Windy start to the New Year in Bali

Out with the old, in with the new. That goes for the weather too in some instances, and yesterday in Bali, a storm swept through that cleared the air for us. Down in Kuta, at the Suka Beach on Jl. Benesari, Toby, Maya, Ollie from Oregon and Asia, were hunkering down, while torrentail in lashed the area. I showed up with my cheap, but waterproof helmet and poncho. Lunch was at Warung MAX, just around the corner, which meant just a marginal soaking or my friends. Sitting inside the warung waiting for our food and sipping a caipirinha (one of the 50 great drinks in the world), I told Toby it felt like a Humpfrey Bogart flick, where he’s in some place like Cuba, waiting out the hurricane. Toby has himself lived through a hurricane in Belize, Central America. He told me the house he was in was on stilts, and at one point half the roof came off!

The Kuta Beach area looked like a hurricane has passed through. Palm leaves, offerings, bits of wood etc, were strewn all over the road. Great to see the island get a good dousing, even though it put the dampers on the holiday scene.

Back at the house we discovered another papaya tree had bitten the dust. This one was loaded with young fruit and the top heaviness forced it to snap at mid-level. This tree is the one that Ika pulled down a while ago and refused to die. New shoots came out of the stump, so I’m expecting in a year there will be more life and fruit out of this thing.