The Not So Perfect Day!

(I am back in Mississippi!  I have a few more things that I wanted to share. I had a lot of trouble uploading to this blog while overseas.)

Barry and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when the concierge stacked several things that we were interested in doing...one right after the other.  Yes, I wanted to go to the village market!  Yes, it will be great to take a walk in a rice field!  Yes, I want to go to the John Hardy workshop and showroom!  Yes, I want to go eat lunch at a particular restaurant in Ubud!  I'll post pics of the village market later!  I am skipping to the good part!  Ha!  

A walk through a rice field sounded fun!  It sounded short!  I thought I would get some good photos!  It started off nice.  We could see volcanoes in the distant.  We were on a path that we often had to jump off of and into the rice paddy!  It is shared with bicycles and motorcycles,  and it was narrow! 

We came to an area where there were 2 very small bodies of water that had been made by damming up the water that is used for irrigation for the paddies.  I learned that one was for fish and the other for eels!  Yuck!

All of the terraces were beautiful and we had enjoyed it for the first thirty minutes!  It was sorta like T-Ball...it got old really fast!  And we were  HOT!  VERY HOT!  And looking at those workers standing in that water was making me thirsty... even though the water was dirty!

I learned that besides rice and fish, other things are grown in the rice fields too!  Pretty flowers, chili peppers and other veggies are also in little plots scattered around.  Every time that we came to a bend on the road of a few trees, we were both looking for the vehicle that we expected to appear to rescue us!  And we were getting hotter and thirstier!

When we arrived at the river, we just knew that the car had to be there waiting on us....NOPE! Our attitude was going downhill fast!  

And then we come to a path that was wedged between two ditches and it was very steep!  And slippery!  And muddy!  Thank goodness, we had hiking sticks with us!  The guide had to help me to the top!  I am glad that Barry didn't have the camera!  Whew!  I had on tennis shoes and water was up on my ankles.  Barry had on waterproof sports shoes and he didn't need help!  Surely, the rescue car would be waiting at the top of the hill!

There was no car waiting...but lots more rice paddies!  Ugh!  We now hate rice paddies and we both feel like we are about to have a heat stroke!  Our guide has a bottle of warm water for us.  Our clothes are as wet as my socks and shoes!  

As we are trudging along the narrow path and jumping into the rice field frequently, Barry asked our guide what the strange brown things were that were in the paddies.  We learned that they are "Cobra-Crows"!  What is that?  Well, rats love to come into the paddies.  And so do cobras!  The rats are afraid of the cobras!  Yikes!  I am too!  And where is that car!?

Well, the car was finally spotted after a THREE hour hike up and down hills in high humidity with high temperatures!  All we really wanted to do was go back to the resort!  But, we had an appointment at John Hardy!  When we arrived....these steps were one of the first things we saw!

While I looked around the showroom, this is where my soaked and tired husband perched!  He was not a happy camper!  At all....

And there are no discounts at John Hardy!  I expected discounts!  And I expected the whole collection!  There was a bigger variety at our resort and at the airport!  I wanted sit in that chair and pout with Barry!  Needless, to say, we didn't make our lunch reservation in Ubud!  But we did spend the rest of our day in the pool!