There are many things to do and see in Bali, but if you are into shopping, that's reason enough to come to Bali and fill your daily activity schedule.  The lazy way to shop would be to stand on the street and let all the hawkers come to you.  If you stop to look at one person's goods, it does not take long for you to gather a crowd of potential sellers.  Another way to shop is to go to one of several large markets that seem to have a little bit of everything, from food to furniture. However, if you really want to see the best variety, then you have to be willing to travel, either by public transportation, taxi or self drive, to the many small villages that seem to be concentrated in the Ubud area.  It is interesting how each village seems to specialize in a particular craft, passed down for generations in each family.  These include: silver and gold jewelry, wood carvings, furniture, stone carvings, painting, bamboo products, textiles and ceramics.  And within each of these categories there are villages that specialize in certain types of wood carvings or a distinctive painting style.   You could spend days looking at it all.  We, however, choose to observe small samples as a means of learning the culture and left the major purchasing to others!   When we did purchase something, there was always the fun and games of bargaining to determine the final price.  A good rule of thumb was 40-60% of the original asking price.

We chose to spend our time with various activities, none of which was too very strenuous.  Don't forget we are only 8 degrees from the equator, so the heat and humidity don't allow too much outside activity during the day.  This was a stark contrast to our time in New Zealand and we truly missed the physical doings.  The monsoon season is over and we experienced only one evening with some rain.  We did walk a great deal in and around the Ubud area and met a local artist who was working at the Traditional Art Museum (Neka) Museum.  He spoke the best English of anyone we had met and he gave us a personal tour of the museum, explaining the differences between the four distinct Balinese painting styles.  He also invited us to his village the next day for their temple ceremonies.  Beforehand he made certain we were properly attired and during the festival he explained what was going on.  How nice to have an interpreter.  We were then invited back to his house to meet his family and partake in eating the offerings that had been prepared for the deities.  It was a wonderful experience for us and he was able to give us a real insight into Balinese life.  In return I was able to help him by taking digital pictures of his paintings which he hoped to put on a web site in the near future.  There is a very small segment of the population who are technically aware and we do see some of the larger stores using bar code scanners and point of sale systems to process the purchases.  But these are very few.

We rented a Suzuki jeep for a week and we don't think there is a road on this small island that  we didn't drive on.  For the most part the roads are very narrow and extremely crowded and the drivers pass whenever they feel like it.    We drove over 900 Km and did not see one accident or one road kill out of the thousands of dogs, cows and chickens that line the road sides.  It's really quite amazing.   Laura has some great video of what the driving was like.  We drove to many temples and got pretty good at distinguishing the differences and being able to understand the various parts.  We were at Besakih, the Mother Temple, during a festival and got to see it in its glory all decked out and full of people.  We stopped at several museums, some art, some traditional carvings and one explaining the rice growing and harvest.  They all had some information in English, but for the most part they were poorly prepared for the tourist to understand.

We drove to Mount Batur, an active volcano and hired a guide to take us to the top.   We left our  room at 3:45AM and climbed in the dark, using flashlights, through forest and then volcanic rock and ash, arriving just before sunrise.  We could see Mount Agung, the holiest mountain as well as the mountains of the adjacent island.  Our guide cooked our breakfast (hard boiled eggs and steamed bananas) wrapped in banana leaves by placing them on one of the many steam vents at the crater rim.  This volcano had four craters, each left from previous eruptions and we walked through volcanic ash and rock around them all.  We could see the yellow sulfur stains and smell the rotten egg hydrogen sulfide (very similar to Rotorua in New Zealand).  But the most spectacular site was at the last crater, which is the active one.  Even before we got to it we could hear a rumbling like thunder in the distance and then could see the actual vent with a bellowing bright red glow associated with each roar.  We were quite close so we were glad they closely monitor the seismic activity!  We could see the old lava flows below and our guide pointed out where the towns had been before being destroyed by the last eruption in 1994.   He spoke good English and we were pleased with the amount of information we were able to learn about the mountain and Bali in general.  We climbed down walking over the lava rock and back to our accommodation. 

We drove along the eastern and northern coastline of the island and have to say that we were a little disappointed in the beaches only because we had heard they were so beautiful.  For the most part they are black volcanic sand which is hot and not particularly pretty.  Perhaps we are just spoiled from all our years on the boat and in the islands.  And beaches are not what lured us to Bali.  We were very curious about life under the water and were most anxious to scuba dive on the reefs and see Pacific coral and marine life.  While in Lovina Beach we signed up with a PADI company for two dives on Menjangan, an outlying island that is part of the Bali National Park.  We were transported to the reef in a very local boat and had an excellent dive master.  Our first dive was a multi-level one, spending time at 24, 18 and then 12 meters, drifting with the current.  We went ashore on the island for lunch and then had our afternoon dive dividing our time between 28 and 15 meters.  We had a sunny day, the water was warm with good visibility and we had the opportunity to see many colors of coral and fish.  Most were varieties of ones we had seen in the Caribbean, but the colors were just outstanding.  We did see many new types of soft corals and quite a few new varieties of marine life, the most outstanding being a lionfish, anemones with clownfish and wee shrimp and a giant clam.  It was a great day and we would leap at another chance for a Pacific dive. 

We kept reading in our guide book about all the bird life on the island and we really wanted to see some for ourselves.  We hired another guide to take us into the National Park, meeting him at the designated spot at 7 AM.  We could not have asked for a more enthusiastic, cheerful guide than Wayan, who was one of the two original guides when the program was started 9 years ago.  Armed with a bird book and two pairs of binoculars, we stealthily walked though the trees, starting on the swampy shoreline and working our way into the woods.  Wayan was amazing in his ability to spot a bird perched in a tree or hidden amongst the leaves.  He knew them by sight and song and he got visibly excited when he spotted a particularly colorful bird.  We then walked deeper into the woods and saw black monkeys playing in the trees and heard, but did not get to see, a barking deer.  Yes, a barking deer.  It was a pretty amazing sound.  This was a wonderful way to spend a morning and we were very thrilled to see so many birds, some 16 varieties in all.

One morning we rented a boat (more like a canoe with outriggers) and rowed on Lake Bratan (see photo above).  It is another volcano crater lake and there were mountains on two sides.   We paddled out to Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, one of the nine directional temples on Bali and supposedly the most photographed.  Later that day we visited the Bali Botanical Gardens, a large 130 hectares (290 acres) park that was very pretty and well maintained and had a wide variety of plants and trees.

Many days we would just drive, taking the back roads through the mountains or along the shoreline just observing the scenery or the daily lives and activities of the people.   The saddest part was that, unlike New Zealand, we could not stop and talk to the people.  There was that language barrier, especially in the areas away from where the tourist go.  We had so many questions which we just had to try and answer for ourselves.  We did see some beautiful areas and observe unique ways of life, from rice farming throughout the island to local fishing boats and fish drying techniques along the coast.  We were amused as we would drive through a small village and everyone would smile, wave and yell "hello".  The road signs are very confusing or nonexistent and we spent a lot of our time pointing at places on the map and getting directions from people who may or may not have had any idea where we were or wanted to go.   We did a lot of retracing our tracks and it made for lots of laughs and fun and a feeling of satisfaction when we did actually arrive at our intended destination.

One of our most favorite activities, and something we have done a lot more here than in NZ, has been meeting and talking with fellow travelers.  In NZ we were in the campervan and spent most of our time freedom camping and did not make much outside contact. But here we are staying in places were there are other people in the cottages nearby, diving with a group of people or meeting people at the next table in a restaurant.  We have met people from all over the world, each with a different story and interesting travel adventures.  There are so many ways to spend your time while going through life and traveling brings this fact directly into focus.  We have given some our name and address to many and perhaps we will get a phone call or knock on our front door some day. 

While staying in Ubud we had the chance to eat in many restaurants and one, Casa Luna, is owned by a woman, Janet de Neefe from Australia.  She offers cooking classes on Balinese cuisine and Laura couldn't pass up that opportunity.   Balinese food is somewhat like Thai but with definite variations.  The class was given at her home, outside under a thatched pavilion with several tables and a double gas burner.  We were an international group of about 9 people attending and everyone spoke English.   We started with Iced Hibiscus Tea while Janet showed us fresh ingredients like candlenut, Asian basil, several kinds of ginger, chilies and lemongrass.  Then we helped her assistants grind special mixes for the various dishes in their version of a food processor; a volcanic rock mortar and pestle.  We wrapped specially seasoned fish in banana leaves and cut up Asian spinach.   While the assistants were actually cooking the food and we watched, Janet discussed the importance of food in daily Balinese life.  They eat to live, not live to eat, so you will not see many overweight Balinese.  Metal utensils leave a harsh flavor so food is eaten with the right hand (the left is unclean) and meals are a time to be quiet and reflective, so there is not the loud banter we Westerners enjoy.  Banana leaves served as plates and our dessert was even served with a banana leaf spoon.   Our delicious menu was Fragrant Fish Soup, White Rice with Sweet Potato, Asian Spinach with Fried Onions, Fish Wrapped in Banana Leaves, Marinated Vegetables and Black Rice Pudding.  It was a scrumptious and unique experience.