One nice thing about Serangan Island is that every day at sunrise and sunset lovely flute music floats over the anchorage, it's lovely and peaceful.

So we got a comment on our last blog post from the Beckman family. The story is that Leslie grew up in the same Indiana town as David and their parents were close friends. Would we like to get together? Sure! Kurt, Leslie, and their 3 children Bo, Blaire, and Brooke are ex-pats that live on Bali out by Ubud, one of the towns we were hoping to visit. In their email they said they would love to host us at their house for a couple of days. Brave people, they haven't even met us. Bo takes surfing lessons on Serangan Island on Saturdays, so we decided to get together there. We had no idea there was a beginner surf beach on Serangan, we have been hauling ourselves over to Kuta everyday to surf. It was a bit of a hike over and an unsure place to leave the dinghy so they offered to pick us up. We made our way to the other side of the island and lo and behold a beautiful little surf break with warungs lining the beach. The surf lessons are taught by one of the teachers at the school their children attend and there were a few families out for the day. It was a great vibe and nice to be a part of the ex-pat scene. Zack jumped straight in and paddled out to the reef. Yes a reef break but totally mellow. It is a long paddle but that did not seem to bother him, he was out to the break in a few minutes. David paddled out with him and Angie and I hung out on the beach to chill. Zack was up and surfing straight away. He has made a lot of progress in his surfing abilities after a week straight of surfing at Kuta. He is loving Bali and will most likely return some day to surf the big waves. David caught a few rides and when he returned to the beach I was ready to head out. He warned me that you just have to keep paddling, it feels like you will never reach the break but keep going, you eventually get there. It didn't look that far. I got out and well, he was right. You have to paddle forever to get out there. Every time you crest a wave there is another one just as far out. It felt like it took hours to get out there. After surfing Kuta we are lazy wimps, at Kuta you can walk your board out to the break, no paddling necessary, my type of surfing. When I first saw the beach I had been bumming that this awesome surfing was right around the corner and we had spent a lot of time/energy/money traveling back and forth to Kuta. Zack voted Serangan better than Kuta. The wave was a little more mellow and totally uncrowded so he was getting lots of good rides. David and I both agreed that with all the paddling and the lesser powered waves we were better surfers at Kuta. I got 2 rides and that was enough, I was back on the beach for some lunch and a beer. It was about time to wrap it up for the day and we were making a plan with Kurt and Leslie. They suggested we just drive up with them and spend a couple of days. Cool, we went back to the boat and packed a few things and we were on our way north. Not sure what the town they live in is called but it is in more of a rural setting and close to the big tourist center of Ubud.

We arrived at their house and what a treat. Lovely is an understatement. It was in a peaceful neighborhood and has a pool. Zack and Bo were in the pool within minutes. Zack loves a pool and I was afraid he would opt to move in with his new bud. I don't think I would have blamed him. The Beckmans have a dog, a chicken, a pool and and entire table dedicated to legos. They also have a house keeper so after quick showers the adults got ready and went out to dinner. Heck, I think I might be moving in as well. We went into Ubud and out for Indian food, yum. Then out for a cocktail at one of Ubud's hopping little clubs with a live band. I am feeling very adult here.

The next morning Angie and I made up some breakfast. I did my famous shape pancakes and they were a big hit. Then we were off to the Monkey Forest in Sangeh. What a wild time that was. It is a small forest with hundreds of monkeys. The monkeys are fed so they are very friendly and maybe a little aggressive, but not in a mean way. There was a guide and he had peanuts and bananas to feed the monkeys. He would hold it next to you and a monkey would jump on your head or shoulders and climb over you to get the food. It was wild and good fun and especially funny when the bigger monkeys would chase the smaller monkeys off of you. We have a great picture of Zack with a big monkey sitting on his shoulders eating a banana. It's crazy how close you can get to nature here. It was a short walk through the forest playing with monkeys and then you land in vendors plaza, a crazy place sort of like the shops at the end of every Disney ride. Except you are the only customers and there are 30 shops selling mostly the exact same stuff you have seen every where else and really don't want. You just need to keep your head down and keep repeating, "no terimah kasi, no thank you." It is a bit sad because you know they could really use a sale. We did find one shop selling carvings that looked quite nice. It is difficult to browse here, because if you so much as look at something you have entered into a barter for said item. It can be overwhelming and we usually just walk away. This guy was mellow in comparison to some of the shops and we looked for a few minutes, mostly to get an idea of what was available and maybe see about prices so we could have better bargaining skills for Ubud, where we did plan to buy a carving. We found 2 that we did like and in the end we bought one of the carvings. It is of a deity slaying a dragon and is quite intricate. We had left the shop and were walking down the path when the magic price of 500,000 Rp came out. It is $35 US and we could not refuse. David went back and bought it.

After the monkey forest we headed up into the mountains on a quest to pick strawberries. It gets a lot cooler as you climb past beautifully terraced rice fields up the mountain and into the caldera of a volcano with a big lake filled from years of rain water. There were several strawberry farms but it seems you are meant to be there early morning if you would like to pick the berries yourself. Oh well. Off to the Botanical Gardens for some lunch. There was a little restaurant, so we set the kids up with a picnic lunch that Leslie had packed and we went in for some lunch. We didn't get to walk around the gardens because there was an awesome zip line park right by the restaurant and we weren't walking away from that! Zack, Bo and Blaire got harnessed up and they were off. Brooke is just 3 but had fun running around in the woods. It was a great park with more than just zip lines. There were several courses and Zack was able to do all but the last, most challenging one, 2 more inches and he would have been in. No matter, he got to do some cool stuff. Long zip lines, big climbs and the highlight was a Tarzan swing into a net. It was quite high and when he got to the swing there were 2 adults already there. One was clipped in and it took him a good 5 minutes to get up the courage to jump. The next guy got off without much drama. Zack got up and after a minutes hesitation he went for it. I'm sure it was pretty scary but he made it and grabbed the net. Bo and Blair are a bit younger so they weren't able to do all the swings but a great time was had by all. It was late, kids were worn out and it was time to head home. But, not without strawberries and a quick stop at the temple. As we were driving down the road there were many vendors selling prepackaged strawberries, and lots of other snacks. Again, lots of people selling the exact same thing side by side? We stopped and 3 ladies shoved strawberry packs in the open car window. I was glad to be in the back. David and Kurt handled it and we bought 2 packs for 20,000 rupiah each. At the temple we rinsed and ate an entire pack in about 30 seconds, they were delicious. The temple was lovely and we had a nice walk around while Kurt took the kids to the playground. The playground was a trip. It had really old style metal rides that screamed danger. Think 1950's and totally illegal in any country where the people could spell safety hazard. The kids had a blast. Now they are thoroughly wiped out and ready to head home. It was a scary ride down steep hills lacking guard rails in some areas. Kurt got us down safely and we did pizza, fried chicken and wine for dinner. Wine being I think the main course because nobody felt that great the next morning.

Bo, Blair and Brooke had school the next morning so we went to drop them off and tour the world famous "Green School." Wow, it was amazing. It is a sort of hippy school dedicated to teaching green living in a green environment . The classrooms are made out of bamboo and are open to nature. It was super peaceful and the classrooms are huge with desks arranged in a circle instead of rows. It looked like a great place to learn. There was a bunny pen, which Zack loved. A bird sanctuary and even a latte shop. Leslie and Angie did the yoga class while David, Kurt and I had a latte. I'm not sure Zack is going to be leaving Bali with us. Although, Green School is nowhere near surfing, so maybe he will stay in home school for now.

Kurt dropped us off in Ubud and we spent the day walking around and checking out the many, many shops of Ubud. It was a pleasant afternoon of shopping and touring temples, with a nice lunch at one of the restaurants. Kurt picked us up and we were on our way home. Sad, but we don't like to be off of the boat for too long. It was a great mini vacation from our sailing adventure. Hopefully we will be able to spend more time with our new best friends on Bali.