This week, Idul Fitri, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, was celebrated in Indonesia. Our girls had only just returned to Green School after a two month summer break and a week after starting school, they took another two days off for the public holiday. I used to get frustrated by this sort of thing happening, especially as we are paying for the girls to go to school. Since living in Bali, I have learned that these things happen and calmly accept it. In fact, I recently learned that every single temple and shrine in Bali (apparently there are more temples than homes and there are so many the government doesn't bother counting them, but a rough estimate is over a million) celebrates its own birthday every 210 days and this involves a special ceremony, so in the scheme of things it's a good job Bali doesn't have a public holiday every time there's a temple birthday! I have also learned that it is useful to not only accept these things happening that we rather not, it's good to think of a solution i.e. in this case, what to do with my three girls during this public holiday.
Luckily, the thinking was done for me when my husband announced that he would be in Bali for the whole week, so we could go somewhere over the mid-week public holiday. I suggested we go exploring in the jeep and stay in the nice looking, boutique hotel that we had seen at night with friends a couple of years ago, somewhere along the West coast. I didn't know the name of the hotel and we found it in the dark at the time, but assumed we could somehow find it, 'rock up' and stay overnight. Not convinced by this loose plan, my husband decided he had to do some research to find where the place was and we could book in advance. So I left it to him to it and on the morning when we were due to leave for our mini break, my husband started his research by using a map, the internet and our Rough Guide to Bali. To some people this may seem like leaving things to the last minute and it is to me too, however my husband did find a couple of hotels on the internet which were in the direction of where I liked the hotel with no name. The first place was too expensive, the second place seemed more reasonable but all its rooms were booked. I suggested that we revert back to my plan, drive the jeep up the West coast and intuitively find the hotel I liked and see if they had a room for the night. So we followed this plan and although we didn't have an end outcome fixed, it felt like an adventure to not know.
En route to our vague destination, we decided to have lunch at a beach. As we approached the beach, we were stopped by a sign that was positioned in the middle of the road and two smiling Balinese men proudly stood next to it. The sign asked for a fee of 5,000 rupiah (about US 60 cents), which reassuringly said in bold letters was
'in retribution for objectionable tourist' for us using the road. Rather than take offence we decided that the Balinese person who painted these words had probably lost something in translation in the Indonesian - English dictionary they had used. We chuckled at the sign, as the girls asked what it meant and we moved on having paid our 'retribution'. On our way back, we thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of the sign but it was no longer there. Maybe the person who wrote the sign did mean 'retribution' for being non-local after all and they had put it out just for us?!
We continued our journey, my rear end having hardened like stone while being violently bounced up and down in our ancient jeep along the potholed and heavily traffic infested roads with the noise, dust and fumes enveloping us in a layer of grime. Rather than let this frustrate me, I calmly accepted that the feeling of being exposed to the outside world of chaos on the Balinese roads would always be the case when we go exploring in the jeep and it's all part of the excitement of the journey. And as part of the roller coaster ride we had a huge stroke of luck, where we instinctively turned into a narrow road that reminded us of where we got lost in the dark and it led us to 'Puri Dajuma', the nice hotel that I had in mind. This was the same hotel that told us they had no rooms available earlier that morning!
We hopefully asked if there was space available anyway and the response was 'no'. We asked if it would be ok to stay for dinner and the response was 'yes'. As it was only 4pm, it was too early to eat straight away, so the receptionist kindly offered us the use of their pool and phoned the housekeeper for towels. Maybe he took pity on us after looking so dishevelled and disappointed, but this simple act of kindness meant a lot to us. It meant so much that we will definitely go back again and next time we'll book in advance. A small act of kindness goes a long way. Our girls had so much fun swimming in the pool, exploring the hotel grounds, climbing their trees, swinging in their hammocks and walking along beach. To round off our day, we had a lovely meal, watching the sunset. Even though we had no place to stay, it turned out to be a great break, thanks to the receptionist.
Can you remember a time when somebody showed you an act of kindness or even when you did this for somebody? I have a feeling that sometimes in this age of positive thinking and achieving your goals, simple old fashoned kindness can get a bit forgotten about.
"No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves"
Amelia Earhart
Similarly, here's an easy to remember quote which echoes the same sentiments:-
"Kindness like a boomerang, always returns."
Author unknown
Enjoy giving and receiving more of those 'acts of kindness.'
Janet
Oh, and the hotel if you are interested is
www.dajuma.com
En route to our vague destination, we decided to have lunch at a beach. As we approached the beach, we were stopped by a sign that was positioned in the middle of the road and two smiling Balinese men proudly stood next to it. The sign asked for a fee of 5,000 rupiah (about US 60 cents), which reassuringly said in bold letters was 'in retribution for objectionable tourist' for us using the road. Rather than take offence we decided that the Balinese person who painted these words had probably lost something in translation in the Indonesian - English dictionary they had used. We chuckled at the sign, as the girls asked what it meant and we moved on having paid our 'retribution'. On our way back, we thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of the sign but it was no longer there. Maybe the person who wrote the sign did mean 'retribution' for being non-local after all and they had put it out just for us?!
We hopefully asked if there was space available anyway and the response was 'no'. We asked if it would be ok to stay for dinner and the response was 'yes'. As it was only 4pm, it was too early to eat straight away, so the receptionist kindly offered us the use of their pool and phoned the housekeeper for towels. Maybe he took pity on us after looking so dishevelled and disappointed, but this simple act of kindness meant a lot to us. It meant so much that we will definitely go back again and next time we'll book in advance. A small act of kindness goes a long way. Our girls had so much fun swimming in the pool, exploring the hotel grounds, climbing their trees, swinging in their hammocks and walking along beach. To round off our day, we had a lovely meal, watching the sunset. Even though we had no place to stay, it turned out to be a great break, thanks to the receptionist.
Can you remember a time when somebody showed you an act of kindness or even when you did this for somebody? I have a feeling that sometimes in this age of positive thinking and achieving your goals, simple old fashoned kindness can get a bit forgotten about.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment