes all landing at the same time.  When I got to VOA purchase there were lloooonnnngggg queues for all counters and .... at the rate the lines were moving ..... I could see that it was going to take at least an hour or more just to get to passports ... let alone going home!

Abort .... abort  .... yes I'll have express VOA thankyou!  ...... Zoom through passports and out to baggage. (wave to all the people waiting in the queues!)   Sanggar was already collecting the bags and we were soon out the door! Phew!

Sanggar and I arrived at the villa at 12:30am to find that we had been locked out! The front door has a bolt in addition to the deadlock .... and Zoe had bolted the door. Fortunately I have more than one way to enter and I foiled her attempt to give us an uncomfortable night .... Bad Zoe!!! :-)

7:30am  It's raining.  Made told me that there were big rains for 4 hours yesterday so it looks like this is a wet March. Apart from being a bit cooler, it feels like January.

Night:  The day had been full of maintenance and villa business matters .... so late afternoon we all went out to celebrate Zoe's birthday.  We went over to Uluatu to see a Kecak dance.  This is performed in an open theater approached along  spectacular cliffs. I did a rough estimate of the audience .... well over 1,000 I think.

Zoe and Sanggar







The dance is performed without any instrumental background .... instead 60 men were chanting!

Listen .....

[video to be added]

The dance has a long story but it was well played ..... and had some very funny parts! The actors used a lot of audience participation.  I couldn't help wondering what Kaylia would have made of it all.








Bali added to the show with a beautiful sunset.




After the dance we stopped at a spot that Made chose ... Mak Jo .... a seafood warung.  It was very good.  We had a special "candle" so we could sing happy birthday for Zoe.