083 – Bali. Hi.

From the moment I arrived at the airport, it was first class all the way. A man greeted me, took my luggage, brought a car around the works. Knew me by my name and such, and when I arrived at the resort, I was greeted by my name and welcomed. They brought me a cold beverage. They sat me down while I was checked in. I was guided to my room… thank god because this is a huge place.
Generally, what you would expect a resort to be. Since I arrived so late, and wanted nothing to do with another sunrise, I slept in and eventually made my way to breakfast.

4 rooms of food. I kid you not. This was one corner of one island of one room. The buffet is bigger than my house.
So, I ordered something simple for breakfast since I really don’t eat breakfast, and stuffed my plate with things to take back to my room and snack on for the rest of the day.

Made a mental note to bring my purse down tomorrow so it wasn’t so obvious I was stocking up, and I didn’t pay a dime for food the entire time I was in Bali.

I did lounge and relax. Not by the pool, but this is the pool. The adult pool. There is a kids pool next to it for the splashy splashy crazy kids. Oh, and that blue thing in the background is the ocean.
I spent time wandering the beach and took pictures of the sunset (not sunrise because that was entirely too early and on the wrong side of the island).

And that was the extent of day 1 in Bali. Except for laundry. I did do laundry. People may smell me again, or enjoy not doing so.

Day 2 I did the breakfast thing, and decided I would leave the resort. Got lost a few times in my attempts, but I did get to the front door and made my way to visit a friend I met in Iowa, Gene. He is an artist, and his studio is in Bali, so I got a car and headed toward his place, “An Artists Dream.”

This is the view from his place. I may or may not have purchased some of his art while I was there, but don’t tell the husband. I want him to be surprised when Gene shows up.

I kept a tight hold on my things, including my phone which the monkeys tried to take twice. They only targeted me when I spent too long taking pictures of one of them. They really don’t like having their pictures taken.

The views from the top of the cliff were amazing. The water was so blue, and the sky did not disappoint, especially at sunset.

And the dance… was hard to describe. If you are following along on this blog, I have noted the gallery carvings at various temples tell the story of the Ramayana epic tale, where the wife gets kidnapped and there is a battle with monkeys and demons and such.
Well, this is the Bali version, opera style. What is unique is there is no musical accompaniment, from instruments at least. Instead, 70 or so half naked men chant along through the performance, repeating the word kecak over and over.
A little hard to follow, but it was dramatic and there was fire, and fighting monkeys – not real ones, opera ones.

So, I hope to post a video of this at some point, but we will see where my whim takes me. For now, the pics give you an idea.

Anyway, overall that was the extent of my time in Bali. Rest. Beach. Monkeys. Weird dance. Repeat. At least the rest, beach thing.

It was really good to slow down. I admit, I felt like I could have done a lot more, but I didn’t want to. On the resort, I wandered around with no set clock other than seeing the sunset. I did that.
The times I did go out, I will admit, I did not enjoy the experience. The traffic was a nightmare. Mostly because there is one main road, 2 lanes, and ton of vehicles.
There is also nowhere to walk if I did want to go off the property and walk. They made sure I was in a car if I left, and that car was deemed appropriate for me to be in.
Little weird, I will admit. When I came or went in a non-hotel vehicle, security stopped us at the gate and did an undercar mirror check, opened all the doors, verified I was a hotel guest… it was odd, especially after the threat thing in Bangkok.
Everyone is so laid back, but there is a tension underneath I could not define or even understand.
I also will say, things here are expensive. In comparison to the other places in SE Asia I visited. Not America pricing, but I thought twice before buying anything here because the prices were higher than I expected.
The other reason I did not buy a lot was because New Zealand, my next destination, has a lot of rules about what you can bring into the country. Nothing plant based including wood carvings, which I thought was odd, but they have their reasons, and I did not want to push boundaries because I was already arriving from a country they are concerned about. Apparently there is a big hoof and mouth disease issue in Bali. Summary: expensive but I saved a lot of money by not shopping.

I will say the colors of everything here are vivid and better defined than any beach I have ever been on. Not a big beach traveler because the husband does not like sand, but just stunning colors everywhere.
The people – yes I stayed in an upscale resort – but the people were amazing.
Everything here went smoothly. Even might have worked out my package shipping problem with the Thai Post office, which was just a relief. I still don’t know if it will make it through, but they took a couple items out of the box and reshipped it for me. MJ had a friend pick up the items, and I agreed they were items I did not need so to pitch them. It should all work out. I hope it works out. I still have a nagging feeling it will not work out.

And that was Bali. Would I come back? I might. That underlying… whatever it was feeling bothered me, and the traffic nightmare, but there is an entire island I did not see.
I also left with a scratchy throat from some unknown allergen or perhaps even the lady on the plane over who sat next to me and was coughing the entire trip. Who knows?

But for photo ops, to laying on a beach, to just chilling out… it was a good stop on my journey.