Lovina

Ubud, Lovina. Rainy, hot and humid and too much motor scooter traffic. Ubud is a mess and has lost it's charm. We picked up our extended visa, packed up the stuff we bought and some things we didn't need any more and sent them back home by the cheapest method, cost $156!!! I hope I do not find any of these trinkets in Cost Plus.

After two days we got a driver to take us to Lovina (it is cheaper than a bus for two or more people and you can stop when you want). The road is decent, but the last ten miles is the windiest switchback road I've ever been on. We couldn't wait for it to end. Finally arrived in Lovina at a wonderful hotel with a nice restaurant and cute cabins on the beach. Unfortunately, there was no wif-fi except at an internet cafe down the atreet for $5/hour. The ocean at Lovina is interesting in that it is almost as calm as a lake. On a clear day you can see Java on the horizon.

Lovina is located near the second largest city in Bali of Singaraja which has the biggest university and has a college town vibe. That isn't to say it is a party town or a liberal bastion like Berkeley, but for Bali it is different by not really being a tourist town.  There is a large and famous Buddhist site in the hills nearby and Lovina  is also the wine grape growing area of Bali and we saw several vineyards as we drove around, but did not see any wineries to visit although we have had the fairly decent wines from this area.

This time of year is considered the low season and especially in Lovina. It was amazing to see the unused capacity available in the restaurants and drinking spots and how empty they looked. We would have dinner in wonderful places with two other couples in the whole place. It helped us get some reductions in the hotel rate and motor scooter rental.

There is supposed to be the best diving in Bali at a place about 30 miles to the west around an island off the coast.  The few hotels in that area are very expensive so that is why we didn't stay there, but in cheaper Lovina and signed up with a local dive shop.     

Back to Bali and the town of Sanur

Sanur is supposed to have nice beaches and hopefully someplace where we can get our hair cut, our laundry done properly and some decent wi-fi. We zoomed back on the fast boat from Nusa Lembagen and were met by a hotel driver and taken to our room which as usual was awful so they showed us another room which was less awful and we settled in.

  BTW: this is typical, we have learned that they usually show you the worst room first and if you take it, fine, problem solved.  We know better and always ask to see another room which is alway better. If we don't like the hotel, the next day we find another and move to that one. That is why we have been to 19 hotels so far.

The beaches were nice except when the tide is out which is all this week from 9am until 4pm. and then they are rocky sand pits with seaweed and no way to swim. Oh well. However Sanur has a wonderful boardwalk that goes for a few miles from one end of town to the other all along the beach with only pedestrians and bicyclists allowed. Great idea, maybe other Balinese towns on the beach will consider it.

The first night we located a really nice air-conditioned salon, made an appointment for the next day. We went back and both of us got what we needed, but interestingly it cost about the same as in the states. Probably because Sanur has a bunch of $300+ per night hotels.

  Other than hair care and laundry and some decent restaurants (I secretly went off to the McDonald's and had a cheeseburger for $2.30, yummy.) there is not much for hippy travelers like ourselves so we arranged to get to Ubud to pick up our extended visas and head off to Lovina on the north coast.   

Candi Dasa, Nusa Lembagan

 Dasa, Nusa Lembagan:

The last ten days have been a whirlwind of pack and move, pack and move (if we don't like a hotel we move; happens with most places we go). After Amed we got a driver to take us from Amed to the town of Candi Dasa on the north east coast where the road from Amed goes south and then gets back to the coast. We had been to Candi Dasa on our last trip 17 years ago and remember it as a pretty, quiet town with decent snorkeling. Candi Dasa has grown, but is still pretty nice with more hotel and restaurant choices than before. We stayed at a fabulous place called Aquaria on the water (there really isn't any beach) owned by a couple from New Zealand. There were only about eight rooms, they were modern and airy and they all opened to the pool. The best part was the restaurant, it was known as the best in town and that is saying alot.

We stayed for two days, relaxed, met an wonderful Australian couple and took some motor-scooter trips to nearby alleged beautiful beaches (Sadly, they were not. Instead they were actually covered with garbage, plastic bags and whatever both on the beach and for fifty feet out in to the bay.). We also visited a beautiful water temple (had lunch a restaurant nearby and got the best tomato soup yet!)

Our next destination was to a small island off of the south east coast called Nusa Lembagan famous for seaweed farming (seriously!) and alleged to have good snorkeling. We boarded a "fast boat" for the 45 minute ride from Sanur and landed at the port of the only town on the island and were met by someone from the hotel who drove us and our luggage in a very old three-wheeled cargo scooter to the hotel. As usual, as soon as we arrive somewhere we put our bags in to the room, found our bathing suits and headed down to the pool for some drinks and chatting it up with the other travelers (almost always from Australia). Back to life as normal.

The hotel had a big projection screen over the bar where on the first night they played rock concert music videos (if you've never heard of the Irish group The Corrs, you need to see and hear them and their song "Runaway"). This went on until past 2am (sign said music and bar closes at 10pm) with the manager and a bunch of drunken Aussies and Lily having a good time. I went to bed at 11:30 and got up around 1:30 when I realized that Lily was not back I went down to the bar to rescue her and ended up staying till they closed. I think the neighbors must have complained because the next night the bar closed at 10pm.

  One good thing about the island is that are no cars, but there are plenty of motor-scooters. We rented one and rode around the island for about four hours stopping here and there driving on roads of various quality with little traffic except for dogs and pigs and goats and dodging huge pot holes and sandy areas.

  All along the waterfront and up along the hill on one side of the bay there are many restaurants and hotels and dive shops so we had plenty of choices for eating or diving. We signed up for a three hour snorkel trip the next day. The boat ride around the island was interesting with beautiful blue water, island scenery. We stopped at a couple of places and snorkeled for awhile, but the fish and other creatures must have gone on vacation somewhere else. We decided not to bother with signing up for a dive trip.

Everyone told us we should go to this restaurant for the beautiful sunset view called Scallywags, which was also the name of a great restaurant on Gili Trawangan (re: earlier blog about the islands off Lombok). Hop on motor scooter and off we go. The fun part is getting there, the two or three mile trip is on a road that is a motocross challenge of potholes and drop-offs and dirt. It is worth the drive, though, the restaurant sits on a small cove with cliffs on either side and huge crashing waves and faces the sunset and has an infinite horizon pool and large comfy chairs and excellent food and drinks! Which was a good thing because after the drive we definitely needed a drink to relax and a soak in the pool. Later we met the owner, a real character from Britian who owns two others Scallywags; the one on Gili Trawangan and one in Bali. In spite of the challenging drive to get there (owner plans to somehow get it paved) the food, drink and sunset were so nice we went back two more times.

  Lembagan fun fact: The seaweed farming in Nusa Lembagan is the main economy after tourism. It takes a huge amount of work and time to produce the stuff to the point where they can sell it (by the ton) to companies that use it as an additive for making all kinds of food and other products that we eat or use every day, who knew?

I would describe the culture on Nusa Lembagen to be Bali with an island attitude; more laid back and slow than Bali proper. We liked it, but after four days we had had enough fun on the island and needed some civilization after the last weeks of rural small towns and this island so it was back to Bali and the coastal town of Sanur.

There will tons of pix in the gallery in a day or so.  

Dive pix...

We have not been near a decent internet location with sufficient upload bandwidth to let me upload the dive pix within a reasonable time, but I will do it as soon as I can. There are sea horses and an octopus and all kinds of colorful fish so the wait will be worth it.

We are back in Ubud for two days to gather up the stuff we want to ship home and then we're off to Lovina, a town on the north coast of Bali. There is supposed to be good diving and the place is famous for the dolphins that inhabit the area. Maybe I'll get some dolphin pix.

We've only got 11 days before our visa ends and we have to fly to our next destination, Vietnam via Bangkok, there is no direct flight from Bali to Vietnam so we have to overnight in Thailand. That should be an interesting contrast the Bali, maybe it will prepare us for Hanoi a little bit.

Things that are different, part 2

In Bali there seems to be no shortage of craftsmen that can create beautiful carvings and statues and paintings but for some reason they can't figure out how to install door latches in the hotel rooms.  More often than not they are installed backwards; from the inside you have to turn the handle to close the door and then the door can be opened from the outside by the wind or just pushing on it. You have to lock it from the inside to keep it closed. I have been tempted to take the latch out and re-install it correctly, but then maybe it is their artistic license?

In the non-food catagory of different/weird is a spa treatment where you sit next to a fish tank and put your feet in and little fishes nibble at your skin. These things are even at shopping malls.

It's tough to make a living here, high unemployment and difficult farm labor in the hot sun. Today I saw some poor guy wearing a huge Milo drink (some kind of flavored milk?) box walking around the grocery store. I could see his eyes behind the vision grill; he looked sad. Probably lo worse than the sign wavers on the corners in America.

When a hotel advertises that it has hot water it means: 1) they only have hot water, not hot and cold, 2) the hot water is only hot during the day when the sun heats the water.

I have discovered some more chip flavors that you will not find anywhere else: Spicy Chicken Paprika, Lobster, Octopus (seriously?) and Salmon Teriyaki. I thought the last one might be fun to try; I like teriyaki and I like samon, but the flavoring on all the chips is so subtle that it these chips barely registered a salmon flavor and not at all a teriyaki flavor. I also found casava chips (?) that are cheesberger flavored. These chips aren't from some local little manufacturere, they are made by Lays. I never see the Balinese buying or eating these things; who are the audience for them (besides me and I'm only curious)?.

Renting motorscooters is so casual here it is hard to believe. First it is pretty cheap, typically about 50,000 Rp./day or about $6. Sometimes they want you to pay one day up front and other cases you pay when you're done. No need for license or even indicating that you can drive a motorscooter (although it is very easy; it is driving in traffic or on the beat up roads that are the challenge). There is no insurance, if you wreck it you pay for it. If you damage it, you pay for the repair except they never repair the damage. On the islands you don't even sign a contract, just take the keys and drive off.

One last thing, you can tell that a country is poor when there is paper currency that is worth less than 12 cents (1,000 rupiah notes).

Things that are different here in Bali

I am kind of a snack food afficianado so I like to notice what snacks and candies are available in places when we travel and like to try them if they don't seem too weird.
A popular snack food brand is named 'oops'
There are lots of cookies in small snack packs, but except for Oreo's they are almost all some kind of wafer.
Strawberry is a very popular flavor for many candies and cookies.
The flavorings for snacks and chips is very subdued from western standards. You can barely tell that a barberque flavored chip is not plain.
Some popular chip flavors are seaweed, roasted chicken and chili plus the barbeque I mentioned.
They grow peanuts here so there are lots of peanuts based snacks. 
Some bread that we are served is like cake.
That's it for snacks, the following is general things that are different.
There must be 30 different brands of laundry soap.
I have been trying to find a lightweight shirt, but it has so far been impossible. For one thing the clothing is not lighweight. I can buy denim and long sleeve shirts or thick teeshirts, but not a simple linen white shirt. Also, in clothing sections of stores men's and women's clothes are not sold in obviously separate sections or areas. A rack of shirts will also have blouses, men's shoes will be next to women's, etc.
In general food is pretty cheap, but because we have to go out for every meal it can still take a big bite out of our budget (pun intended). Drinks are the most expensive part of a dinner. Most drinks cost more than the entrés. A simple glass of white house wine (Yes, Bali actually has a pretty decent local wine.) costs about $8, a mixed drink like a Marguarita is $9, local beer (Bintang, reminds me of Corona) is cheaper, but still about $5, imported beer is as much as a mixed drink. but almost any entré is less than $6. Without drinks a very nice meal with salad, soup (tomato for me, of course), excellent entré and dessert for two would be less than $30, but with drinks it can end up around $45-$50.
    One curious thing is that although cigarettes are available everywhere, there are no pipes or loose tobacco or rolling papers and no smoke shops either.
Although there are gas stations they are not so common that you can count on finding one so almost every roadside store sells gasoline by the liter from old plastic water bottles. I guess that isn't dangerous?
Regarding driving, in Bali there are no rules. Do whatever is convenient; drive on the wrong side of the road, park anywhere, go at any speed (slowly), don't use your lights, pass the vehicle in front of you (on either side) even if there are other vehicles coming, run red lights, put the whole family on the motorscooter, don't have a license or insurance. Somehow it works as I haven't seen an accident. Everyone just knows what to do and it all goes smoothly with no one seeming to get upset. And somehow I manged to drive in this chaos too.
One really good and different thing in Bali is that cell phones are cheap, service is cheap and best of all they work everywhere; the city, the jungle, the beach, little islands, everywhere. Very convenient for traveling the way we are as we can easily arrange for a hotel or a driver or just to call each other. Come on America, catch up!
The following might be too geeky for some readers:
As an amateur myrmecologist I am interested in and casually look for what kind of ants live in the places we travel. (It is not as crazy as it might seem as I discovered rather poisonous ones in the trees and fire ants in Panama thus we avoiding nasty stings while hiking and which we might not have noticed otherwise.). In Bali there appears to be three kinds of ants, all harmless. There are large (1/4 inch) solitary black ants that roam around looking for who knows what and are similar to ones in the Sierra's, squads of dainty little red ants with long legs racing over the hot rocks and packs of tiny little black ants no bigger than a speck of pepper dashing helter-skelter everywhere and most often on the fruit in the offerings that are left on the ground and roads. None of them seem to care about the other.
In the evening there are geckos on the walls of every restaurant. There seem to be three kinds, but they might just be different ages or male and female destinctions. There are white ones and green ones and spotted ones. Thay all interact with each other. For amusement we watch them battle for space, chase each other, catch bugs and make the sound from which their name comes; they actually say "gecko!"

Tomorrow we have an authentic breakfast at our driver's home and then head off for Sanur and the fast boat to Nusa Lembongan, a little island off the east coast of Bali for a couple of days of snorkeling and diving where they claim we will see large manta rays.

Amed and diving

  We have been in Amed for six days and so far it has been our favorite place of the entire trip. Our hotel (Puri Wirata) is the nicest we've stayed in with an ocean view, two pools, dive shop and good restaurant and only $48 per night. The climate in Amed, being on the ocean is pleasant with comfortable humidity and nice cool evenings. It is also very quiet by comparison to Ubud. There are nice restaurants and best of all the snorkeling and diving is fabulous (check out the dive pix at "http://gallery.me/jamesodba/100228"). There is only one two lane road through the town with very little traffic (90% motorscooter) and makes for a beautiful and cool afternoon motorscooter ride along the beaches and high cliffs past little villages and jungle and fields and the occasional chickens, dogs, cows, goats, pigs and kids waving and yelling "hallow!" as we pass.

We signed up for a scuba dive and because this is the low season we were the only ones so we had our own private dive and dive master. Lily really wants to see sea horses and makes a point to ask every dive shop if there are any and where they might be, but there aren't any or they don't know. However, this time the dive master said that he knew where one was!
We started the dive off the beach behind the Diver's Cafe and unlike most of the other beaches it was sandy and not all rocky. We had just started and were in less than ten feet of water, the bottom was still sandy with a few rocks here and there when the dive master signaled to look at something. OMG! A small seahorse about three inches long just sitting on the bottom! I gently picked it up and let it rest on Lily's hand; she was in heaven! It slowly started moving away and we let it get back to whatever seahorses do and continued on. As the bottom gradually dropped away there were large coral clusters with lots of schools of colorful fish moving around and solitary big fish just feeding and munching on the coral or just hanging out. An artificial reef had been made by dropping large concrete blocks in the water and over time they become covered with coral and the home to many varied creatures. The dive master knows the area very well and pointed out the inhabitants of each nook and cranny. There was large lion fishes with their poisonous feathery fins, stone fishes that are so well camouflaged that they look like coral with eyes.
As we continued we came to a large sea fan type of coral white with black marks and the dive master pointed to what seemed to be a little floating black piece of the the fan coral but as I got neared it started moving away. It was another type of seahorse that disguises itself as the coral it lives in. It looked like a little piece of black seaweed.
  The most amazing thing I saw was when the diver pointed out a section of coral. I couldn't see anything except the coral and then the dive master moved his pointer closer and like a magic trick; instantly the big lump of mottled coral turned into a large black octopus! It hesitated for a while and then with it's tentacles curled it jetted away. Unfortunately the camera battery had died minutes before, so you'll just have to take my word on this.
On Friday we left Amed for Candidasa that is along the east coast and has good snorkeling.

Life In Amed

Blog #6: Yesterday we arrived in Amed after a four hour bus ride through picturesque fields, past grand temples and towns of one size or another eventually along a winding coastal road stopping at our hotel: Life In Amed Cottages, located on a black sand fishing village beach. The grounds are beautiful with two story cottages and a pool. The owner who lives in Ubud happened to be staying here and we had a nice afternoon tea and chat about life in Bali. Coincidentally, she also lives in San Francisco and owns a gift shop in the Haight.  What are the odds?
We had visited Amed 17 years ago and it was very quiet then and although more developed now is still a quiet set of fishing villages. The main tourist draw seems to be diving with many dive shops to choose from. Amed is not really a town like Ubud, it is much smaller and really just hotels and restaurants and the occasional grocery/gas by the liter stand on either side of the narrow road along the northeast coast of Bali.

  Although our hotel has a nice restaurant it turned out that the manager the restaurant we had heard about was staying at our hotel and told us that tonight there would be a live Reggae band. He was leaving for the restaurant and said he would lead us to it. So we followed/chased his van on our scooter flying over the winding, pot-holed and unlit coastal road passing many other inviting restaurants for about five miles and finally stopped at "Pashta". It looked new, even had parking! The layout was open with a high thatched roof and a band area on one side and Japanese style low tables and cushions in booths surrounding it. The menu was typical including tomato soup and a mix of fish, chicken and "Fork" (pork), but no pastas or pizza. Of course I ordered the tomato soup (I am starting a mental catalog of all variations of this soup and there are many from wonderful types including creamy versions to a more of a minced tomato, onions, garlic and herbs, usually all delicious) and we both ordered the grilled chicken in orange sauce. When our main course finally arrived it was coated in a mess of some kind of thick sauce and chopped onions and garlic. I scrapped the goop off to try and find the meat and concluded that this chicken appeared to have died of starvation. It was not a boneless breast as I had imagined, but back and leg or something. I've seen scraps left by street dogs with more meat on them. So I ate the rice. Lily's dinner was the same. We called this the Malaysian Diet Plan Balinese Style after the un-eatable food we were constantly served and could not eat when we were in Malaysia.  We paid our bill and left.
The live Reggae Band? They were coming from Denpasar by motor bikes and unfortunately there was an accident and a band member was hurt so we got a local pick up band to fill in. They attempted to play 70's folk and Bob Marley Reggae tunes. They tried, but were as bad at music as the chef was at cooking.
  However the evening was not over. What could be more romantic than riding together on a motor scooter on a winding, deserted  coastal road through the soft warm evening air under a moonless, star-lite night accompanied by the sound of the surf beside us? It is just another evening in Bali.   

Life in Ubud

Blog #5: We've been in Ubud for over ten days and when it wasn't raining like crazy or I was sick (more later) we had a bunch of fun. Going back in time from yesterday we signed up for a bike ride at 8:30am beginning at a 1,000 year old village high on a ridge near the top of Mt.  Agun.  We rode down through small villages on trails in rice paddies and little roads. The guide pointed out cinnamon trees and gave us a piece of the bark to try and it tastes like cinnamon! And a clove tree, but the cloves were not ripe yet. And a cocoa tree with huge pods. We stopped in a small village where they grow coffee (in Bali coffee is the number two export after rice) and saw the plants and tasted the beans and saw a primitive roasting set up they use. The coffee roasters in this village get about $2/lb for their coffee. We continued on for another few miles through fields and villages and finally ended up at the Elephant Safari Park!  OMG! Real elephants just walking around. There was an elephant show and you could ride them and feed them and pet them. There was a very nice upscale hotel at the park, too. We had lunch at a fabulous buffet at the park restaurant, too. This was a really beautiful big park and I recommend visiting it to anyone coming to Bali.

The big event in this town, Ubud that everyone was talking about for the last couple of weeks was the "Cremation". Several months ago one of the kings of this province who was quite revered and had done many progressive things died and so a huge and ceremonious cremation was necessary. It was scheduled for Tuesday and the town was busier and more crowded than usual. The ceremonies started on the previous Friday with the building of the huge "movable" (just barely) pyre consisting of a huge and beautifully done white wooden and paper mâché bull about ten feet high in which the coffin resided. This was on a decorated platform that was also about ten feet high. The whole thing was to be moved on Tuesday to the cremation grounds at the main temple in Ubud about 3/4 mile away. We tried to go to the building ceremony on Friday, but couldn't get within a block of the place. On Tuesday we did manage to get to the starting point of the precession along with thousands of others; it was hot and humid and super crowded and we actually got to where we could see it and take some pictures, but we nearly died in the heat so we had to come back to recuperate in the hotel pool. We would go to the actual cremation later at 5-ish.
At 5pm we headed to the cremation temple and the roads and sidewalks were crowded to where you could barely drive or walk, but most people seemed to be coming back. Did we get the time wrong, did we miss it? We decided let's just go anyway and see what is left. Turns out we didn't miss the cremation, the huge pyre had arrived and they were setting it up for the cremation. I guess the other people who were leaving had only wanted to see the procession or most likely gave up waiting in the heat.
The temple grounds at the cremation site were full of thousands of people in all manner of dress from dignified to casual patiently sitting and standing and fending off people selling everything from overpriced water, odd snack foods to unnecessary sarongs. We found a shady, comfortable spot with a good view about a hundred feet from the pyre and watched the preparation and waited. And waited. Finally, after about an hour and just before sunset at 6:15 and surprisingly without any fanfare or warning they set the pyre on fire with big gas torches! Slowly the huge bull lit up with flames leaping in the air and the crowd just watching quietly and the fire trucks dowsed the flames here and there to control the burning. After about a half hour the bull and the coffin and it's contents were embers and that was that and everyone started leaving. That's Bali; burn up a dead revered king, no big deal.

On Saturday before the cremation we went for a motorcycle ride to see the rice paddies and whatever else, but I had to come back early because I felt so exhausted. I wasn't hungry for lunch or dinner. I even had to lay down and rest after laund-r-aobics that night. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what. Later that night around 2am I started getting a fever. The kind where you hallucinate and pant and then have the chills and then feel better than you don't, repeat until morning. I thought I might have gotten malaria or something. We called the hotel front desk and they called the local clinic doctor. (in third world countries doctors make house calls.) They, a female doctor and a male nurse took my temperature (102 degrees, no wonder I was hallucinating!) and a blood sample. They returned later and told me the blood test showed that I did not have malaria or dengue fever, but that I probably had some kind of water born bacterial infection and I would be better in a couple of days. They gave me some fever and anti-biotic pills and left. Total cost: $156. Following another day of off and on fever and chills and some minor GI issues by the evening of Monday I felt about 90% and declared myself cured and by Tuesday morning I felt totally fine.
Whatever that was I don't want to go through that again, but it could happen again. We have been careful about what we eat and drink, but I guess eventually you'll get something. We figure the reason Lily didn't also get sick was that she was taking anti-biotics for here head cut and it probably killed the little guys before they could infect her. I think I would have preferred the gash on the head.

Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Amed on the north coast. It is quietier, drier and has beach right at the resort. I'm sort of done with Ubud and the traffic and heat.          

Lily's turn to blog!

Oct. 30
Yesterday we took a ride on the motorbike to a neighboring town, Tegalalang, which was lined with shops selling crafts, primarily mosaics, but also woodworking, stonework and more.  There were so many shops, it is almost overwhelming.  We did find one that had a unique style and we ended up buying a couple of very beautiful glass mosaic plates.  They were so cheap!  We only paid around $9 for both!
We had lunch at a cafe/gallery overlooking the rice paddies.  Jim was not feeling well so we headed back to our hotel for a swim and some rest.  The heat and humidity are quite debilitating.  We had dinner at a lovely restaurant.  Ubud is so chic now, with so many restaurants to chose from, with a wide variety of cuisines.
Alas today Jim is down with a fever!  So we will rest in our beautiful room in the treetops with a view over the vast garden, listening to the songs and chatter of the many birds and creatures surrounding us.

Oct 31
Wow.  Jim has been really sick with a fever and chills.  Luckily for us, the doctor from the local Ubud clinic came over to examine him and take blood.  (The same clinic and doctor who treated me for my head injury!)
The diagnosis was a bacterial infection, so they gave Jim antibiotics and anti-fever medication and electrolytes.  He had a bad night but finally today seems to be perking up!
Last night I attended a performance of one of the traditional dances in the Balinese repertoire - the Kekak and Fire dance.  It was quite amazing.  It is performed without music, but instead there is a human chorus of around 70 men who chant creating a cacophony of sound - kekak, kekak, kekak.  The story is from the Ramayana, their ancient Hindu text.  It includes a number of colorfully dressed characters, with amazing masks and costumes.  For the fire dance part, a large pile of coconut husks are dumped on the ground in the center of the stage area and set on fire.  Then a man with a sort of horse costume comes galloping out and through the fire and kicks it  - sending sparkling, crackling husks flying all over the place.  Two men come out and sweep it back together and the horse gallops back through kicking it all apart again.  It is quite spectacular.
There are different dances performed every night, most with a gamelan orchestra.  The Balinese costumes and masks are quite spectacular and the music is quite distinctive. The Balinese culture is an amazing thing to experience!    

Ubud, Bali

First, the weirdest thing we've have seen or heard since arriving. As we came back from our rafting trip (more about that, later), walking along the garden path into our hotel we heard a haunting and eerie, moving and varying whistle sound coming from the sky; it sounded like wee, wee, wee, wee...  Looking up at first we couldn't tell what it was, then we say a small flock of a dozen or so pigeons or doves flying around and the sound seemed to be coming from them!  We watched and listened for awhile trying to figure out what it was.  It turns out the birds are someone's pets and they have whistles attached to them that make that sound as the fly. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore

My birthday on Tuesday started out with of us moving to another hotel, this one certain to be our last for at least a week. It is a beautiful sunken garden with massive stone and brick Balinese traditional buildings with four rooms each. We got a second floor room that has all the expected hotel room features (finally!). After unloading our bags we both went to the pool and relaxed.  It is so hot, humid and windless during the mid day that walking around and window shopping becomes an uncomfortable, tiring, sweat drenching survival march. We save our walking around for the evening.  After relaxing for a while Lily got a massage and a body scrub for 70,000 Rp or less than $9 and I spent that time uploading the pictures one by one (this was the first place with decent internet so I took advantage of it.). Anyway, someone had to do it.
For my birthday dinner we went to a nearby Italian restaurant called "Black Beach" so named because the bar on the second floor has black sand from the north coast beaches for a floor. Whatever. I wanted some cake, but by the time we finished dinner it was after 10 and the place that earlier we had identified as a place to get cake was closing. We said it was my birthday and I just wanted a piece of cake so they let us order and even sang happy birthday to me.

Wednesday, Oct., 27 The raft trip: We signed us up for a rafting trip or should I say the hotel manager got us signed up for one as soon as we arrived before we even got to our room; we had seen the brochures and talked about going so we were an easy sell. Everyone is selling something or knows someone who is selling something here.
The trip starts with about a 200 foot zig-zag decent down to the river along the lush, wet, jungle canyon via a staircase carved into the wall with no railing or rope to hold on to in case you slipped on the wet rocks. That part of the trip almost wore out a couple of the other rafters.
Note about safety: no one here wants you to get hurt, but the thing about Bali and so far all of Indonesia and probably all less developed countries is that safety is your problem, not theirs. If something doesn't look safe, then don't do it or don't go there or don't eat it; that seems to be the policy. This is not Disneyland where things might look dangerous, but aren't; things can be dangerous, you won't see a warning sign and no one will caution you; you just have to be careful.
  Back to the raft trip (spoiler alert, no one gets hurt). We were issued one-size-fits-all helmets (no they don't) and life jackets and a paddle before the climb down. The rafts were the typical large river raft with seating for six and the guide. The river was moving rather fast, but not wide and with rapids and big rocks and drops all along the way. It was not possible to navigate the river without bashing into the rocks and the sides of the canyon, but the boats were pretty tough and the trip was wet, exciting, but not really dangerous. There were many spectacular and beautiful waterfalls pouring a hundred feet on to the river. One of the more unexpected and interesting things was was a long section of black rock cliff that was deeply carved depicting scenes from the Ramayana, the sacred Hindu religious text. This went on for a mile or so! Amazing! Check out the pictures on the photo site.
The rafting lasted about two hours and was well worth the $40, but then we all got to climb back up the steep canyon on carved steps again. I actually enjoy that kind of challenge and because the guides kept calling me "Papa" which is how they refer to older people so thanks to years of Marin mountain biking and YMCA swimming I was able to sprint up most of the way to the top and waited for everyone else to come puffing and wheezing up to meet me. Today my thighs are aching, I won't be doing that stunt for awhile.
The raft trip was pretty well planned as it also included showers and lunch and a chance to buy a video or pictures of the trip (of course).

Oct 28:
The hotel manager, Made (pronounced "Mawd-day") invited us to go to a wedding in the late afternoon for one of the people in the hotel staff! What an opportunity to see something really Balinese! He provided me with the appropriate outfit, a sarong, sash and hat. Lily had to buy a sarong and sash and cover blouse. The staff dressed us and then we all took off on the motor-scooters for a 30 minute ride through the countryside to the village where it was to take place. Lily and I became a source of amusement to most people who saw us judging by the looks; blonde foreigners dressed in traditional Balinese outfits and Lily riding side-saddle on the motor scooter. I was now used to it having had the mud riding experience in Kuta, Lombok
As it turned out the wedding occurred in the morning and we were actually going to the reception. Made didn't explain that; I guess he didn't know the word for "reception".   There were about twenty five people at the event and the bride and groom were still dressed in their wedding outfits. The bride was gorgeous and looked like a doll (see the pix) and they both looked very happy and graciously received the odd looking foreigners. It also turned out that we were expected, as guests to give money (equivalent of about $10 each) in an envelope as gifts to the groom.
After about an hour and a half in which we met someone that spoke English pretty well and got an interesting tour of the home compound and had a light Indonesian buffet we headed back before the sun set. All in all interesting, but a little disappointing as we were hoping to see a wedding. The motor scooter ride gave us our first chance too really see the rice paddy countryside and little villages as we zoomed by. We'll probably go on another ride tomorrow to check things out. 

We're in Ubud

Blog #3 Oct. 22:
Today, our last full day in Lombok I (Jim) took the motor scooter and went off on my own as Lily was having a little GI problem and felt like resting for awhile. I went for miles and miles down a little paved road that I hoped would lead to a deserted beach I had seen on a map. The road turned into a dirt road with huge mud puddles then asphalt again then dirt and mud off an on for a mile or so.  I managed to ride around the mud holes pretty well until I got to a puddle that I didn't negotiate so well. I was only going about two mph when the front wheel slid into the puddle and stopped and I toppled over into the puddle on my side getting totally covered in mud. I wasn't hurt and picked up the motor scooter and pushed it off into the grass while I wiped some of the mud off of me. I gave up on further exploring and headed back so I could wash off. I looked like i had rolled in it and must have been an amusing sight, on the drive back I got a lot of stares and turned heads.

Farewell to Lombok, 23 October,
Lombok in a nutshell is still not an easy tourist destination. There may be some nice hotels, but, still pretty much for the backpacker travelers who don't mind basic and broken down hotels, dirt roads and funky little towns and shops and restaurants.  The beaches were better than Bali, at least in terms of there being remote, unspoiled light brown sand beaches (unfortunately with litter lining the shoreline). There is a beautiful lake at a the top of a 6,800 ft volcano that you can sign up for a three day hike to and lush forests. In every town no matter how poor it looks there are mosques, some quite beautiful, but most still under construction.   In Kuta the surfing is reported to be as good as it gets and it is a destination for the serious surfer. The roads a completely jammed with motor scooters, trucks and cars plus horse carts making travel a slow process.
There will be a new international airport in a year or so and that will bring more tourists and provide much needed jobs, but they have a long way to go with the necessary infrastructure. Maybe come back in ten years.

To Bali:
The roads from Kuta to the town of Lumar for the fast boat to Bali is under construction in so many places in combination with the volume of traffic that it was stop and go for many sections of the road and there was a tropical rain storm most of the way to add to the fun.
We finally got to the "port" (a beach, no pier, dock or anything port-like) where the boat would pick us up just in time and dragged our bags across the sand to a little hut and waited for the boat. The boat showed up, our bags got thrown on and the passage to Bali was uneventful in spite of the rain storm.

An hour and twenty minutes later we docked at the port town of Padang Bai on the east cast of Bali and got off along with thirty other passengers onto a small broken down dock that looked like it would fall apart at any minute; boards missing, broken or loose and the whole thing sagging dangerously off to one side. The main pier was connected to this dock by a rickety walkway that also looked about ready to collapse. People use this to get on and off the boat twice every day?
WARNING: Graphic description to follow
While I am getting our bags out of the boat Lily starts going to the pier with the other passengers and steps on to the walkway, but her foot goes through a board, she falls to the side and bangs her head full force on a big wooden handrail. I hear people making a commotion and someone calls me over. I see Lily being helped up holding her head with blood running down her arm! I run over have a look and she has a one and a half inch bleeding gash in her head on her scalp; ugly looking, painful, but fortunately not serious. Whew! I reassured her and went back for the bags because three of the other passengers turned out to be nurses from Australia and they quickly came to her aid. Her head was bleeding and she was hurt, but bravely toughing it out. One of the boat staff took her on a motor-scooter to the nearby little clinic and I went to the bus area with our bags to wait for her. about 15 minutes later she returned. They had cleaned the wound and stuck a big bandage on it and gave her some antibiotics. It was clear that the wound needed a couple of stitches and there are probably good clinics in Ubud. Lily bought a beer to ease the pain and we got in the van for the two hour ride to Ubud.
We arrived at our hotel, found a nearby clinic and $120 later we left the with two stitches in Lily's head and what looked like a patch of white tape stuck to her hair. it could have been a lot worse.
The next thing was to find dinner except it was after ten and most places are closing. We eventually found a terrific place with a great menu and finally got some food (I love tomato soup and every restaurant seems to have it, but all different recipes and delicious) as we hadn't eaten since breakfast in Lombok. What a day!

That brings me to a topic of the main difference with first world countries and the rest of the world. First, there is no "normal"; every place is either better, the same or worse than somewhere else. It is not normal for things to get fixed or built right in the first place. You have to constantly be looking out for big and little dangerous things like that dock or sidewalks with un marked open holes or rotted railings that would break if you lean against them or people driving the wrong way or running through red lights (actually, I've seen that so much here that might be normal) or little differences between the floor in one room to another that will make you stub your toe or stumble or stairs that are not constant in height just to name a few things that we run into (literally) almost every day.

Oct 23, day two in Ubud:
We bought two Nokia cell phones for $40 each so we can call hotels and each other and that we can use all over Asia. We also found a much nicer hotel to move to and so we did. It seems that that is our process; get a hotel the first night and then the next day find a better one and move. The problem is that it takes half the day to do. The first place looked real nice with a pool and beautiful grounds, but the room was all white with no decorations and had a bare florescent light in the ceiling and no reading light. Who thought that was a good idea?

After we settled in to our new place; second floor with air and a nice pool and right in central Ubud we went window shopping and later out to looking for a place to eat dinner. The problem we have is that I am happy with the first restaurant that has things on the menu I would like (like tomato soup for one) and Lily wants to see all the restaurants before she makes her choice. Lily not only considers the menu, but also atmosphere and if there are other people in there ("it must not be good if no one is in there") and if there is a view and music, etc.  I just want to eat. We call this "dinner death marches". Somehow we always manage to find a place without killing each other.

Oct 25, day three in Ubud: We rented a Honda Vario 115cc automatic motor scooter and it is Monday and the office where we can get our visas extended is open so we spent the morning dealing with that. Then we found an even better hotel so tomorrow we move again (for the last time). It was hot and humid so we spent the afternoon at the pool and I (Jim) got a massage for $8. Pretty Balinese girl, jasmine oil, gamalon music... ahhh.  Sorry, worker bees, but someone has to live like this.
Tonight I am pretty sure we burned up a lot of karma because we took the motor scooter and drove out to a nice dinner spot and as we were eating a tropical storm came through and the rain poured. We didn't bring anything to keep us dry on the motor scooter so we had some dessert and hoped the rain would stop and it did. We paid the bill, wiped off the seat and rode back to the hotel and just as we got back it started raining buckets again. Thank you Shiva or Buddha or whom ever!

Oct, 26 (my 63rd birthday): Moving again. This time to a real beautiful place with rooms that have all the basics; breakfast included plus a beautiful view and wi-fi for the bargain price of $55/night because we agreed to stay for seven days.
Well, off to the pool.   More later and pictures, to; I promise.

From Kuta, Lombok

Day five, Leaving Bali for the Gili Islands:
We headed off with no accommodations booked and figured we could find something pretty easily as there seem to be lots of places according to the book and the Internet search. It started out with a two hour bus ride to Padeng Bai where we had our first chance since we arrived to speak English with other travelers during the ride. We loaded our gear on the fast boat (I imagined something like the ferry between Larkspur and San Francisco; it turned out to be about a 40 foot enclosed shuttle that holds 30 passengers with four 250 HP Suzuki outboards). The passage was actually fast and pleasant as the seas were calm and several of us went outside on the top of the cabin for the breeze and the view.
We literally beached the boat at the shore of Gili Trawangan and waded ashore. There were lots of people on the beach to meet us and to take our bags and to offer us accommodations. We followed two guys who had grabbed our bags up to the main "street" and they and the horse cart driver loaded our stuff into the cart. We got in and took off at a trot to look at the place.
Unfortunately there was a big marathon going on and this night is the weekly "full moon" party (not related to the phase of the moon as it was a waning crescent) so the accommodations were mostly full except for the very expensive and the totally crappy. After going to several places we decided to try the method from our last travels. After paying the cart driver $8 for the 15 minute "tour" we unloaded and I sat with our gear and a walkie-talkie and Lily went off in the hot sun to try to find a place. After an hour Lily said she was exhausted, hot and tired, but had found a villa for about $60 and everything else she looked at was horrible. She came back on a horse cart, we gathered our stuff and went to this villa.

The explanation for the unexpected situation was that the governor of the province was coming to visit with a big 3 day festival that started the day we arrived.  What were the chances?

Thoughts on Gilis Trawangan:
Number one is that it is more expensive than we expected or that it should be.  It seem so be a party destination for Australians (it is only three hours from Perth) and Europeans and surprisingly Russians. Also, and I'm not complaining, for some reason there is a highly disproportionate amount of beautiful young women; tan mostly blonde, 9.5 to 10's in bikinis. They are in groups and with equally attractive surfer boyfriends from what sounds like Austrailia. We found out that the islands are only about 4 hours flight from Australia so this is a popular party place.
The eating is also quite varied, all good, from traditional Indonesian foods to pizza. Last night Lily had a wonderful chicken schnitzel and I had chicken cordon blue that was fabulous. Total cost with drinks: $26 (food is cheap, but drinks are about $8 each). All while sitting five feet from the where waves were gently breaking on the beach.

Yesterday we went on a snorkel cruise stopping in three spots off of each of the other Gili islands (Meno and Air). The reefs have been long ago damaged by storms and careless fishing and anchoring. There was the usual assortment of colorful fish, but nothing to really recommend it. We did see two sea turtles.  We stopped at Air for lunch and I had a fabulous tomato soup and cheese sandwich. Air is more undeveloped than Trawangan, but still expensive.  Lily walked around looking at accommodations thinking if there was something cheap we might come here for a couple of days, but the prices were the same as Trawangan.

Day 10:
This morning we got up at 6:30 to get the ferry to Lombok. Lily found us accommodations in the beach town  of Senggigi at a beautiful garden resort on the beach called Windy Beach Cottages.
The boat beached at the port of Lamar and immediately guys from the beach grabbed our luggage and ran up to the waiting collection of donkey carts where I guess we would be driven to where the buses are. We are still learning, we presumed our "porters" were part of the crew or something, but they were independent hustlers. These guys grab your bags off the boat before you can stop them and carry them 100 feet to the donkey cart and then demanded the equivalent of $5. I offered $2 and they looked like I was going to starve them. I ended up giving them $3.  I really wanted to offer them nothing and state that since i didn't request the "service" they could just GTFO, but they new that anyway and i was a rich tourist so just pay them. The donkey cart cost another $8.You have to establish the amount first and with the "porters" you have to stop them before they grab your bags without asking. A good monthly income is $300 for an office worker so we're getting scammed.

 The little resort is nice, well manicured grounds. Our room is a basic cottage, and the shower is fresh water and has a curtain so that the rest of the bathroom won't get soaked; not typical in Asia. There is a beautiful swimming pool and soaking pool that we jumped into as soon as we got settled. A restaurant in town was recommended and they provided a free shuttle so we went and enjoyed another (now typical) fabulously delicious, cheap meal and walked around town to see what was there. Basically, nothing but restaurants and the usual tiny shops.

  The next day the hotel manager arranged a driver for us to take us on the central tour; a famous water fall, a water temple and a couple of crafts factories. We saw how tedious the hand work at a loom was to make the beautiful cloths; most would take a week to make a couple of feet! We bought two table runners and a gorgeous batik of tropical fish.  Easy to pack fortunately.

  We stayed only two nights and left the next morning to a little island farther south called Gili Neggru.  We unloaded in the main town across from the island and took an outrigger on a twenty minute ride to the island just off shore. Uh... The place was a wreck. From what we could see every structure was either unfinished or in serious need of repair! Too late to go back now. So we selected one of the least awful bungalows and tried to make the best of it.  The bugalo was two story with the room on the second level and at least it had a breeze blowing through it which was good because there was no fan. The bathroom as it was, was down steep stairs, no fresh water shower, wash with salt water, rinse from a tub of fresh water. Everything in this place is either broken or worn out.

  After unpacking we decided to check out the snorkeling.  WOW!! We've never seen more variety of fish in one place before! There were dozens types of fish of all sizes and colors and mix of colors and coral and all in less than ten feet of water. Best snorkeling ever. Score: accommodations =1, snorkeling=10

There was a restaurant shack and the food was actually good; I had pizza"  At dinner we met a fascinating guy; the personification of the international man of adventure. He was Australian and had been a pearl diver for twenty years and a dive instructor and lived in Jakarta studying and was traveling with an Indonesian girlfriend half his age.. He had been to or lived in every place we wanted to go. He had endless stories and travel tips and it was all we could to to break away to go to sleep. Sleep in our hot room with no breeze (no breeze at night when you actually need it) or fan and the bathroom down a steep staircase is not very good. In the morning we agreed to leave/escape.

  Day 14:
Leaving the idyllic castaway paradise of Gili Neggru (good riddance!) we headed off on an outrigger to another recommended little nearby island called Gili Gede with hopes that the accommodations would be as pictured. The resort is called "Secret Island Resort" owned by an American. We had high hopes, the pictures made it look so nice. Unfortunately it was also a run down, dilapidated dump. We decided to have lunch there while figuring out what to do next and met an interesting British and Canadian couple who worked as English teachers for the British Consulate in South Korea. We chatted about traveling and various places and got some more Bali and Vietnam tips.
After lunch we decided to just go to the nearest town on the mainland optimistic that we could find more suitable accommodations and that the next place would at least have a fresh water shower and a ceiling fan. Once again we loaded our gear into a small outrigger and motored away across a beautiful blue bay towards Lombok.  On the far distant shore there appeared to be some kind of hotel on the beach and told our "boat captain" to drop us there.

You never know how the day will end we always say, especially when they start out like ours did. We landed at a wonderful little place called Bola-Bola Paradis owned by a Dutch couple who as luck would have it were there. We were shown a wonderful little room with... wait for it...  OMG, a fresh water shower and a big ceiling fan AND a little fan right on the bed and a safe and a closet!  All for 350,000 Rp or about $40.
We quickly showered and cleaned the two days of salt and sweat off and then enjoyed an iced coffee on the veranda. That night we had a wonderful dinner and later sat with the owners and another Dutch couple (the only other guests) at the bar and got lots of good Bali travel tips.
That night, sometime around midnight it started raining, seriously raining! The roar of the rain on the roof was deafening. This along with lightening flashes and rumbling thunder kept us up off and on until after 3. It was raining so hard that rain splashed through spaces between the roofs and actually sprinkled on our bed. Other than that it was a good night.

Wednesday, October 20
The tropical rain storm was over and we woke to a beautiful morning. After breakfast we decided to see the nearby town and walked about two miles down the road to it.  BTW, no one walks here. Everyone is riding a motor scooter, kids, old people, whole families on one bike. We were the only people walking and there is no place but the road to walk on fortunately the drives are not going too fast and honk to warn us so that we can step out the way in time.
the walk made it obvious that we are in a developing country. No trash pick up so trash is everywhere, cows and dogs wander the road, half finish/destroyed structures are everywhere and next to nice ones. What looks like a convenient, but somewhat dirty roadside outhouse was in fact not, but in fact someone's "home".  The people seem friendly and all the little kids wave. Anyway, it was hot and tiring and there is no real town except for a few shops and a clinic and a school. We trudged back covered in sweat. After a cool showere and a rest that night we had another nice meal, talked at the bar while watching Bollywood music videos. Unfortunately, there is no internet here this far from civilization. Tomorrow we leave for

Everyone said we should go to Kuta which is about two hours by car. Best beaches, surf and bunch of backpacker hotels and one nice Novatel hotel. Why not? We called a place that was recommended and arranged a room at the Matahari Inn, a Balinese run place.  We figured it would at least be pretty and the rooms had air conditioners! And a pool!  All for about $35/night. We hired a driver to take us there and pick us up in two days and take us back to the fast ferry terminal for our return to Bali and civilization.

Kuta, Lombok:
The Matahari Inn is a Balinese looking place with Hindu gods carvings and all the usual look of a Balinese place.  Like everything in Lombok so far it is a little run down, but the room has air conditioning and even a hot water shower! We had to look at several rooms before we settled on the best compromise of air, shower, bed, lights, etc.
In order to get around in this place you need a motor-scooter so we rented a Honda 125cc with manual shift and automatic clutch for about $6/day plus gas which is about $/gal. The little scooters are quiet, almost comfortable enough for two big adults and powerful enough to take us up a long steep hill. Which we did to a vegetarian restaurant on the top with a sweeping view of the whole area. Ashanti looks like a hippy den with pillows and low tables and reggae music and incense. The only customers were other travelers. Food was good and cheap and the view was fabulous with a cool breeze.

In the evening we planned to go buzz around and find a restaurant and an Internet cafe, but a tropical rain storm came in and fortunately only lasted for an hour so as soon and it stopped off we went, but by now it as 8:30.
We found a little thatched roof place by the beach with classic country western music for a background. Had another great meal and went to the internet shack. It cost $3.33/hr and they had about 5 pc's with 13 inch CRT monitors. I turned on the iPhone and found a wi-fi signal with the default login. LOL, free Internet.

Notes on traveling:
The daily routine involves putting on sun screen and bug spray whenever we go out. In Lombok it is claimed you can get malaria or dengue fever. Don't want any of that! You also have to carry water. Because we are staying in most places for only a day or two we don't bother to unpack except for what we need. We've become super organized and every little thing has it's place so we could find it in the dark. Once we get up we have to go find breakfast and replenish our water. Then it rains for an hour. Then off to do or see whatever, then in the afternoon find lunch, relax and read or write and maybe the beach, then look for dinner.
Washing clothes is also part of the routine because everything you wear gets saturated with sweat so it can't be worn more than twice or maybe only once. On our last travels 17 years ago we invented "launder-obics" for washing our clothes. Put the dirty clothes in the shower or a bucket, add laundry soap and stomp and scrub for 5 minutes, rinse, wring out in a towel and hang up to dry. Usually, the next day they are ready to wear or put away. Launder-obics: Exercise and laundry all in one!

Question: How can nature create a bug no bigger than a speck of pepper that can fly, find me, find the one spot I missed with the bug spray, bite me and leave an itching welt that lasts for an hour? Seriously.

Traveling with electronics:
I am using an iPad for communications, writing, music, books, amusement, but if I did it again for everything but reading I might  have taken a decent, cheap net book or maybe a used 13 inch MacBook and a Kindle for reading. Many travelers are carrying laptops, which is more bulky than an iPad and more temperamental, but i guess it works for them.  Everything about the iPad is wonderful and as reading I may never go back to paper, but the problem is that the current iOS installed browser is not compatible with Google blog; meaning I have to create all blog entries in HTML. Other than that I love the iPad for traveling. Maybe the next iOS 4.x will solve that.

Finally got the blog in English

Adjusting to the 14 hour time change has been pretty easy so far; we slept the first night and subsequent nights, got up at 7 hungry for breakfast. So far we've had no problem, it's as if there was no time change.

Weather has been very pleasant, 85 degrees, 85% humidity, gentle breeze, some clouds and some light rain the other night. Last night we got a taste of tropical rain storm; sheets of rain that would soak you in a minute.  Fortunately it only lasted about an hour.

The beach at Nusa Dua is brown and gritty. The tide rises and falls over six feet leaving the hotel's beach a shallow seaweed bed during low tide. The ocean is probably 85 degrees which is about perfect, but the pool is also about 85 which is not so refreshing and too warm to stay in for long.

  We seem to be the only Americans at the hotel, everyone else is speaking French or German or Russian and in large tour groups so we haven't had a chance to meet anyone yet. We think this place is intended as a group package tour for Europeans. There is no one to help set up any outside activities. The groups have their own planner so we're been on our own.

Yesterday we contacted a driver that was recommended by a friend and had an amazing tour to a famous temple site at Tana Lot, then to a butterfly farm that is a huge covered beautiful botanical garden where they raise the butterflies along with some other exotic insects including a variety of huge beetles, stick bugs that look exactly like a big stick and leaf and orchid bugs that also look like their name (pix will be on the photo site shortly). The docent even let us hold them in our hands! The were so big they looked like toys. Amazing experience!
  After that we drove to a primitive natural hot springs spa in the middle of lush bamboo forest setting where we had to hike in past terraced rice paddies for and for $4 soaked in a private pool for awhile. Finally we drove past picturesque rice paddy landscapes and sited another beautiful temple site on a lake in the caldera fo a volcano. What a day!

Tomorrow, October 12th we check out of this place and begin our real adventure.  We're going to take a fast ferry (2 hours as opposed to 6 hours on the not fast ferry) to the Gili Islands off the coast of the nearby large island to the east called Lombok. The Gilis  are three little white sand islands all near each other with no cars or motor scooters; you get around by walking or donkey cart. It is popular with the backpacker set (us, sort of) and has great snorkeling and diving but not much else.  We expect to relax there for 4-5 days then back to Bali and then. We do not have a room arranged, but expect it to not be a big problem.  There are plenty of hotels and many inexpensive ones.

  We have discovered that the advantage of having the internet for researching and booking hotels is not as efficient as hoped.  Yesterday we spent about two hours looking for a hotel on the Gili island and ending up with nothing as the Internet speed is frustratingly slow when forced to share the WI-FI link with others to the point of uselessness. We could have found a room quicker in the old fashion way of going from hotel to hotel until we found something suitable.  Maybe this will improve in other locations.

Day five, Leaving Bali for the Gili Islands:
We headed off with no accommodations booked and figured we could find something pretty easily as there seem to be lots of places according to the book and the Internet search. It started out with a two hour drive to where we had our first chance to speak English with other travelers during the ride. We loaded our gear on the fast boat (I imagined something like the ferry between Larkspur and San Francisco; it turned out to be about a 40 foot enclosed shuttle that holds 30 passengers with four 250 HP Suzuki outboards). The ride was actually fast and pleasant as the seas were calm and several of us went outside on the top of the cabin.
  We literally beached the boat at the shore of Gili and waded ashore. There were lots of people on the beach to meet us and to take the boat back and to offer us accommodations. We followed on guy up to the main "street" and he and the horse cart driver loaded our stuff into the cart, we got in and took off at a trot to look at the place. Unfortunately there was a big marathon going on and tonight is the weekly "full moon" party (not related to the phase of the moon as it was a waning crescent) so the accommodations were mostly full except for the very expensive and the totally crappy. After going to several places we decided to try the method from our last travels. After paying the cart driver $8 for the 15 minute "tour" we unloaded and I sat with our gear and a walkie-talkie and Lily went off to find a place. After an hour Lily said she was exhausted, hot and tired, but had found a villa for about $60 and everything else she looked at was horrible. She came back on a horse cart, we gathered our stuff and went to this villa.

The explanation for the unexpected situation was that the governor of the province was coming to visit with a big 3 day festival that started the day we arrived.  What were the chances?

Thoughts on Gili:
Number one is that it is more expensive than we expected or that it should be.  It seem so be a party destination for Australians (it is only three hours from Perth) and Europeans and surprisingly Russians. Also , for some reason there is a highly disproportionate amount of beautiful women; young, thin,tan mostly blonde, 9.5 to 10's. The are in groups and with boyfriends.

  The eating is also quite varied, all good, from traditional Indonesian foods to pizza. Last night Lily had a wonderful chicken schnitzel and I had chicken cordon blue that was fabulous. Total cost with drinks: $26. All while sitting five feet from the where waves were gently breaking on the beach.

On Wednesday we went on a snorkel cruise stopping in three spots off of each of the Gili islands (Meno and Air). The reefs have been long ago damaged by storms and careless fishing and anchoring. There was the usual assortment of colorful fish, but nothing to really recommend it. We did see two sea turtles.  We stopped at Air for lunch and I had a fabulous tomato soup and cheese sandwich. Air is more undeveloped than Tarwangar, but still expensive.  Lily walked around looking at accommodations thinking if there was something cheap we might stay here for a couple of days, but the prices were the same as Trawangan.

Indonesia has surprisingly excellent restaurants. You can order anything from traditional Indonesian food to Italian and this is on this little island that you probably won't find on a map.

Day 10:
This morning we got up at 6:30 to get the ferry to Lombok. Lily found us accommodations at the a beautiful garden resort on the beach called Windy Hills. We are still learning how to deal with the "porters" and donky cart drivers. The porters grabbed our bags before we could stop them and carried them 100 feet to the donkey cart and then demanded the equivalent of $5. I offered $2 and they looked like I was going to starve them. I ended up giving them $3. The donkey cart cost another $8. You have to establish the amount first. A good monthly income is $300 for an office worker so we're getting scammed. Oh well