Getting to know Bali, getting to know about Bali

It started out so beautifully- day 1. I stepped onto my balcony and saw several swallows dancing over the rice fields, scooping up the local bug population. To my left I saw hundreds of bees pollinating a tree. They were huge- long and black with a pink/orangish “tail”. Wow that sounds so wrong!
Had an incredibly large breakfast, got picked up by the bike tour people, drove to an amazing view of a volcano -and had another breakfast!
We finally rode our bikes for many miles through the beautiful villages and rice paddies where tourists rarely go. The local little children would come running out of whatever compound they were in and waved and sang ” Hello!” their faces beaming with delight. I have never seen such beautiful happy kids.
The rice fields are stunning and the people working them are all so happy and hard working. We learned all about making rice. White rice is harvested 3 times a year, the brown 2,
It was all going so well, until I grabbed my front brake too hard and the bike stopped but I did not. I sailed over it and landed hard on both hands, -spraining both wrists! Oh boy did it hurt. I couldn’t change gears after awhile so I had to pack it in.
We were taken to the bike owners compound where we were served a fantastic lunch. I iced my wrists which were becoming increasingly painful.
Went swimming after we got back to hotel. Nice pool!
Met up with Janaki and Dennyse and headed out to the Jazz cafe where they had a live band that did not play jazz! They were more of an R & B/rock group with a Balinese Janis Joplin wannabe lead singer who made extremely painful faces while singing. God bless her.
Dennyse mentioned I was a singer and so after 3 watered down martinis (damn that Islamist government!) I wound up singing At Last. The band didn’t quite know how to play the bridge section, but the joy of having 3 martinis was that I just kept singing and didn’t really care that they weren’t exactly with me. The audience loved it and begged for more. I wisely left them that way.
My wrists are sore, my thighs are bruised and I won’t be doing a downward dog for awhile.
Can’t wait for day 2!!!!

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