Bali

For those who do not know, our family went to Indonesia. Elyse stayed with Grammy and Gramps in Jakarta while Toby and I continued on to Bali. This is the first time Elyse and I had been apart for more than 6 hours. I think we all had a great time.

The first day in Bali was very low key and relaxing. Toby and I were staying in Sanur at the Sanur Beach Hotel which is right on the beach. We slept in, ate breakfast and headed for the beach. We read, got in the water and read some more. In the afternoon we caught the free shuttle to the center of Sanur. There we had a lunch of traditional Indonesia food. Mine was very good, but by the end of it my tongue was on fire! After lunch we wandered around a bit.

Dad and son (I think) catching fish on the beach

The town was very typical of what we saw later on our drives. Many tourist shops, a bit run down, and offerings to the gods everywhere. We saw them placed in doorways, on the street, in alters, and even in the stores next to displays. They contained food, flowers, cigarettes, or anything else that might please the gods and bring safety or prosperity. The incense help connect you to the god, because the smoke goes up to him/her. (This is what our driver told me)

As we were waiting for our shuttle to bring us back, a taxi driver approached us and asked if we needed a driver. "no thanks" "how about tomorrow?" was his response. We found this was a common tactic. This man offered us a friend price as well. All the guide books tell you to be very wary of this "friend price" because the driver might not listen to where you wanted to go. Anyway, we knew we could get a driver from the hotel so we told him no again (and again, and again...) and he left us alone.

That night we went to dinner and a show at the hotel. It was a Mongolian BBQ and the entertainment was live music, a Cabaret and some fire dancing. Very interesting and some somewhat comical. One of the dancers clearly didn't want to be there.

The following day we slept in (yippee) and got a driver to take us to around. We stopped at a Batik shop, a monkey forest and the town of Ubud. We at lunch at a restaurant called Indus which had a gorgeous view.

After lunch we told our driver to take us to the rice paddies/terraces. On our way (2 km from our stop) our driver's car broke down! After awhile of trying to fix the car, the driver said he called his brother to come and get us. In the meantime we waited in front of a few shops and read the books that we brought. We also got to see a bit of Balinese life as we waited. We saw a man come buy to sell oranges from the back of his motorcycle and the ice cream man stopped by as well. Finally, about 90 minutes later, our driver's brother showed up. We got in his brother's car as the brother sat and waited for us.

We arrived at our destination and I was a little disappointed. I pictures us driving through rice terraces for a while and enjoying the scenery, but we stopped in front of one rice terrace that had a restaurant and hawkers out front. We did get to see the rice terrace, but we had to put up with aggressive hawkers and cute little girls selling postcards. The little girls got us, but we were able to avoid buying anything else

On the way back to the hotel we passed our driver's brother. The exchanged some words (not angry, just instructions of some sort- I think) and we were off. The brother stayed by the car, so I don't know how long he waited to be picked up.

The following day we got a different driver and went to a traditional Balinese dance called Barong. it had a story line, but I wouldn't have gotten the plot if it wasn't given to us on a hand out. I was very entertaining and I learned crotch shots to bad guys can be funny in any culture. This was followed by a drive to a temple: Tanam Lot which is out off the western coast.

After a lunch of fresh seafood(I mean you pick it out of the tank fresh), we headed back to the hotel to hang out on the beach. Our night was capped off by a Indonesia buffet and more dancing.

We had a great time on our vacation, but were glad to see Elyse. We heard she had a wonderful time with Grammy and Gramps. (I tried to limit the pictures I put on here, but it was hard. I do have about 70 more I could have added.)