I think many of us will be very happy to see the back side of 2016.  The elections in the USA, Brexit in Europe etc.  Nevertheless for myself and Susan 2016 has been a great year.  

 

In May we moved into our new home in Bali and have been here except for 3 weeks since.  Like most houses occupied by foreigners it has a name: Villa Cengkeh.  "Cengkeh" for cloves that grow nearby.  It has been a great experience and, of course, it is a real pleasure and honor to wake-up each day to such a beautiful island and such warm peoples.  We now live 100 meters over the sea and about 2 kilometers back and look at it while enjoying our coffee every morning.  I suppose it is our preparation for global warming.  

 

Villa Cengkeh is perched on a on of Bali's numerous ridges that flow down from the mountains in the center of the island to the sea.  It is only 5 minutes down to Lovina, an area composed of villages such as Kalibukbuk and Kaliasem, that serves as the focal point for visitors to north Bali.  The Regency's capital is Singaraja where major services like Banks, Immmigration and supermarkets are found.  A trip to Singaraja is about 25 minutes by car.  Most local people travel by motorbike.  We tried, had a frightening accident and decided to buy a car.  We have driver named Agus who is multi-lingual, University educated and helps manage things for us.  

 

Living in Bali is different.  It is predominantly Hindu, but there are plenty of Muslims and Christians.  Many Hindu here are also Buddhist.  The religious life infiltrates each day and night.  Whether it be the music (gamelans), the Muslim and Hindu prayers over LOUD speakers, or staff say prayers at the temples at Villa Cengkeh.  Nothing is confined indoors and there is excellent electrical amplification of most activites.  The Balinese calendar is erradic, at best, and impossible for anyone other than a high priest to explain (not a sarcasm, just a fact).  On this calendar there are good days, bad days and holidays; all seemingly coming at random to us.  The ceremony required before moving into Villa Cengkeh had to be held on a full moon.  Since there were minor construction delays in April, we had to wait until 22 May for the ceremony which was a 5 hour activity. 

 

People work everyday except when they have to go to a ceremony.  Such events include blessing a new child, new house, new car, cremation, anniversary of family temples, village temples etc.  The staff working with us generally work Monday through Saturday, 7 hours per day with additonal random days off for their ceremonies.  There are three major holidays.  Two come 10 days apart and repeat every seven months.  The third, the Balinese New Year, comes once a year and is a day of quite. Literally. The airport is closed, no one is allowed on the road nor may any businesses operate.  The Hindu do not use any electricity on this day.  

 

This has not be a traveling year for us.  We left our sailboat, SV Villa G, in Phuket in April when we came to Bali.  We'll head back to Phuket in early January 2017.  She has had a new paint job and been repaired from various insultants from the last five years of sailing around SE Asia and Austratia.   

In October Susan few to North America and made the tour to see her sisters in Vancouver, Canada, Sand Diego, and Boston.  While she was gone, I joined a 19 day diving expedition of the SV Jaya.   Jaya is a traditional Indonesian pinese-design sailboat with a crew of about 15 and 8 paying customers.  She, like many dive boats in Indonesia, relocates seasonally between the Komodo-Flores area to West Papua's Raja Ampat.  The trip covers some of the absolute finest dive sites in the world.  Jaya was not luxury, but the crew were super and it was a great experience.  Enjoy a 3 minute video from our trip by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKUOokt5W-8.  

 

I'm not jazzing up our newsletter this year with a bunch of slow downloading photos.  Instead, I hope you will be able to get a moment to check-out our blogs:
1.  SV Villa G - http://www.villa-g.com/ - this website has everything from Susan and myself including a lot of sailboat stuff.
2.  Villa Cengkeh - http://www.villacengkeh.com/ - The process and experience of building our new home including the continuing saga of the water well.
3.  Travels - http://travel.villa-g.com/ - A compact way to report some of our travels

 

If you would like to have a nice Balinese holiday, please let us know.  Two guest rooms await.  If you cannot visit this year, please write.  Just send an email to [email protected] to reach each of us.  Substitute our names for "crew" if you need to get personal.

 

Selamat Tahun Baru 2017!

Dana and Susan
Fowlkes and Susan Lord

Whatsapp to +6281365542826