Blogs from Bali, Indonesia, Asia - page 232

Bali, is crazy! Not really what I expected. There are Scooters everywhere, and it's pretty dirty and people trying to sell me stuff left, right and center. Common questions: where are you from? do you want to buy? you want transport? I'll show you my shop. You want massage? Sir sir, wait! Sir, where are you going now? and more Honestly, ALL DAY LONG. I literally would have been asked 1000 times out of my four days on the island! It makes me think that I actually have friends. I arrived at 11pm (4pm NZTime), so after having spent all day flying and running round like an idiot for the past few days trying to sort myself out, I finally made it! "Welcome to Bali; drugs import = DEATH PENALTY"- quite the juxtaposition. I was ... read more

picture time Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Denpasar By Recon at the MekongApril 2nd 2007willHi all I'm in Bali now for about three weeks....never want to leave it's all here. we got beautiful beach and surf, weathers just right, oh and mcdonalds delivery. But Can't have too much of a good thing so im off to see some of the rest of Indonesia. So ive given you a few photo's from Bali and around. Tomarrow I start a one month mototrbike tour of two island's in Indonesia and will report more when I can. Love you all. Will... read more

Indonesia was not on our original plan as a place to visit. Due to the riots against the Chinese in the late 1990's and due to the warnings in the guidebooks, we did not want to take a lot of risk. While in Burma (in December 2006), we met Soninha from France and she highly recommended Indonesia. So, we decided to spend three weeks in Bali, but avoid Java. We got discounts flights tickets off Air Asia's website, to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. On Feb 13, we took a local bus from near our hostel in Kuala Lumpur and reached KL Sentral. From KL Sentral, we took the airport bus (RM$9) to get to LCCT terminal (Low Cost Terminal) of the KL airport (KLIA). The airport bus ride took about 1 ... read more

After leaving the quiet town of Candi Dasa, we headed for the unofficial cultural capital of Bali, Ubud. The streets were lined with art shops, wood carvings and more art shops. We found a cheap room set in a small courtyard close to a river, we found out after we had agreed to take it that the bathroom was infested with giant ants.......nice! After ten minutes spraying them with DEET (it was all we had handy) they seemed to dissapear or die and left us to it, feeling confident that they weren't going to move into our backpacks we headed out on the streets for some exploring. This turned out to be a bad idea as we came across a painting that took our fancy. We inquired on the price and quickly left the shop agreeing ... read more

Don't evenknow how to begin or how to describe the last few days....I think I have to go into a limbo stage where I can process what I've seen. These people really LIVE their customs - how they keep it up with the western influence, I don't know.....but they are detrmined to do so....and the kids / adolescents seem to be right along with it. Yesterday a village procession; a cremation; offerings, draping of the body (a very old woman high priestess)....later a visit to a village doktor (healer) who seemed to be using a sort of acupressure and he was able to clear and diagnose a lot of symptoms for all of us. None of this seems forced or like we are on some western tour - we're just being shown around by Surya and ... read more