Sunrise, sunset

Our last few days in Bali have been so fantastic, and our last evening particularly magical. Mostly thanks to these folks:

Our last half of our stay with Michiko we were joined at her house by Natasha and Adrian from Austria. They too are on a long 7 month travel around the globe and are overall delightful humans. As is the special tincture of travel and meeting other travelers, after just a few shared meals, washing dishes side by side and playing games together we felt like we had known them for ages. They are our new dear friends.

They got along swimmingly with the girls and I think Marion (truly all of us) were happy to have new people and faces to share our stories with and hear new ones. But I wager Marion’s bubbling animated story telling and joyful excitement won Tasha’s heart fastest. Their laid back style fit perfectly with ours and allowed us all leisurely trips to the beach to admire hermit crabs (and make them their own special park. Ha!), walking to the night market together (it’s ok Adrian, Marion will help you dash through the four lane traffic!), and teaching each other games at night. We taught Telephone Pictionary (Chinese menu!! Aquarium of fish!) they taught us Pyramid (Roll for those 2s! Grande!!)

We spent T &As last evening taking in the sunset in Kuta: Jimbaran beach, the only stretch Chiko says that is public (not owned by resorts…again so thankful to have Michiko taking us, showing us and driving us to places we certainly would have missed…forgot to even mention her neighbors deep fried scrambled eggs with sweet and sour sauce! Haha side bars…) so it, the beach, was crowded but awesome. Kids and families and tourists all enjoying the waves, soft sand, sort of old lumpia that people were selling from boxes on their heads and snapping pictures of the undeniably gorgeous view. Sadly we didn’t plan very well and didn’t have towels or changes of clothes so had to attempt to keep the girls from getting completely soaked and sandy. It was a partial success. Marion didn’t Mean to get knocked down by a wave and get head to toe drenched. Luckily we had one sarong that could become a dress :). Alys was a champ trying to at least keep her shorts damp not dripping 😂

With inspiration from Tasha and Adrian we spent our last full day making it a true full day: sunrise on the beach on the East coast and sunset on the beach on the west.

So magical spending this time with this family of ours.

During sunrise we found pig-dogs, storks and dragons. Marveled at the rays, the mirror image, quiet beaches, starfish those up early making it clean (raking and sweeping) for the folks to come.

Can you believe we not only got to hang and chat with Chiko while we sipped beers on this beautiful beach, but she then offered to teach us to surf?! She borrowed her friends board, gave me about 4 minutes of instruction and then we were off. Hahaha and thats exactly as it was: i was off, the board! Why is it so hard to remember to put your back foot up first?! Actually it went ok and i could definitely see the draw. Super super fun. she even gave Chad and the girls turns. Chad is a quick study but it may take even him a couple more goes before mastery. Alys was super into it and did great. Marion had gotten slammed a little earlier so she wanted to skip the whole thing so was super proud she went for it anyway. So proud of these girls. So happy i get to see it every day.

So our last night was spent “surfing”, chatting, building sand castles, watching the sun go down, eating dinner at the night market, bringing home toast dessert and playing and singing guitar with Chiko before hitting our pillows tired, happy and thankful.