Bali Belly

This is just a small sampling of some pictures of our trip so far.I'll give a brief overview of our trip so far. I'll fill in more later on. We stayed a few days in southern Bali near the beach. We had a cute little place about 5 minutes walk to the beach. Friday morning, we took the tourist bus farther north to Ubud. That night I got really sick and still am. I've had serious runs (sorry if that's too much for you) and a temp between 100-102. Thankfully, I had some antibiotics with me that I've now started. Yesterday was Ryan's 29th b-day, but I spent most of the day in the hotel room with a short outing. He had to eat his lunch and dinner alone because I just didn't have the energy to go out nor did I feel much like eating.

We've visited some temples, but not any of the big ones yet. The weather has been very pleasant and we've had fan only rooms without being too hot. All of the places that we've stayed have breakfast included in the price. We had to leave our last place because it was not clean--hair and dirt in the tub, strong urine smell of the toilet, sheets with dirt and hair on them. Yuck! We even asked the guy to clean it, but it wasn't any different after supposedly he did.

This is a sunrise picture of a fisherman.

temple
rice paddies

Fishing boats at Sanur Beach

There are offerings everywhere!! Plus, right now it's Galungan, which is on of their biggest festivals of the year. When you walk through town, there is the constant smell of sandlewood incense from offerings throughout the day. Even this morning, we had two offerings placed on our porch of our hotel and directly in front of our walkway.

We're taking it easy until I feel better. We'd like to hire a driver and see some of the countryside and smaller villages. We'd get lost if we tried to do it ourselves. Things aren't marked well and there aren't good maps. You can get a driver for about 8 hours for about $35 including gas. Also, driving here is crazy and dangerous!!

Today we rented bicycles and rode up to the botanical garden, but it wasn't so great. Tomorrow we may visit the monkey forest, do some shopping, and get a cheap massage. We'll have a buffet dinner tonight featuring 15 different Indonesian dishes for about $3 per person--including drink and dessert!

Some of the annoyances so far, which are in many other less developed countries that thrive on tourism are the constant calling from shop owners to look at their shops, being asked if you want "transport/taxi" every few steps, and being called from every restaurant owner to eat there. Our current hotel has a very loud phone that rings from the cafe down below. It rang 6 times between 5:50 am and 6:50 am. The hotel cleaners start working early and were talking to each other loudly across the gardens starting from 6:30 this morning. It's hard when you are somewhere where the customer isn't "number 1. We plan to ask them if they'll turn it off tonight, but I'm not expecting much more than a "Yes, yes" and then nothing happens. Overall, it's pretty here, but also crazy at the same time.