Monkey Forest

We’re staying in Uluwatu in the southwestern region of Bali.  A long time family friend and co-worker, Gary Clisby, told me he had a friend with a place in Bali, so he put us in contact with, Tim, who is letting us stay in an amazing place called Villa MacBeth, which is right on the cliff above the Uluwatu surf break. Eliana (Tim’s girlfriend) was even nice enough to pick us up at the airport!  Thank goodness she did as the driving in Bali is absolute madness.  They are supposed drive on the left side of the road, which after being in Australia was easy to adjust to, however there are so many motorbikes zigging in and out of traffic and people here just drive in whatever space is open…which includes on sidewalks if there happens to be one.  Eliana explained Bali’s crazy driving as “the rules here are there are no rules, drive in the middle of the road and use your horn a lot”.

Thanks to Tim and Eliana for being great hosts!  We had dinner with them the first night at this cute Warung, YeYe’s. It was great because over dinner and a couple glasses of wine we were able to pick their brains about what to do in Bali.  The food has been awesome as well! Just about every eating place is called a Warung, which simply means of small family owned business, often a casual, usually outdoor restaurant.

If you’re coming to Bali definitely inquire about renting Villa MacBeth as its an fabulous place to stay. It’s very spacious with four bedrooms each with its own bathroom. A high pitched roof in traditional Balinese style with doors that open all the way for indoor/outdoor living, which opens to a deck with a private pool with a beautiful view of Uluwatu and you can here the waves crashing as you lounge in the hammock.

We are loving it here!  Everyone has been so friendly and happy. We are also really looking forward to this weekend when we get to spend time with the kids from the orphanage.  They are in school Monday thru Saturday so this Sunday the 15th and the following Sunday the 22nd we’ll get to spend all day with two different groups of kids!

We absolutely loved flying Thai Air, plus it didn’t hurt that the flight was uncrowded so we each had 3 seats to ourselves.  Each seat had its own TV screen with several movies to choose from as well as video games.  Rana enjoyed playing the old school original Super Mario Bros.  The seats also had foot rests and would recline back more than usual, as well as slide out while reclining which made it very comfortable even if you didn’t have 3 seats to sprawl out on.

As we boarded the plane all of the flight attendants greeted us by bowing their heads with their hands in prayer position and they were all wearing different beautiful silk Thai outfits in bright colors.  Soon after take off they came down the aisle with carts of full sized bottles of alcohol and poured stiff drinks for free!  As soon as I finished my 1st cocktail they came by and promptly offered me another one.  Even the food was great!  When we landed in Bangkok airport I almost didn’t want to get off the plane.

Saturday, March 7th, at Duranbah Beach, Gold Coast, Australia

We had a blast at the all day music festival at Duranbah Beach, where the Quiksilver Pro was held.  There were some great bands!

Download the free Quiksilver Pro Soundtrack at: www.getmusic.com.au/quiksilverpro

Today my dad got inducted into The Australian Walk of Fame at Tweed Heads, NSW.  He along with Mick Fanning, Stephanie Gilmore and Phyllis O’Donnell got stars on the walk of fame (on the sidewalk opposite the Twin Towns Services Club) bringing together three generations of world surfing champions.  Phyllis O’Donnell won the first ever world championship in women’s surfing in 1964, at the age of twenty-seven.  My father, Peter Townend, won the 1976 world championship.

Trying to pack for a trip like this is not easy.  How to limit the items, the weight and manage to fit it all in a rather small backpack that you’ll be living out of for the next five months is quite a challenge.  Especially when it comes to shoes.  Thankfully the guys at Sanuk solved our footwear crisis and totally hooked us up with some amazing sandals and sidewalk surfers!  They are all super lightweight and pack really well. 

Plus they are so comfortable!!!  I’m loving the Ibiza and the Yoga Mat. Sherri’s favorite so far the sidewalk surfer’s in this really cute print. I have the open back sidewalk surfer’s in the same print…perfect for airports when you have to take your shoes off to go through security and great for just cruising around town.

Jeff Kelley you are the best!  Thanks so much to you and all the crew over at Sanuk!

We finally arrived at the Gold Coast of Coolangatta late this afternoon.  We quickly unloaded the bags, returned the rental car and walked down to the beach at Snapper Rocks for a nice swim in the warm, beautiful, blue ocean.  Followed by a lovely dinner at my favorite Malaysian restaurant Little Malaya…we were full and tired as we walked back to the unit.

However the neighbors were all hanging outside (the apartment is in this great little complex with only 9 units and its always full of young, cool people) drinking beers so we joined them for a cold one.   We proceeded to tell them our spider in the car story which gave everyone a good laugh.  As we were turning in for the night I went to my room and thought I saw something on the ceiling above my bed…a flick of the light confirmed it, there was a big Huntsman spider in my room!!!  Ok, it was not as big as the one in the car, but it was still huge…bigger than any spider you ever see in California. I spun around and ran to the front door convincing 3 of the neighbor boys to come in and get it.  Check out the video.

The bummer is he is still in the room somewhere, he crawled in a hole behind the bed…hopefully never to be seen again, I hope. We stuffed the hole with tissue and I spray it every night before bed with spider spray…can’t believe we experienced two huge Huntsman spiders in the same day!!!

xo, Rana

Note to self: Keep all bags completely zipped up at all times so no creepy crawling critters can get in!

We woke up really early while it was still dark out to hike to the top of the huge cliff in Crescent Head and watch the sunrise over the ocean.  It was gorgeous! 

We packed up our car and hit the road…while driving out of town we saw about 15 kangaroos in the football fields and pulled over to take pics.  After many photos we jumped back in the car and we were just about to pull out onto the road, when I looked up and saw a huge 4″ Huntsman spider crawling up the inside of my car door.   Needless to say I started screaming, Loyann stopped the car and we all jumped out of the car screaming and doing the spider dance.  Luckily a man about 50 yards up the road heard and saw us, so he came to our rescue and calmly got the spider onto a towel and let him go back into the grass.  Thank goodness he did, as there was no way any of us were going to do it, as we all suffer from arachnophobia.  I think we gave our rescuer a good laugh…as I’m sure he’ll be telling his friends the story of the 3 American girls that were chased out of their car by a Huntsman spider.

We’re still not exactly sure how he got in the car…it’s possible he crawled into one of our bags and tried to hitch a ride to the Gold Coast with us!