Back Home

We're back in Waterloo now.  Flight from Hong Kong was uneventful, just the way I like them.  By the way, here's a shot of one of the engines just outside my window.  Man, they're big.  This is a Boeing 777.  It's amazing this jet can get off the ground.  It's awesome every time I see them do it.

Of course we had our glass of champagne when we got on board.

Joanne, after hers was gone...she's smiling though ('cause we're going home).

Joanne & Dan found their cars in our garage, just where they left them.  Unless they see gas missing, they'll know Dave didn't take them for a spin.  We told Dave to make sure he tops up the cars before we get back.

We talked in the last couple of days about "our favourite..." (this or that).  It's certainly been an experience.  And as we always say, we appreciate what we have at home when we travel abroad.  We all loved Singapore as a city with lots to offer.  But it's more like us in terms of living standards.  So it's easy.  Our least favourite was probably Kuala Lumpur.  For a city that size, we thought they sure could do a lot more with infrastructure.  That's the stuff that seems to be lacking anywhere in Malaysia and Indonesia (at least in Bali - I guess I can't speak for Jakarta or other places, but I assume they're no different).  Having said that, there were very few places, if any, where people were not friendly and helpful.  And if they were happy, that's all that matters.

Like I said, it's been an experience.  Probably areas we'll never go back to, so we can stroke them off our list.

Back to Hong Kong

It was a relaxing morning.  We didn't have to leave until 12 noon for the airport.  So we had breakfast outside in our units, and lounged around, reading, etc.  Gerard and Dan had another massage this morning at 10:00.  I thought I would get the telescopic lens on my camera and see what I could find.  Not much happening, but I did see this guy in the creek, in the ravine, behind us.

Fortunately, there's a bamboo fence on our side of the ravine with some netting at the bottom.  It didn't instill a lot of confidence though when I saw a chicken and some chicks go around or through the bamboo fence beside us.

Nyoman picked us up at 12:00 sharp to take us to the airport.  On the way, we were going through his village, so he asked if we would like to see his family's complex.  Sure!  This is him going in "the door".

These are some of his nieces and a nephew.  So cute.

The family all lives in one compound (28 of them, I think he said).  They have individual units.  He lives there with his wife and 2-1/2 yr old twins.  They were sleeping when we arrived, but we met his wife, and his father and mother.  By the way, his father is also Nyoman (third child).

Almost at the airport, we saw a funeral procession.  It was quite long, with music.  This tall object is where the body to be cremated is.  Cremation is the standard Hindu practice.

We're in Hong Kong now.  Had a good night's sleep at a hotel right next to the airport.  We're ready to go back into the airport, so I guess I'm at the end of blogging.  I've enjoyed keeping track of what we've done and hope you've enjoyed reading it.

Temple, Coffee, Volcano and Rice

Our guide, Nyoman (third child), picked us up this morning at 9:00 to take us to 4 points of interest just north of Ubud.

Our first stop was the Tirtha Empul Temple (natural spring) where we actually participated in a Hindu prayer while in the inner section of the temple.

Here we are in our sarongs.  We can't go in without them.

The people bathe in the spring water while praying to each god - health, prosperity, for the dead, etc.

The priest is giving us holy water after praying...and rice to put on our forehead and chest.

It's a good job Nyoman knew this cop.  He was his best friend, apparently.  It seems Nyoman has a lot of friends all over Bali.  Good for him.

Our next stop was an area where many herbs, spices and coffee were grown.  The family who owns the business has about 3 hectares of land where they grow everything they turn into products for sale.  In Bali, the coffee produced is mainly for their own consumption.  There aren't large commercial enterprises here.

Here are some coffee beans ripe and ready to be picked.

A very expensive and exclusive type of coffee is luwak coffee.  OK, you can go ahead and try it if you want, but this is how it's created.  He's holding a couple of "wads" of it.

It happens to be coffee beans swallowed by the luwak, and it ends up in the feces of the animal!  Looks like a cross between a cat and a fox (there are 2 of them here).  Yep, go for it.  We didn't try it.

This woman is roasting coffee beans over a fire - for about 20 minutes I think.  Remember, all this is done by hand.

They gave us several samples to try.  Here Dan & Joanne are looking at the options.

And here are tasting samples - both teas and coffees.  Dan & Joanne had a set, and we had a set.  Very good.  We bought some, both tea and coffee.

We tried this fruit too, called Snake Skin Fruit.  Gross name, but the fruit is quite good.

Our next stop was at Mount Batur, an active volcano.  The last eruption was 12 years ago and it usually goes off about every 10 years.  Good job it's not thinking about it right now.  It's within a larger volcano which erupted I'm sure 1000's of years ago.

The lava is still visible from 100 years ago.

 We had lunch at a wonderful cafe looking over the old volcano cauldron.  It was beautiful.

We then went to an area where rice terraces are a beautiful display of scenery.  Again, the rice grown here is for Balinese consumption.  Not much of it is sold outside of Bali.

This is a rice paddy field.

That was the end of our touring for today.

I think I mentioned before, everywhere are motorcycles carrying interesting things and/or people.  Apparently many people do not have licences to drive motorcycles, but they do anyway, and there are so many of them it's impossible to ensure everyone is licensed.  Here were a few of the more interesting things we saw on motorcycles.

A really cute young man putting palm fronds on his bike, smiled as we went by.

A warehouse of items to be exchanged.

Dad and 3 kids - 2 on back and the little one in front.

A guy's restaurant.

Can't even see the driver.

And mattresses!

 Some cute school kids on a break at the local store.

We arrived back at Komaneka around 3:00 and relaxed around our respective plunge pools until it was time for dinner.

Gerard and Dan went to check in for our flights back to Hong Kong tomorrow.  I don't know how much blogging I'll get done until I get home.  We'll be back in Hong Kong tomorrow night, then catching a morning flight from there to Toronto, arriving home around 3:30 pm or so on Wednesday, Toronto time.

Relaxing at Komaneka Resort

It was a tough day.  We had absolutely nothing planned today except a massage and lunch.  We wanted to just enjoy our place here.

We got up when we wanted and had breakfast in our individual units.  We essentially lazed around until noon, when it was time for Gerard and I to go to the spa for our free massages.

Here's Gerard's feet in a wooden bucket with flower petals and whatever other oils and fragrances were in the water.  That was the start.

This was our massage room, with trickling water the whole time.  And while lying face down, we were looking at another bucket of water, similar to the red and white petals seen in the above photo.

These were our 2 masseuses.  I had the one on the right and both delivered hard massages.  They were up on the table behind us and we're sure they were using their elbows in spots.  But it was wonderful.

After showering the oil off, we met up with Dan & Joanne and headed out to lunch at The Melting Wok.  It's a highly rated little restaurant in Ubud, only about 7 tables, owned by a Laotian chef, and his wife, who is French.  Delicious meals...and other stuff too.

We went our separate ways to do a bit of shopping.  Here's Gerard putting his change back in his wallet - at least he had change.

Around 6 pm, we went over to Dan & Joanne's place for a drink.  Nice, eh?

This is their plunge pool from the side.

We also had some nibblies delivered.  They come in these baskets with lids that these jokers thought were hats!

This tree is in their yard.  The fruit, called Bila, hangs from the tree trunk and limbs.  Looks funny.

Then we went out for just a couple of appetizers.  Because we had eaten so late, none of us were very hungry.  The end of a really tough day.

Around Bali

First of all, I forgot to mention yesterday that we crossed the equator when we went from Malaysia to Bali!  And here's a picture to prove it.

This morning, we had a guide, Nyoman,  pick us up to do some touring around Bali.  Apparently, Nyoman means third child, so their kids are named first child, second child, third child, fourth child, then it starts over again with 2 after the name.  So if more than one person in a place with the same name, then they go to a 2nd name.  Hmmm.  Sounds complicated.

He took us first to a Barong Dance, which is done daily in different places somewhere in Bali.  Essentially a fight between good and evil where no one wins, so it goes on.

This is the band.

And a photo of some of the characters.

  This is a photo of Nyoman in front of a temple.

We then went to a silver shop where they make silver jewellery by hand.  It was incredible.  Joanne and I both bought necklaces.  For what they do, the price is pretty cheap.

This is at Tegenungan waterfall.

When at the waterfall, Nyoman showed us a tree native to Bali they call the alligator tree.  It's bark is spiky and sharp.

While driving along, we came across a post-cremation sacrifice ceremony at the side of the road.

Bali people practise Hinduism, while the rest of Indonesia is mainly Muslim.  All was originally Hindu, but some kings turned Muslim, including the ones on the big islands of Sumatra and Java.

We then went to a wood carving shop.  Again, what they do is incredible and it seems for so little.

It was lunch time.  We went to Ibu Oka where they have world-famous suckling pig.  Not a great thought, but the food was terrific.  We sat in traditional Balinese style.

Here are more things people carry on their motorcycles.

You motorcycle people out there...if there's one here, there must be a million!

We went to another shop where they have paintings, but we weren't overly impressed with that.  Our last stop was the monkey forest, just down the street from our hotel.  Apparently there are 3 other ones on Bali as well.  The macaques are all over the place here and you can walk among them...even feed them some bananas.  I have to say I got a lot of pictures here, and movies.  I love animals.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.  And one just ignoring it all in the middle.

We went back to our hotel and relaxed by the pool for a while.  Dan and Joanne had booked massages, so they did that (we received a free massage for each person as part of our hotel service).  Today is Dan & Joanne's 45th wedding anniversary.  Congratulations to them!  We had a pre-dinner drink together, then we went off to town to Cafe Wayan for dinner.  We were in a secluded section of the restaurant where this elephant was burning incense.

Dan & Joanne had dinner at our hotel in a secluded spot on the lawn.  We stumbled across them while coming back from dinner.

We then had a dip in our plunge pool in our unit before retiring for the night.  No pictures of that.  Nice way to end the day.