Bali Pics now available

Lots of monkeys, lizards, chickens, pigs, fish and cows. Not to mention lots of great surfing, snorkeling, kayaking in the rain, swimming and even renting a scooter for the 3 of us. Mom, don't look at those pictures. The people just loved Mathieu. Everywhere we went they all wanted to touch him and take pictures with him. Even with their limited English they would always ask him "What is your name?" and "How old are you?" Midway through the trip he started to get the hang of the questions and answered back. We were having such a good time it was difficult to comeback to reality.

Our trip started down in Balangan Beach, a small seaside village where I got to surf overhead waves on a 5'11" surfboard which is way to small for me. The next day I found a bigger board. The only time we got ripped off was here. I guess you live in learn. We did a trip to see the Uluwata Temple and to have dinner at Jimbaran Bay and we paid way too much. Dinner was really cool though. You get to pick out your fish and then go sit right on the beach and they serve you dinner. Not bad.

Then we headed up north to Pemerutan and Lovina where we snorkeled and kayaked. We went kayaking in the national park. Mathieu didn't want to get into the kayak so we had to leave him behind with our driver. Apparently he was quite happy staying behind. He loves boats but apparently not small boats. Anyway it rained the whole time we were on the kayak. Luckily it was still hot. Overall the north wasn't that exciting, partly because it rained the whole time, and the fact that there isn't much to do besides kayaking and snorkeling. We only stayed 2 days up there and then moved on.

From there we stopped for a swim in the hot springs (can't remember the name) on our way to Mt Batur, the volcano. The hots springs were a nice stop off. The volcano is actually 6000 ft high and there is a beautiful lake at the base! We couldn't see the top though due to the clouds and rain. We only made a short stop there and then headed down to Ubud, a town in the center of the island known for shopping, the Monkey Forest and Balinese dancing. Mathieu loved the Monkey Forest and the dancing along with all the dragons that came out at night on the streets (the kids dressed up as dragons and paraded around the streets).

We did a day trip to Sideman to see the "Terraced Rice fields". At lunch Valerie ordered fresh coconut juice and they actually climbed up the tree and cut down the coconut. It was pretty cool to watch.

Next we were off to Amed. This was one of our favorite spots. It is a very quiet seaside village with beautiful coral reefs just off the beach. Needless to say, we did a lot of snorkeling. We also rented a scooter here (Only 4 Euros a day). We all hopped on and drove from beach to beach to snorkel. There is very little traffic in this area so it wasn't dangerous. We were there during the Balinese holiday. During the morning all the Balinese go to the temple with their family and then they celebrate with food. The basket of food that the women were carrying looked really good. Unfortunately, tourist are allowed to join in.

Our final stop was Seminyak, Legian and Kuta. We tried to avoid these spots for the most part since they are big tourist areas. We were right to do so. The first night we stayed in a hotel with a bunch of Australians getting loaded in the pool. Might have been fun if I were 20 with no kids but that is not the case. I went to another hotel the next day to see if we could move there but he was completely booked. However, he had a friend with a hotel not far away and suggested that. He actually took me there on his scooter helped me get booked and then returned me, all for free. We ended up loving the hotel. It was small and quiet, with a big pool, no drunk Australians and perfectly located. Sometimes people can be surprising. I would have loved to pay the guy back by using his taxi service or staying in his hotel but we had no need for either.

Anyway, in this area we got our fill of sushi, surfing and swimming and then regretfully took our flight back to France.