sun, rain, surf, relax... Bali

Bali is hot, humid, and yes it is raining a bit, but it's fun too.  We have had a nice couple weeks of relaxing that was definetly what we needed.  The nice hot weather sometimes is unbearable for us Canadians but will take it over being cold any day.  When we arrived we ecountered the usual hackling out of the airport and did the best we could being tired and hot to shrug it all off.  We remembered once again what it's like to have a big dollar sign hanging above our heads.
We found a hotel and a taxi and headed out into Bali, the Sanur area was our first stop.  All in all the hotel was ok, nice pool, dirty beaches, cheap massages, and just ok food here except a great hotel restaurant down near the big hotels made great food.  We decided we needed something new, and our room was just ok, Ray was fine with it, but I thought the bathroom was disgusting and it smelled like really strong moth balls that burned my nose.
 We decided to try out the tourist area of Benoa, right next to Nusa Dua the ritzy walled in hotels watched by security at each gate.  The Ramada had a good deal online so we went there, wanting a bit more relaxing.  We arrived after a decent length drive, everything here moves slowly, traffic being a major one.  You never know if it's an accident, tree fell down on road, bad weather, who knows it's just plain busy, so much honking of horns and close calls with other vehicles.  The hotel is great, probably more than we needed but very comfortable for the much needed chill time.  The room is nice and looks out over the pool, staff is nice, good milkshakes at pool bar, great food, free breakfast and plenty of food choices down the road a bit.
We spent many days just hanging by the pool, tried out a beach called Greger near by, not the cleanest, it's runoff season so garbage is flowing into the ocean from the land.  Not a great garbage or any sort of recycling here that I have seen so far.  Kinda sad to let a beautiful place get so dirty and clog up the ocean.  We went to Kuta for an afternoon, was so hot, my face was on fire, we swam in the ocean there to cool off, water ok here, beach bit cleaner, but the amount of people haggling you is intense and gets a little annoying.  We booked it to the mall to cool down and get a drink, and then took a taxi back to the hotel..couldn't get outta there fast enough.
So after all that we are ready to see some countryside and explore.  We rent a car with driver for 10 hours thinking wow that's  a long time, but after you drive around for a day you realize most of the time on you trip out is driving as the roads are rough and slow going.  We saw Celuk, a silversmithing and goldsmithing area, jewellery shops all down one road.  Huge stores full of different silver and gold pieces, I could have looked forever if it had not been so hot.  The prices were pretty expensive still so only bought small earrings.
Bali is put together in areas by occupation sort of, wood carving in all one area, silver and gold smithing in another, art work in another, batik in another, statues in another etc..... this makes it kinda neat when you drive all of a sudden there is a street full of one type of thing just full to the rafters with different pieces or work.  We continued to a waterfall, and did not go down since the rainy season had made the waterfall dirty, so not much reason to walk all the way to it if you can't go in.  We left and made our way to Ubud the cultural art town of Bali, very cute, different types of stores and looks like a nice mountain town.  This is also home to the Monkey Forest Temple.  We pay our entrance fee, and do not buy any bananas for the monkeys,did not really want to get that close to one.  As soon as we start our adventure in we feel the humidity and smell the monkeys.  They are everywhere as soon as you enter, I advise you read the sign if you ever go here and understand what to do it they come at you or jump on you.  They definetly get close and jump on anyone with food, even if it's in your bag or pocket they will go get it.  Ray tried to get one to look at him and snapped and it got angry and showed his teeth at him and came at him.  I at this point I booked it, didn't want to be a part of that, it pulled at him and checked his pockets and eventually backed off as Ray pulled back slowly.  I couldn't believe he teased it, it said do not do that on the sign Ray!!!!
Well, after that adventure we moved on to Mt. Batur an old Volcano site, with a lake in the center of the crater.  Quick stop there, the air was great up there at least 10 degrees cooler than in town.  The driver said he was cold, we laughed it is like a Canadian summer up there, and he needed a sweater.  The drive was nice, lots of rice terraces and rainforest and we head back into the main area of Bali to see Dreamland beach.  Which I will make quick, it was no dream and had to pay again just to go to the beach.  We are beat, tired and ready to head back so we do.
Another couple days we plan our surfing lessons.  I am so scared and have been practicing my not plugging my nose under water with Ray for days.  He said I am a natural, learned pretty quick, I am a good swimmer just not great diver.  Ray a better diver and ok swimmer so we help each other.  I am more nervous about rip tides and sharks but I trust our teacher, he is older and wise so.....all should be good.  That day we get picked up and head toward Legian for our lesson and meet up with some other travellers.  We put our rashguards on and head to the beach to learn,  but before we do a little yoga to warm up, which is good for us oldies, it's Rays bday the next day so he better take it easy...lol...the instuctore gives me the hugest board ever, I think he thinks I will suck at this. Seems pretty easy we go out into the water after some instruction to boogie board first, to get a feel for the wave and board control.  So fun, carving through the wave, I laughed and smiled the whole time, my nerves are settled a bit.  Then we get back on land drink some water and learn how to get up on the board, this popping up 10 or so times on land gets hard and realize this is gonna hurt tomorrow.  I am not understanding this so well, but you just gotta try sometimes.  We head out again after a bit and he stays near me of course, no trust in my abilities yet.   I get out to him he gets me started,my wave comes and I am standing up first try, eat that all who don't  think I can learn fast, including me lol.....after that it got harder and harder and as you get tired it becomes a bit of work just to walk out.  Ray took a couple tries and he was up a few times, we did pretty well I thought for people who had never surfed before.  It was  alot of fun even though the waves seemed a bit big for us to start out on but the weather was bit bad that day.  We head back to the hotel and order room service.  Soooooo tired......but feel good too.  The morning wasn't too bad and Ray is now older by Bali time and tomorrow home time he will be older there.
We will see Tanah Lot, and the Royal Temple tonight, one more day tomorrow then we leave early morning for Singapore for four days then off to Malaysia.... excited to see something new again!

Bali update

Not much to say, we have been just hanging out at resorts, we have been in 2 different areas of bali and will be moving onto our third in a few days, we opted to skip the rest of Indonesia as we already have flights out and don't want the money to go to waste. We are hiring a driver for a day and will checkout some of the country side and locals as where we have been so far is very resortey. The beaches here are not the best, you spend half your time dodging garbage in the water, the other half dodging speed boats towing tourists around on bananas and para-shoots. Ray's b-day is coming up in a few days and I think we are planning to try out surfing :) We will let you know how that goes.

Goodbye OZ

       Well with the fast pace we put through Australia, we ended up leaving after just 20 days. Australia was not the amazing place everything we read or was told about. It is still a pretty cool place just very very very expensive (especially since the dollar is par) we found Oz really over commercialized in the tourist areas, most well known  areas we just blew through as it was just not our scene.  Everything felt either young party backpacker or rich posh yuppie. We had some pretty cool memory's, found some really cool places that are not on the tourist map, and were glad we went we just didn't need even close to our 6 weeks of original time allotment.

       Highlights include Australia Zoo, we got to pet a koala, feed a kangaroo, check out the awesome size and power of saltwater crocs, as-well as see some dingo's... no they don't feed them babys :( Other highlights, seeing Koalas in the wild, some craze winding road off the highway that was one car wide with awesome views and our first wild roo sighting. Endless beautiful beach after another although only really good if you surf as they were too rough for swimming.

       After finishing up in Cairns we dropped the car off and boarded the plane for Bali

Driving and more driving...

We have driven over 3000 ish' km now and are continuing on for another 1700 ish'.  We have driven through alot of things as we are now realizing alot of Australia is much the same as you drive along.  We have driven so much we decided to stay in Sydney for 4 days, well 1 was just arriving late and sleeping.  We figured we would find lots to do there, but it was just another huge city, and the traffic was crazy.  Well I blame the horrible drivers and small roads but...

We saw the Sydney Opera house, the Harbor Bridge, Biron Beach and checked out some cute areas.  The shopping looked amazing but Australia is already costing us enough just to eat and sleep.  We have left Sydney a couple days ago and have made our way to Brisbane with a short stop out to the Blue Mountains just West of Sydney.  We stopped a couple times in some cute small towns for the night then made our way to Byron Bay. It's a crazy backpacker town, lots of people and not really our style though we have heard how poplular it is, after lunch we move on to the Gold Coast.

As we hit the Gold Coast area we realize once again, it is a huge tourist area and drive it anyways to only conclude we are correct on that assumption.  It is busy and we decide we can make it to Brisbane or just past Brisbane.  We have stopped outside of Brisbane in a tiny town, which had 3 motels and 3 places to eat.  Surprisingly the motel is the nicest so far for the same price as many other crappy places we stayed and the 1 sit down restaruant was the best meal we have had in Australia by far.  So sometimes things can still surprise us!

We will be heading out to Steve Irwin's Australian Zoo tomorrow and keep trucking up to Cairns.  It's alot of driving but we will make it....

Great Ocean Road... more road than ocean or great...

Heading out of Adelaide we stopped at Mount Gambier for th night, which looked like a cute place to sleep and after a couple nights in the hostel, with the noise every night we were due for a nice hotel and good dinner.  We went to a great Thai restarurant which I fount in lonely planet and found out it was doing so well it moved to a larger location.  Once we found it we sat down waiting for ok Thai food and got amazing thai food. Bit pricy but delicious!  Great food, great sleep and we headed out in the morning to explore the cute town where we drove out to a lake, which was hard to see it was raining of course... then we went to the sinkhole which is much cooler looking than it sounds.  Beautiful gardens in it, and I guess I should tell this story since Ray would have if he wrote this.  I slipped on a rock, fell on my knee a little, but mostly on my hand which was holding the umbrella and the metal wire that sticks out stuck into my hand.  Of course I have to have the first tumble or scar of the trip.  Alright moving on....
After a good time other than my slipped we headed out towards the Great Ocean Road. As we drove we realized Australia is flat and looks about the same for hours.  We hit the beginning of the road and it got nicer to look at.  There is a turnoff every 5 minutes during the first section of the road, so we drove, got out, drove, got out, then it really started to rain and we drove more than got out.  It was pretty cool, big cliffs, big ocean, lots of tourists all of a sudden.  We thought we would stop for the night about half way down which was a small town, but very cute, after some inquiries we realized all of Melbourne and surrounding areas were on a long weekend because of The Melbourn Cup.  Did not know what this was all about but it is a huge deal, horse racing is big here except noone goes to teh race they just use the excuse to take time off work.  This made rooms really expensive and not readily available so we decided to keep drivning.  Not the best idea, got dark, rainy and the next town was even more touristy, not a room available in sight.  We actually had to sleep in the car.  After a restless, cold, sore cat nap, we made our way down the rest of the road and towards Melbourne in hopes of some sleep and a warm room.
We reached Melbourne and found a hotel just outside of Melbourne, far away from the race coming up and decided to stay in for the night, sleep, eat and rest since sleeping the night befor was pretty rough for us old folks.  We haved move on  towards Sydney now along the south coast and found the same problem on Phillip Isand with room availability so saw the Koala sanctuary and did a short drive, and walk and headed off the Island and moved on.  We are  in Sale now, resting up for another day of kangaroo scouting and driving.