Amber

After the brief stop over in Brisbane, we collected two of our Aussie friends and brought them with us to Bali. Checked into the hotel, and discovered the key difference between American hotel rooms and Indonesian hotel rooms. In America when you ask for two beds you will usually have 2 double or queen sized beds in the room. In Bali, it's two twins. So much for our idea of sharing a room with the boys. Also as my parents were arriving the next day, the 2 hotel rooms we had reserved just wouldn't cut it. Spent the day lounging by the pool and then ventured into the city for dinner.

The next morning, after talking with the front desk they managed to give us the Presidential Suite for the rest of our stay for the equivalent of about $50 each, think the total was $300 for the two nights, but typically rented for 500-1000 a night. Very good deal. So I ventured back to the airport to meet my parents' flight from Hawaii and brought them back to the suite. They had a blast exploring the suite -- we had two bedrooms, one for my parents, one for werner and I, and then Ian had a bed we rolled into the dressing room, and Doug either folded out the couch or we brought in another bed for him as well. There was a huge jacuzzi on the private upstairs deck that all 6 of us relaxed in, while gettting over the jet lag.

The next morning it was time to get ready to explore the wilds of Bali. So we got bus tickets up to a lil mountain village, home of the Monkey Forest. After getting off the bus, we were swarmed by people wanting to take us to their guesthouses. Dad did the evil glare trick and all backed off as we donned our backpacks and ventured down the road. Eventually we found a guesthouse that we liked and that had room for all 6. The boys and I went out to find the Monkey Forest and when we'd ask for directions were told oh it's 10 minutes from here. So we decided to walk... and walk and walk and walk. Everyone we asked would say oh it's just 10 more minutes. Personally I think that's the only english number they knew cause it sure was a lot longer than a 10 minute walk. About 30-45 minutes later we arrived at the Monkey Forest. Here you cna pay your fee and go wander in and get mugged by the monkeys. Well not really, but they do swarm looking for food. Got a few pics and then headed back to the guesthouse in order to collect the parents. Needless to say we took a taxi back. I had an excellent pineapple fried rice for dinner.

The next morning the boys and I wandered out to figure out what the next step was and we located a car rental company. Ended up choosing a land rover and all piled in (mind you there's pretty much room for 5 adults and luggage in a land rover, not 6 adults + luggage). So Dad alternated between sitting in the back with the luggage and having Mom on his lap. Let's just say getting out of town was interesting, complete with attempting to go down a one way street, not only the wrong way, but that was closed off for a festival. Just what we get for following a moped around. Attempted to find this guesthouse that had gotten rave reviews in Lonely Planet -- obviously things had changed a bit since publication, as Mom and I took one look at the bathroom and declared "We are not staying here," so we piled in again and off we went. Stopped at the temple where the boys all had to don sarongs, and we were forced to buy prayer sashes from the locals before we could enter. They wanted us to buy sarongs, but Mom and I rummaged around in our luggage and managed to come up with enough for everyone.

Eventually ended up in Lovenia, which apparently is the dolphin capital of Bali, and is located on the northern side of the island. We were all tired and extremely cranky and found this hotel on the beach. Checked in and all fell asleep almost immediately and woke up almost immediately thereafter. Unfortunately the mozzie nets did no good, it was sweltering and honestly I think there were bed bugs. Spent the entire night absolutely miserable and got in a huge fight with Werner. The good news is he hired a driver and went off by himself to do the photography thing, leaving the Rover for the rest of us to use. Ian and I ventured into town and did a bit of sightseeing and shopping, although things did get a bit hectic when we turned a corner and then all of a sudden were boxed in by 3 flatbed trucks, complete with soldiers toting M-16's. We'd accidentally gotten in the middle of a parade for the presidential elections. After travelling a block or two with the parade, we managed to exit stage right and continued on our merry way. Back at the hotel we managed to arrange for air conditioned rooms and the next night was much better. We all got sleep. Found some lovely hotsprings and eventually ventured back to Ubud and located another set of guesthouses. Unfortunately, while going to inspect one set of rooms I slipped and fell down several stairs, landing at the bottom with a jammed thumb and a VERY bruised derriere. As a result I got to choose the place for dinner and we ended up back at the pineapple fried rice restaurant. The next morning we took the bus back to Denpasar and then the rest of the group went to go see another temple and I stayed behind to have a massage. The next morning Werner and I flew to Thailand, Ian and Doug flew back to Brisbane, and my parents stayed for another two weeks running around Bali and the neighboring islands.