Curried Rick

Today I was the main ingredient in a curry.

The day started off on kind of a bum note. Yesterday I called my parents. My father has been not doing well. The phone call made me believe he is not going to get better and is only going to get worse. His doctors said they "got him through one holiday" - Thanksgiving and their goal is to get him through the next - Christmas. That doesn't sound very hopeful to me.

So, thinking this might be his last Christmas and for our family, the last time we will all be together (we have been blessed to have very long-living parents, and I've sort of taken that for granted until now), I decided I wanted to try to get to NJ for Christmas.

It was not as easy as I had hoped.

I brought my laptop to a restaurant called Pundi Pundi or something like that. It is across the pond from The Pond and looks out on the same rice field. It's a lovely place to eat and also to use a computer. They have free wifi.

I hooked up my computer and my headset and microphone and called United Airlines, Yahoo Travel and Thai Airways. I had several reservations that I had to either change or cancel.

United was going to charge me over $1300 to fly back to SF on the 15th when I wanted to. The earliest they could get me out on the same fare (with a penalty) was December 21. Then I had to cancel some hotel reservations through Yahoo Travel and change my departure from Denpasar and cancel my ticket to Chiang Mai (turned out it was non-refundable, so I lost the $$ on that one).

All told, I lost quite a bit of money, but I figure I am also saving on the money I won't be spending on hotels, food, massages, and everything else by leaving early. In the end it will all balance out (I hope), and of course, spending time with my family right now is not something to put a price on.

Then I made a reservation to fly into Philly on Christmas Eve and out again on January 6.

By the time I finished with all of this, I was starving and had a nice nasi campur for lunch.

I like Pundi Pundi because of their food, view and free wifi, but they have one tape or CD they play over and over again. It sounds like Diana Ross singing Indonesian and some American standards (like Besame Mucho). Not the fun Diana Ross of the Supremes, but Diana when she got old and it was clear that she really never could sing...kind of squeaky high voice. The Indonesian songs were the worst, but Besame Mucho for the 5th time was what finally made me decide to pack up and leave - maybe the point of playing the same annoying CD over and over again.

I went to Ubud Sari Spa which my friend Yaari recommended. I was glad I had my motorbike, which I am going to call moto from now on because motorbike is too long to type. The spa is at the end of a little street off of Ubud Main Road. It was kind of fun going there on moto, and I am really glad I didn't have to walk there.

It seems like a nice place. It was one of my choices as a possible alternative to Matahari when I realized I couldn't stay there for a whole month (due to the heat and so much more), but I was on the wrong street and instead found Artini 2, which I am glad for.

I looked at the choice of spa options and the one that appealed to me was a session with a Balinese Traditional Psychic Healer. I had to make an appointment and am scheduled to go back tomorrow at 10. Again, glad I have moto.

I returned to my hotel and was considering lounging around the pool, but it was too crowded with new people at the hotel, so instead I decided I needed a spa treatment.

I went to Zen Spa, which is conveniently located across from Pundi Pundi and The Pond.

They had several options to choose from, but I was in the mood for a spice bath. Yaari told me you take a bath with big hunks of cinnamon. This seemed like a nice change from the flowers.

I was led to my room which was down a pathway with big round stones decorated with small pebbles in floral designs with water running underneath. It was a little old, but very nice.

My room had a big open window that looked out onto a very lush garden that had a waterfall. The room had a massage table, a bathtub right under the window, a shower and a locker type thing.

My masseuse instructed me to undress and shower. He gave me a towel and there was a sarong on the table. At last, I thought, I found a place that would allow me a little bit of modesty.

When he came back I was just wrapping the sarong around me. "Is this for me?" I asked.

"Yes", he told me.

I lay face down and tried to position my head in the little hole in the table so that it wouldn't hurt too much. I really don't like putting my face in those holes. Eventually my head begins to feel like it weighs a ton and is pressing down on my forehead. If I don't get my head positioned just right, it really begins to hurt.

After I laid down, the masseuse removed my sarong. So much for modesty. He placed it along my back, covering my butt and upper legs and then lifted it up so that my butt was exposed.

Yep, there is no modesty in Bali!

First I got a nice acupressure massage, which was followed by an oil massage and finally a spice scrub. After the spice scrub was applied I began to get chilly, so the masseuse turned off the fan and then covered me with two towels and left me to bake.

And bake I did. The scrub heated up and so did I. It got really hot. Not uncomfortable, and I was not sweating, but I felt a very warm feeling spreading over and through me. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before - it was a deep heating.

As I was getting to the point where I'd just about had enough, my masseuse (I really need names here because my masseuse is also too much to type) returned and told me to get in the bath. I was going to shower, but he told me just to get in the bath.

There was a big bag of spices, cinnamon and barks floating in the bath. I was still cooking when I eased myself into the warm water.

I was then served some melon and papaya on sticks that had some sweet white substance poured on it (maybe condensed milk?) and a cup of tea that tasted like ginger and lemongrass.

I was really liking Zen Spa.

The bath was lovely sitting looking out the window onto this lush garden, listening to the sound of the waterfall. Even though Zen Spa looked a little old and slightly tattered, they really had it done right. I will surely return.

After that, I crossed the street to the Pond for dinner.

From the first night I went there, there is a woman there who remembers my name, just from me using my credit card. She always says, "Hello Mr. Richard". The security guard taught me a little Indonesian when I parked my moto "Apu kapara?" (how are you?) "Bagus" (good), which I used with the various servers who came to wait on me. The food is not great, but the presentation and service are outstanding, and they don't play a squeaky voiced Indonesian singer who sounds like old Diana Ross without the help of the Supremes to disguise her horrible voice.

There is a lovely woman who sits outside of my hotel each night selling tickets to dance performances. She reminds me of one of my students. Not any student in particular, but one of the older Thai or Vietnamese ladies who is always so friendly and happy to see me. I promised her last night I would buy a ticket for the Kecak (fire dance) tonight. I enjoyed it so much I decided to go back and see it again, only this time in a different place and with different dancers.

And that it turns out will be the end of a complicated, but very good day in Ubud.