Different Here

My experience in Bali in 92 was different. Elin, one year old Clay, and I took a couple of rooms in a place on the outskirts of Ubud. As I recall, we paid about five dollars a day for them. Ubud was like a village then. Not many cars or even many motorbikes. There were fields and lots. Now it's mostly filled in with shops, restaurants, places to stay, and the traffic is so heavy it's best to walk anywhere within thirty minutes. When we visit there now we can get to some nice rice field walks withing fifteen minutes walk from where we stay. There's a lot more happening now though the dances and gamelan music were here then. One big difference is how sophisticated people were. Back then a young staff guy, Wayan, would sit in my lap to talk to me, staff would watch a corny devout Hindu show in the afternoons, Wayan climbed a tall coconut tree to fetch me a coconut. I think if we lived in the sticks here we could still experience stuff like that, but not here now.