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Taking the hotel shuttle bus down to Kuta this morning but not before we make a serious dent in the hotels buffet breakfast, it was pleasant to have a huge western style breakfast for the first time since leaving home. We arrived down in Kuta around 10am, the weather was pleasant so we began trawling through the many shops on Jalan Legian before, arriving at the travel agency that organised our Flores flights, they refunded the money we paid for the flight that wasnt, with out a hitch which suprised me as I had been pumping myself up for a fight.

We then spent the next couple of ours walking down Legian buying whatever took our fancy, it wasn't long till I had bought my 6th Bintang shirt, a watch for my mum and various other things, before pausing at the Sari Club Memorial, I spent more than a week in that place, the last time I was here and I think it was by far my favorite club. From here we continued the walk along Jalan Legian until we came to the antique furniture district where I visited one of the small shops off the main road, asking the lads working there if they could fix the wooden Komodo Dragon statue that had been broken in Ruth's luggage the day before, they said they would and it would be ready in a day or two.

From here we continued towards Seminyak, it got hotter and muggier as we walked so I was pretty happy when we finally turned off the main drag to head towards our hotel, stopping briefly along the way for a beer at the Galaxy Pub and a supermarket before making an appointment for a tattoo later that evening. As we got closer to our hotel and the beach at Seminyak we noticed that truck loads of Balinese in festival dress were disembarking at the beach, so we dropped off our purchases and headed down for a look, unfortunately not a huge amount was happening, the local kids were having a great time chasing little crabs around though, so we retired to the hotels garden pool for a swim and a lay down.

A few hours later we sauntered back to our room to organise some activities such as horse riding and spa treatments before relaxing on the balcony. Later while enjoying a beer we noticed a large monitor lizard enter the bushes not far from us, we watched until he disappeared then after a few seconds we became aware of some thrashing in the bushes, then a lizard dashed out into the open followed a by a another much larger speciman, it was quite a sight. I ran inside to get the camera and got a few good photos.

We then left the hotel returning to Kuta where we dropped off copies of our passports at the travel agents before returning to several shops to buy item we had seen earlier in the day before heading to the Burger King in Tuban for some Swiss Mushroom Burgers. We organised a cab back but had to get out and walk as the Nyepi Festival was in full swing by now, I returned to the Tattoo Parlour where I had my wife's name in Arabic text tattooed on my back, while she got her nails manicured and painted, she took much longer than I so I joined the local lads outside the shop for a few Arak's before heading back to our hotel.

I slept so well last night that I had to indulge again in our free buffet breakfast before the driver I organised the day before arrives at 9am. We detour to drop off a weeks worth of filth clothes at the laundry before heading north west to Tanah Lot. I have never been to Tanah Lot but I have heard much about it from others who have been to Bali and I had seen photographs so I was very keen to visit the site. I couldn't believe the number and size of the souvenir shops that we passed on our way to the temple gateway, festivities are under way here as well so the crowd is large for this time of the day. The temple looks incredible on its rocky little islet in the sea, its no wonder the Majahit Priest Nirartha suggest local villages build here.

From here we headed further north for about an hour, we are both suprised by the develpment that has taken place along the roads since we were last here, a slight climb into the mountains bring us to the Temple complex at Lake (Danau) Bratan. There are a number of foreign tourists here as well as celebrating locals and the Pura Ulan Danu Bratan is supurb floating on the waters of the lake with a beautiful forested mountain back drop. We wandered the manicured gardens laughing at the kitsche statues while enjoying the slightly cooller mountain air.

From here we headed south to visit the Royal Temple or Pura Taman Ayun at Mengwi, built in 1634 it is surrounded by a moat covered in water lillies. A local guide latched onto Ruth while I was climbing the bell tower and we couldnt get rid of him, but he did show us an interesting spider. The inner courtyard at Taman Ayun contains a number of attractive meru (mutitierred shrines) and is certainly worth visiting.

Our last stop for the day was the Bali Bird Park we went there mainly to see the incredibly rare Bali Starling also known locally as the Jalak Putih which is Bali's only native bird. We also saw a number of other interesting bird, animal and reptile species but it was bloody hot and we had to stop for a cold drink before we returned to our vehicle, entry to the park was extremely expensive. We arrived back at our hotel just as the heavens opened up, it was a hell of a storm, part of the hotel was flooded out, so we were unable to venture out. The room service is excellent.

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