Bali Vacation - Nusa Dua

We spent the last three days of our Bali trip relaxing and resorting in Nusa Dua. Jacob busied himself with ping pong and pool basketball and some of the kids club activities. We all enjoyed the very calm white sand beach, the shaded pools, and the great flowers that were everywhere. It was terrific togetherness time.

Thursday was Nyepi. According the the information given out by the hotel, "Nyepi is a day of total silence and meditation in Bali. Hindues are expected to stay at home and abstain from turning on lights, cooking fires, working, or travelling." While life as usual goes in in the resort, you cannot leave or swim in the ocean. So we were kind of prisoners in the hotel (You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave . . .) No problem at all (except the hotel restaurants were really crowded!).

At kids club, they had some special activities where Lauren got to dress up as a Balinese dancer. (She was taught to form the "dancing hands" by one of the hotel workers). Jacob opted out. He spent the whole week in a bathing suit and that swimming shirt (which he refers to as his "topping.")

We did venture out of our resort and into the village on two of the nights, getting to enjoy some of the great local food and exceedingly cheap drinks.

On our last night, Friday night, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge village-wide celebration complete with banging clanging bell music (all Balinese music seems to have banging clanging bells), costumed dancers, and dragons. The whole town was there. And us. Its always so much fun to randomly run into local events like these.

This last shot is from back at the hotel, where we returned after the festival to kill time until our very late-at-night flight home. The hotel had its own dinner and dancing extravaganza. (We felt like we got the more authentic version down in the village!). It is a picture from behind the stage of a Balinese dancer.

And that about does it for our week in Bali. Great family trip.