View Beach Hotel Sanur

... and the priest ceremony.<br><br>Sunday, September 2009<br>Sanur Bali, Indonesia:<br><br>Today we drove to Denpasar, first we went to the market. I made a mistake purchase of buying a dance costume for 1.5 million rupiah, although it was beautiful. After this we went to the bird market where they sell pets of all kinds - mostly birds. I was very sad, they had turtles to sell as pets (or food), and wild squirrels and baby monkeys. It was really sad to see the baby ...

... school that someone would carry his equipment into the sea for him so as not to put any strain on it. Tulamben is the site of the wreck of the US Navy cargo ship "Liberty" that was torpedoed near Lombok by a Japanese submarine during World War II. The boat was towed to Tulamben and left on the beach. When the nearby volcano, Gunung Agung, erupted in 1963, the boat broke in two and was left in the sea just off the shoreline. Dean did 2 dives through the wreck with Henk while Tracey ...

Om Swastiatsu! I want to start with a fond memory of my childhood friends Nick and Randall...remember that trip to the Jersey Shore and the night the three of us plus Todd and Pete sat around talking about cycles? How deep we dove into the realms of how life and all that we do is related to cycles...it's funny to think that at 19 we innately had a bit of a clue about something. I realize this more ...

... has about 200 shrines. They were having a ceremony at the time, so it was packed full of local people carrying baskets of offerings for the gods. Next we winded through miles of green rice fields to a water temple. This water temple was incredible, it was landscaped with reflection ponds, statues and flowers everywhere. We went swimming in two of the large, cold water ponds and walked on water across stone lily pads. We chose to ...

... hate people who say "I go red for one day then I go brown", its looks like I go from red to redder to red and then back to white. Starting to think about planning my trip to Malaysia. Anyways I gonna go try to avoid everyone trying to sell me stuff and go for lunch. Oh yeah I went partying in Kuta the other night with one of my new buddies and apparently alot of bars don't really close or stop serving.

... pictured Bali to be pristine and exotic and sunny with palm trees swaying in the wind, crystal clear blue waters, powder soft white sand... Not really the case. In reality, the sea is rather murky (and according to the good old LP, slightly "contaminated" in Kuta), the sand rough, and garbage scattered about. On the plus side, the water is fantastically warm, the waves okay, and not nearly as many hawkers as I had ...

... narrow and there are buildings everywhere all jammed right up next to each other. Not exactly the tropical paradise I had envisioned. The next morning I roamed the cramped streets of Kuta made infamous from the recent bombings in its legendary nightclubs. The place is definitely a tourist Mecca with its countless restaurants, bars, boutiques, salons, you name it. When I finally made it to the beach I was impressed but not overwhelmed. I've definitely seen prettier beaches in places ...

... record, there have been disappointing showings for the pre-tournament favourites Australia (stunners on the beaches and jogging counteracted with butch, shouty he-she's in bars) and Thailand (very pretty girls let down by their whiney accents and ten-year-old-boy figures), whilst languishing way down in last with less points than the UK in the Eurovision is Fiji: the 'natural steroid' plants of the South Pacific leaves their women looking like Lionel Ritchie with Elephantitis!

... the resort to get up and learn her line dancing routine to saturday night) lounging by the pool. What a treat. We spent a good while catching up with them and comparing notes on NZ and pimping them for info about the south east asia adventures. We then spent a bit of time relaxing around the lovely pool surrounded by beautiful lush gardens, hanging out on our beautiful veranda above the pool, lounging in our huge bed in our huge room with our huge high ceilings, and finally ...

... air conditioned double bed room with a tv in a resort. this place already rocks. the first thing we did was go to the spa. for the price of a powered campsite in australia we got 4 hours of masssage, body scrub, and facial treatments. this place rocks even more. the architecture in the city is really neat. very finely detailed and all carved by hand. on every sidewalk outside of each business you will find offerings made morning and night, blessed with water. the ...