May 17 - Bali

Bali. It was incredible. Endless beaches, sunshine, balmy ocean breezes, beautiful temples, great service, fantastic shopping, and an inner calm that comes over you once you get there. We stayed at the Conrad Bali in Nusa Dua, which is only two years old and is just gorgeous. We were spoiled by the staff, I kept asking Gerhard "Do you think they are VIPing us? Who knew we were staying here?" ...I mean, they even left a bouquet of 4 roses on my bed along with a birthday card!

We hired a young man, Tena, to be our driver. Our first day trip was to Ubud, the artistic and cultural center of Bali, and takes about an hour to drive there from Nusa Dua. On the way, we passed through little villages that each have their own artisan specialty: wood carving, stone sculpture, silversmithing, basket weaving, painting and batik fabric to name some of the major crafts. On the way home, we stopped for fresh seafood at a beach restaurant on Jimaran Bay.

Our second excursion took us to downtown Denpasar, the capital of Bali. It was very busy, very crowded and decidedly non-touristy. The main method of transportation seems to be via motorbikes. At any stoplight, there are hundreds of motorbikes jockeying for position and roaring their engines. Some carry a whole family; the father with a child in front of him, another child wedged between mother and father, and a baby in the mother's arms.

Religion plays a big role on Bali. In contrast to the rest of Indonesia, which is Muslim, over 87 percent of the Balinese are Hindu. Every morning, tiny palm-leaf offerings are laid down for the gods and spirits; in the afternoons, processions of men and women dressed in their colorful clothing parade the streets en route to temple celebrations, towers of offertory ruit balanced on their heads.

Even though the beach was not that great in front of the Conrad, we managed to spend quite a bit of time lazying around the pool, with its lagoon pool that snakes around the resort. If you have a ground level room off the lagoon, you can get into the pool right from your patio.

We went into Seminyak, another popular tourist resort, for dinner the first night. Due to the religious holiday, many of the shops and restaurants were closed. We definitely will return to Seminyak on another occasion. We also spent a couple of hours in Kuta, which is the biggest resort town in Bali and also the site of the terrorist bombings. We really weren't very impressed, not for lack of trying, though. Finally we phoned our driver and arranged to leave Kuta earlier than planned.

Bali is located just 8 degrees south of the equator with year-round temperatures in the mid-80's. We were able to buy our visa upon arrival and were somewhat surprised that we had to pay another US$10.00 per person to leave Bali. A small price to pay for the privilege of visiting this tropical paradise.