Umbrellas and tropical rain

Umbrellas and tropical rain
Today, I had an unexpected program - inadvertently. After breakfast, I walked along the beach of Kuta you already know. I can tell you, this morning I have seen more dogs together in the sea than ever before. A young guy was throwing a tennis ball upon the water and all the dogs from the beach of Kuta at large ran into the sea, to the same ball, to the same place. The man was practicing his forehand or his backhand depending on the place of the viewer.

Most of the balls and the dogs returned, maybe all of them. I was well acquainted with the existence of sea lions, sea horses, seagulls, sea food and even seals, but never of ‘sea dogs’. With all those ‘sea dogs’ around me, I felt it was a very busy day and this was merely the beginning. Back in the hotel, I dressed for a swim in the pool. There was nobody in the water, at least nobody was swimming. I asked the personnel for a towel and I admit I had never seen such a large pile of clean towels before in my swimming life. I got the upper towel, the best one I ever had. The first and the best towel and nobody around me apart from the staff. It was a fine, soft and clean towel for drying a tender and sensitive skin of an old, but still swimming man. Just for a second, I caressed the towel before I put it carefully on a wooden stretcher. The staff officer almost gazed at me as if I was escaped from prison a moment ago and looked like a front page criminal. Well, it was raining cats and dogs. I could hear and see the drops falling in the deserted pool. Even it rained merciless in the dark eyes of the confused pool personnel. I was the only, lonely swimmer between that many raindrops I had never seen before. Then, it stopped raining and I left the pool. I was in hurry to bring back a borrowed umbrella to friends before I would leave the town. I forgot the umbrella, not the one I had to give back, but another one I needed because it had resumed to rain. When I had the second umbrella, it stopped raining. Never before, I had two umbrellas the moment it stopped raining. Saving my face, I played and manipulated and swung the umbrellas as if I went to war, to the nearby front. All pedestrians in the street stepped from the pavement to make room and pay tribute to this courageous passer-by. Being less impressed and running through big pools of water, the drivers had less mercy and chased me back on the sidewalk. Back, we checked out of the hotel and had a taxi for Ubud. Some hours later, we went to a restaurant in this little town and had a great meal, nasi campur and hot tea. At the end of the dish, well, yes it started raining. After ninety minutes of unbroken and continuous patience, I took off my leather shoes, left the restaurant, crossed the street and bought two brand new, big umbrellas – far bigger than I ever had before. We decided to wait for another half hour and then we proudly unrolled the enveloped umbrellas. Almost all of a sudden, it stopped raining. This excellent, rainy day I had seen more cats and even more dogs and more useless umbrellas than I had ever seen before in my life. In the evening, I listened to the sound of the steady water currents of the sawa, still politely longing for the umbrella standing useless in the corner of our cottage.