Bali Visit

Breakfast area - one of the four pools at our hotel

View of our hotel grounds in Ubud

Bali - a great place to shop!

Morning offering to the Hindu gods

Traveling through the monkey forest on our way to Mataram

Balinese dancers and musicians at our marina

Bali Visit

Nov 8 to Nov 12 2015

Wow! That is our general reaction to Bali. We would definitely come back for another, longer vacation there. We didn't visit many of the tourist sites, but just enjoyed the resort and the shopping this time. Included in our $50 ferry fare was the 2 hour boat trip, and the 1.5 hour taxi ride both ways to the hotel. We stayed for 3 nights up in the rain forest in Ubud. The resorts, food and shopping are outstanding and cheap by home standards. We stayed at The Mansion for $140 a night which is right at the high end.

The resort would be a 5 star place- four swimming pools, extravagant gardens, ravine views, a world class art collection, huge breakfast included, spa services, fitness area, babysitting, even Dr and dentist. Luc knows the owner who gave us a free first dinner and message as BPO guests. We enjoyed browsing the miles of shops, except for the process of bargaining that we are not used to. Usually you can expect to pay half the quoted starting price.

Bali is mostly Hindu so its Balinese culture is much different from the rest of Indonesia. Every home has its own temple, and there are many public temples. The people put out small dishes of food for the gods every day, on the sidewalks, and around their property. There are also larger (many meters) decorative plant based structures that are for the gods. There must be a name for them. The local dress and the people are very beautiful. All in all a feast for the eyes. Every evening there are performances of one of the types of dancing with full costuming. The night we chose to go for dinner and a show was the night of the first rain of the season. It poured for hours with lightning and thunder. The locals loved it as it has been almost a year without rain. Typically the rains would start in Oct.

The Ubud area is well known as a health/spa/fitness destination. Klaudia stopped at one place in town for a 2 hour message, facial, manicure and pedicure. That cost about $20!

The only drawback to Bali is the number of tourists. In Ubud it seemed that more English than Indonesian was spoken. You can find Starbucks, Macdonalds, KFC, etc. On our last night we moved to a hotel in the beach area. This is a good surfing beach and more of a party area. Therefore, the crowds are younger and even more wall to wall. Bali is a popular vacation spot for Australians. Aug and Christmas are the busy seasons. Our hotel was almost empty in Nov. I wouldn't want to be on the streets or driving in high season.

We moved to the Adus Beach Inn where Bill has been staying for a few weeks. We paid $30 a night, which gave us the basics of wifi, air, and a pool. He has had a week of Dr visits and tests at the local hospital. He has been pleased with the service and price. But they have not found any good reason for his irregular heart rate. They put him on a beta blocker and he will get more testing at home in US in Dec. He is coming back to Maggie today and will sail with us until we stop in Dec. Hopefully he will continue to feel ok.

The fires in Borneo (Kalimantan) are abating with the first rains of the season. We have decided to put that stop back in the schedule and will leave tomorrow, Sat the 14th. After Bill returns we will do a provisioning trip, and there is a farewell buffet with Lombok dancers provided by the marina tonight.