Friday July 13th
The people at our table are Sarah and her mother Jean from California, and in addition to us, all the people are Australian - Heather and Bryan (Heather's second husband), Charlotte and Bob, and Michelle and Peter.

I made the mistake of telling my granddaughter that it was Thai night and so she wouldn't come to dinner in the dining room - she ate in the Lido. I wasn't that happy with the food myself. I had shrimp with buckwheat noodles. The shrimp was OK, but I didn't eat that much of the noodles.



I had walnut cake and chocolate ice cream sandwich for dessert which was good.



July 14th - This morning we were to be at the Princess Theatre at 9:10 for the Craft Villages tour.



I asked my granddaughter how long it would take her to get dressed and she didn't know. So I set the wake-up call for 6:30 and we got dressed and went to breakfast by 7:00. So we had some time before we needed to be up at the theatre. When we got there, we were given blue 16 and we went over to the waiting area for people who had a problem with stairs. All the chairs were taken, but an old lady got up and gave me her seat. (!!)

After they called 15-17 in the theatre, they came and got us and took us down the elevator and we got on the tender.



This is my granddaughter - age 12


There were big tall lighthouse-like markers on the way in to the dock.



When we docked they had a whole Indonesian band and dancers there to greet us - very loud drums. I didn't get a photo because I was concentrating on getting to the bus. They didn't have a handicapped seat reserved, but I sat behind the driver. These were the guys sitting around in the Lombok port area



Indonesian traffic is a lot like Dominican Republic traffic with lots of little scooters zipping around and the signs and lights are viewed as optional. The difference was that instead of mini-vans with no doors there were pony carts with little ponies pulling them.



One of the first things I saw out of the front of the bus was a man on a motor scooter with chickens.



I don't know if they were for cock fighting or to eat. We could see them harvesting rice - rice harvest

There was a driver, a guide and another man whose function seemed to be to sit beside the guide.
Guy who was riding shotgun






They were growing what looked like corn and what the guide called 'water spinach'.

Sculpture in the center of a roundabout





Some of the policemen wore pollution masks but I didn't get photos of that.







We saw school children in beige and brown uniforms (they go half a day because there is not enough room in the school for all of them),

and people with fruit markets along the road.



This was a mobile food cart



We also saw rice spread out to dry on all flat surfaces even in the median strip. The guide said they got 3 crops a year of rice where there was enough rain.



He pointed out the Chinese cemeteries -




he said his grandfather was Chinese and his father was Arabian. Only his grandmother was Indonesian. I have some photos but I can't tell what the names or the locations are.

We saw lots of domed temples.



We got to the first village and he told us to bargain so I told my granddaughter to offer 1/3rd.





I saw a nice shirt that I would have bought Bob, but it was a Large and didn't look that big to me. So I didn't get it. They were doing woodworking at this village but apparently there is a prohibition against bringing wooden things into Australia.



The guide (whose name was Tariq) handed out water, which my granddaughter took, and also soft drinks.



We drove to another village and there were horse carts which the guide said would go a couple of kilometers down the road. The guide is the one with the black shirt and the credential tag

I said I would stay on the bus where it was cool,



so my granddaughter went without me.







It turned out that the place they went was the pottery village, and she got to make a dish. She also met a girl her age and made a friend.

Carts coming back







She insisted that this was NOT an ash tray



(Ash trays are not PC)

On the way back to the ship --

We got back to the tender dock about 2:30. When we got back to the port, she did a little more shopping and then we got the tender back to the ship.





She went up to the Lido for lunch (the pizza place was closed) and I went down to the dining room and had tea.



Afterward I took a scooter around the deck and took photos of the shore.







We went to dinner together (I told my granddaughter that there was cheese tortellini and she likes that). I had potato and cheese quiche



and broccoli soup and a noodle dish.


sugar free swan cream puff

Tomorrow is a sea day.

FYI.... water spinach can be purchased in some of the Asian grocery stores in the United States. You can stir fry them with some garlic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica

Glad that you saw another part of Indonesia. Everybody knows Bali, but there are numerous islands that make up Indonesia and many of them have their unique charm.

Australian customs is very strict for sure! Good thinking about the wood.

Many of the Australians seemed to have already been to Bali. Some of them a long time ago.

I'm new here and I think that this is my favourite place. I love seeing everyone's travels, and I love cruise ship food photos!