In Reply to: How soon do you start packing? posted by Jim Thorpe on Wednesday, 5. October 2005 at 20:43 Bali Time:
Due to leave 4th November. Went out Saturday morning and purchased Sunscreen to protect me and mine from skin cancer. Hand gel as advised to protect us from Avian flu, Bali belly, food poisoning etc;
Band aids as I am known by all and sundry in my family as having the ability to fall over absoloutely nothing, particularly soon after my arrival in Bali as my concentration wanders and I drink up all that is going on around me. Disinfectant cream and of course RID for those pesky mossies also went into my shopping basket.
Walked the supermarket aisles but couldn't find the raspberry juice, (have never worried before as she who had told all and sundry in the past "Never had Bali Belly! spent 8 hours intermittently clinging to the toilet bowl last year) by this time H my lovely husband had had enough, he who travels light said "we're out of here" and out of there we went.
Had a laugh on the way home about how we now take few clothes these days but an array of "other stuff", this time we are putting together a suitcase for the birthing centre in Ubud.
Is it just that we are older and we now take the old comfortable stand by's that we know are perfect for the Bali weather and conditions. I think it is, anyone else feel that age brings the comfort of not having to "dress to impress" ?. I remember back to when I felt I had to be "fashionable" I also remember the blisters and the chaffing, the sunburn and occasionally the hangovers, do I miss all that, not on your life!.
Well I packed all that "stuff" on Saturday, it all seemed so important then. I got up Sunday morning, bought my coffee in here to the computer and read my mail, then opened up the forum for my Sunday morning relaxing read. I started with the first messge and my heart sank, I ran to turn on the TV, H shouted after me "WHAT'S WRONG" and I said the B*******'s have done it again, he instinctively knew what I meant.
We had left Bali two weeks before the first bombing and we have been back every year since, we both had tears in our eyes the first year as we walked the beach path from the Grand Bali Beach Hotel to the Sanur Beach Hotel. The hotels were empty there were 5 people in total at the two pools at the GBBH. Local people that we had come to know and to love over the years were suffering, no work = no food.
My heart aches for the all that have been effected again this time, tourists, local people and their families and friends just as my heart ached for the people of the US, UK, Spain, etc; etc; etc;
I know all to well what it is like to lose someone you love in a moment, someone who is here one moment and gone the next. I lost my 11 year old son in a car accident many years ago now, I was not coping well, I was full of anger, I felt like I was a fly on the ceiling and that the world was going on around me but I wasn't part of it.
To cut a long story short my boss,my mentor, my friend, convinced me to go away, away from Australia for a holiday. I went to Bali and the people that I met and became friends with, gave me without knowing it a different outlook on life, the pain still remains today but after that first trip I started to live life again. I would probably have survived, my family call me a survivor, they say I am tough enough to survive anything, with a laugh, I probably am but I don't think I would be the person I am today without that trip to Bali.
H & I will go back on the 4th November, we wont go just to shop or to party on, we will go because of the feeling that being in Bali gives us, the peacefullness of Ubud as we walk the Villages, the gentleness of the people that we know and love. With some trepidation, for me yes!, but not enough to keep me away.
I have got away from the packing thing haven't I. with all genuine respect for all those involved in this last incident.
"Can someone tell me where to buy an anti bomb kit"
Coco