Testing The Roundness Of The World: Day 22 The Lord Of The Day

Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.

We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.

Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.

It's time.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Day 22 The Lord Of The Day

The rooster is the self proclaimed Lord Of The Day. Loudly, repeatedly self proclaimed. Elsewhere confined to the kingdom of the dawn, his writ‎ on Bali extends the whole live long day. From the first possibility of light in the east to the last fading of it in the west he and his brethren crow. Loudly, repeatedly. Ducks and geese and jungle birds and dogs are his vassals, in subdued respectful voice.

But the night is a democracy. In the firefly speckled velvet black of the Balinese night the voices of crickets, cicadas, frogs, geckos and bats blend, not seamless, but somehow harmonious to the human ear.

Bali is never silent.

But for this self proclaimed Lord Of The Day I have a single quiet word: satay.

(I have yet to see, let alone photograph, a frog here, so the photo below is from my shower stall in Darwin; that tree frog stayed through the entire shower, a loyal amphibian.)