Schapelle Schapelle are you home? Bali ..

Until I had my wee flat in London mid 2011, I worked out that in 4 years, I had only had 5 consecutive nights in 1 place 8 times … which makes for a lot of moving about … mainly through work … where I would usually do 3 nights one place and then 3 nights somewhere else … given by the time I arrived in Bali I would have had a few months of 2 night stays in hotels around the world … I opted for a Villa for the period, to have a base ..  I always say .. time by the pool but after a day get bored and usually run from one place to the next … I also new that that once I arrived back in Australia I would be racing around visiting folk and not have a chance for rest … 
 

Not a real fan of the Villa …  but the pool is great … and the privacy is nice, should have expected that I would have been bored though …  have not heard music or seen news for days, wifi not working and nor is the telly  so I can’t even play music through that … and post my tourist stuff I am alone with my thoughts … as you can imagine this sometimes is not a good thing …  !! No need for alarm… 

geckos are everywhere ..  the Villa is traditional Balinese .. only the bedrooms are indoors, so the kitchen, lounge and bathrooms are outside .. which means I regularly shower with geckos too !!  Poor friggin’ critters … video of the villa

Bali is not what I expected …. It is far bigger and more developed than I ever imagined, it also seems to have more rice paddies than Vietnam, every three steps a temple, the number of temples and pagodas is extraordinary, the restaurants amazing, spas on every corner ..  it is also however more expensive than I ever thought, a 2 bed in Seminyak will cost the same as a 2 bed in Melbourne … get away from Kuta / Seminyak and you get to see the real Bali …  and then it becomes really special.

A friend who joined in the second part of the trip summed it up best when he said .. the thing that is amazing about Bali is how different the place is, corner to corner, especially when it is so small, rice paddies, beaches, rain forests, volcanoes, mountains, monkeys, fauna etc … it is the diversity of the place that makes it special...  rice paddies  &  temples 

The sunsets are amazing, a nice reminder of downunder .. the skies big, the stars bright …

The thunderstorms have also been surreal … it has rained for the first 5 days ..  been circ 38 degrees with 90% humidity … for a sample of the storms check out the vid I took of the little vid of the villa …  Villa night thunderstorm video

x CBT