April 8- Bali Belly

On April 8, Jessie and I had our second day of private touring.  Unfortunately, Nyoman Gede wasn’t able to guide us, so he sent his cousin Komang instead.  He was very nice and soon we were driving along and looking at the beauty of Bali. 

Earlier that morning, I had noticed my stomach was feeling a bit off, but I had been looking forward to this touring for so long, I decided to just let it go and hope it resolved itself over the course of the day.

Komang began our trip at around 10am and our first stop was to a local art gallery that sold beautiful paintings.  There were artists there who were making the paintings and looking at them was amazing.  Their attention to detail and the intricacies of the work was just outstanding.  Jessie and I were both amazed at the beauty of the work.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to afford any of it, but looking was nice.

After the wood carvings we were on our way to see one of Bali’s beautiful lake temples.  Bali has 4 main lakes and wherever there is a lake, there must be a temple.  The drive to get there took about three hours…. Three LONG hours.  During that time, I realized that my stomach pain wasn’t getting any better; in fact it was getting much worse. 

In my mind, I had decided to get Komang to drop me back off at our homestay and then continue with the tour.  When I learned that the temple was 3 hours away, I realized that this was not possible.  Eventually I told Komang that I must have a touch of food poisioning or something and he was very sympathetic and tried to accommodate me.    

By the time we arrived at the temple, I was in quite a miserable state.  I felt horrible because Jessie and I had been excited about this for such a long time and now I couldn’t muster up enough energy to smile for photos or look amused.  We walked around a bit and the scenery was beautiful.  Eventually I sat down on a bench and told Jessie and Komang to walk around.  While I was sitting in my zone of discomfort, of course a bunch of Koreans come up beside me and start sitting with me and taking pictures.  I was not impressed.

Eventually I met back up with Jessie and Komang and broke the news that I think I’d have to go back to the homestay.  They both understood but I felt terrible about having to end our tour after seeing only 2 sights (it’s supposed to be a 10 day tour). 

The 3 hour drive back was very uncomfortable.  All the while I was going through my head thinking what I could have eaten that made me so sick… I wasn’t sure.  Eventually we made it back to the homestay and I spent the rest of the day and all that night in bed.  This is one of the downsides to travelling in a foreign country. 

The next day we were supposed to have another 10 hour tour, but I cancelled that because I still felt quite unwell.  It was our last day in Ubud, so Jessie and I hired a taxi to take us to our next destination in Bali, which was the town of Kuta.  We were staying in the Bali Kuta Resort, which was such an upgrade from Nick’s Homestay.  Our room was clean, airconditioned and modern.  The only thing we found out later was that there weren’t any lights in the room… Just a lamp with a subtle golden glow.  This made reading impossible.   I went down to the front desk to complain, and they looked at me like I was slightly crazy for thinking that a light is a necessity…. There are some things in Asia that I just don’t understand.