Stana Puri Gopa Hotel Sanur

We arrived in Sanur just to use it as a stop-over point for one night. After taking the ferry back to Bali and the bus to Sanur, we went out for a quick bite to eat. Along the way we couldn't help but notice a large Dunkin' Donuts! First one we have seen yet in Indonesia. We were totally pumped, so we popped in and what do we see.....some things just don't ...

... of the real Bali. Me? Kind of spooked out with all of the carvings everywhere of mean scary creature gods. Very few of them are happy types and so much of the garbage around is from the thousands of offerings left for these gods...everywhere. You see people lighting incense, sprinlkling holy liquids, making ritual offeriengs and putting them into the street, wrapping the carved statues in fabrics and just doing a lot of activities I don't ...

... streets of their local villages, families showering and washing clothes in the filthy water by the side of the street, seeing temples arise out of nowhere, towing over all the one story buildings. We saw the rice fields mapped out below us, layered into the hillsides to gather the most surface area, looking like steps from a distance, leading up to the heavens above. Green, green, green. The two-hour drive passed slowly, the whole time I was trying everything to keep ...

... tip they expect for their services. Halfway to the taxi stand, the porter stopped and said, "You give me tip," then demanded an astronomical amount. I gave him half of what he was asking, he walked a few more steps, then stopped and said, "You give me bigger tip." I pretended I didn't understand and he eventually gave up. As soon as I got into the cab, the driver asked me, "You tip him? How much you tip him?" Later the cabbie made a sour face at me ...

... e chiedo al proprietario: "Ma scusa, Bali ha un fuso orario diverso da Java?", "Si', un'ora in piu'", guardandomi come fossi un idiota. Ed in effetti solo un idiota potrebbe trascorrere quattro giorni (quattro!), con l'ora sbagliata. Forse e' segno che sto viaggiando troppo? No, non e' mai troppo! Sono comunque contento di averlo scoperto in tempo, dato che domani devo svegliarmi presto per prendere il minibus che mi portera' al porto per prendere il ...

... mainly rice fields, temples, beaches and lakes. Our butts were totally sore after such a long ride, but it was worth it. It was a surprise for us that many of the east-coast beaches have black sand. We stayed in a fairly new hotel called Tropical Bali a few kilometres from Sanur, the owners were a Swedish guy and his Indonesian partner. They bought the land a few years ago and built the hotel from the scratch and we thought it was very nice and the ...

... sight for the day was one of Bali's famous volcanoes. The bus dropped us off at a restaurant on the edge of a gigantic caldera with a large volcano in its center. To the right of the volcano there was a pristine blue lake filling up part of the caldera's floor with a huge mountain -- bigger than the central volcano -- towering above the lake. The overall view was just breathtaking. With much gawking and picture taking behind us we traveled to the town of Ubud. It seemed like a ...

... bus by 1pm. Everybody trooped into the nearby café. We had some sandwiches and iced lemon (which, having been made with boiled water, somehow managed to still be hot at the top), then it was time to get back on to the bus to be taken around the corner to the port. At the port, we were shepherded on to a jetty, where we stood and waited for a good half hour. Eventually, a small boat arrived, bringing people and bags ...

... that is good. The real busy time here is in the summer, so that should go up I hope for them. They also report the ratio of tourists that are visiting Bali....In order with the most visiting.... European Japanese Chinese Australian Taiwanese South Korean Americans didn't even make the list , so I guess that means its just too far for a visit, or other factors like most of us never got over that bombing scare a couple of years ago, but what about London, were still going there? Oh ...

... here have an inherent respect and love for each other, they treat each other with the careful attention that a mother has with a small child. It's really remarkable to watch, and feel - just to be around. Last night at dinner with Riley, a German couple with their two small sons (like 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 yrs old, I'm guessing) sad down at a table near ours. The baby started fussing when the Mom put him down, and one of the ...