Cintaku Villas Seminyak

... without something going wrong. We were only about 5 or 10 minutes from the beach when Suzanna had to stop because her motor bike was completely wobbly and someone had pointed out something wrong with her bike. A flat tire. Fabulous. Literally about a minute after we had stopped, a nice Balinese guy came up to help us. The culture here has the most welcoming, helpful, and friendly people ever. He drove Suzanna's bike very carefully for us to the ...

... laugh, but with hollowness. They are without fixed position or purpose in this place, at this time. It is unsettling, jarring to the other members of Sideman society. You can almost see the members thinking, rauctious and troublesome fools, but not dangerous, not really, not to us, not... They leave once they see that there is no feeding to be had, no courting to be had, no minor members to be bullied out of home or property. I feel relief when they leave ...

... Finally the big moment came when we were taken into a back room so that I could "reveal" the prize on my scratch card. Our "kidnapper" had said that the "least" I would win would be a camcorder. Not. It was $300 US of discount vouchers - to be specific - 10% discounts on hoitty toitty restaurants and 40% off of the rack (read super inflated) rate at luxury resorts. Wow - that was 90 minutes of sun lost. At least Trev got a $7.50 shopping ...

... as a child, because his voice was so high falsetto singers would be envious. He smiles, in what I am sure he thinks is a beguiling manner, but in reality only makes me wish premature balding had sped up its pace and made this trip unnecessary. He led me through to the wash room where tepid water fails to warm or cool me, while a cheap, harsh shampoo with a mysterious and offensive scent is splashed liberally across my scalp causing an almost instant ...

... office runs to the equivalent standards of a corrupt, third world, beurecracy? Suddenly I wake back to my nightmare with a knock at the window. I roll down and the police officer asks me for my reg doc's, which of course I have. Asks for my licence, which I hand over with a sunny smile. He informs me that this is not the UK and my licence is not valid, he must now write me a ticket to attend court and they will seize the vehicle. In normal circumstances this would ...

... coconut tree right in front of me, without any shoes or ropes - just a cigarette in his mouth! It looked so effortless, and as I passed he stopped, looked around the tree at me and nodded! It was one of those moments I'd wished I'd taken a photo, but in a way it felt like a sight just for me to see and noone else! So walking somewhere towards a road I wandered through a ravine and stumbled across a man having a poo just downstream from where other villagers were washing ...

... Black Death, that kind of rat, not a cute Pixar-generated rat gourmet. I went looking for it in the bathroom, and found on closer examination that our rustic semi-outside downstairs shower had a previously unsuspected feature -- a four-inch wide gap between inside wall and outside wall, extending all the way to the outside. Shining a flashlight into the gap, I saw a rat silhouette strolling calmly along a pipe toward reception. All of our various ...

... vocal chords can handle. Once the exorcism of evil has been accomplished within the home, people then move out onto the streets, many accompanying the terrifying ogoh-ogoh as they roam the neighbourhood with as much revelry as they can muster. The final meeting place in the central crossroads of the village sees huge offerings being burnt after the special prayers by the village priest for the cleansing of the whole village. For weeks before the eve of Nyepi, you ...

... t J*k*rt* *irport *nd * 'free me*l' of McDon*ld's soggy fried chicken *nd rice courtesy of Air Asi* - see wh*t h*ppens when you fly 'budget'?! We w*nted to wind down *t the end of our time in Indonesi* so we decided to he*d for * little isl*nd we'd been told *bout but * twitchy Br*zili*n guy who w*s h*nging *round J*k*rt* *irport (see, who needs the Lonely Pl*net?!) c*lled Gili Air. The pl*ce w*s just wh*t we were looking for - re*lly pe*ceful, h*rdly *nybody ...

I sit here on the Villa's laptop. The wireless wasn't working so I'm working via cable modem, but it's not too slow. Our Villa is AMAZING. We have our very own pool. A woman comes to cook us breakfast in the mornings. Our lounge area and our separate bathrooms are open air...You can't really ask for more. P did an amazing job scouting out places. We worked out this morning before our breakfast of fried rice with fried egg ...