Beautiful Bali

Our last minute decision to come to Bali, Indonesia was a great one. It was the perfect way to end our southeast Asia tour, as Bali contains many of the things we love - tropical air, great food, beaches, volcanoes, surfing, nice people, and of course........an abundance of wild monkeys.

We stayed at a Bali styled villa with four bedrooms which came referred to us from our friends Sammy and Annabel (Dreamcatchers). We realized that we didn't really know which island in Indonesia was Bali or where exactly it was located. All we knew is that we were south of Malaysia and Singapore and near the equator. We did find a map of southeast Asia while here and were excited to see just how far south we had flown. Bali is actually 7 degrees south of the equator, directly above Australia. In fact, it is only an hour flight to Derby, Australia. I pointed out to the kids that for the first time in our lives, the sun was actually slightly north of us. We also looked at the southern stars at night, as we knew these were constellations which couldn't be seen back in North America.

Bali is a place that would require months to explore. It has something like 5 or 6 different climates across the island. I met a local named Vicki at the neighborhood gym who said she and her husband have lived here for 4 years and still have not seen everything. They are originally from Australia, but love living in Bali. It is interesting to note that the average monthly temperature only varies by 2 Celsius degrees throughout the year. Because of this, we found most of the Bali style homes to be open with no walls. It took us a few days to get used to being in our living room, sitting on a couch, with a complete and open view of the palm trees and pool outside. We also enjoyed watching the frogs hop into our villa at night, look at us, and then hop back out.

Kristin and I slept in a detached round villa or bungalow with a thatched roof. We loved the outside bathroom which had a shower with no roof. You could watch and hear the exotic birds flying around while you lathered up your hair with some shampoo. Besides the birds, there was a tree nearby that had the brightest pink and purple flowers. I even took a hot shower one morning while it was raining really hard outside, which was an interesting thing to do. Isn't it true that rain water makes your hair softer? Bali was just ending their rainy season, so it only rained on us one night and one morning. It was fun to listen to the thunder outside because it was some of the loudest rolling thunder I have ever heard. It really shook the ground below our bungalow.

We spent a few days exploring some of the beaches. The first beach within walking distance had black sand. The sand was soft but was entirely black with shiny specks, making it beautiful. The beaches all had huge waves which made it great for swimming. These beaches always had a lot happening with dogs and even horses running down the beach. (No, the horses weren't wild and did have people riding them.) On our first day at the beach, we realized we were swimming in the Indian ocean. It's fun to see something that you once memorized in geography class.

We went to the other side of Bali and visited another beach, which had soft white sand and smaller waves. The large waves "broke" about a mile from shore from an outer coral reef which were great to watch. We located this beach as a referral from Vicki and quickly found ourselves in our beach chairs with umbrella about 20 feet from the water. We had so much fun swimming in the ocean and even found some rocks nearby which provided daytime shade.

The island is primarily inhabited by people belonging to the Hindu religion which Kristin and I knew little about. The Hindu's only have 4 options for first names, so you meet a lot of people with the same first name. It is determined by your birth order and it doesn't matter your gender. I asked someone what happens if you have five kids, and he said the 5th child would use the same name as the first born. The Hindu's also worship many gods. They believe in one primary god, but then there are many gods under the primary god. We often saw people placing straw bowls outside their homes and in the streets with food and flowers in them as an offering to the spirits. They believe you try to keep the good spirits happy and the bad spirits happy enough to leave you alone - very interesting. All of the Hindu people treated us great and we found them interesting to converse with. We even had the chance to see an ancient Hindu tribal monkey dance which was very dramatic with 50 men singing, dancing and walking through fire.

We hired a driver one day to take us to the middle of the island to a city called Ubud. The drive was awesome as we saw three distinct volcanoes in the background. We found a monkey sanctuary, which is basically a place where hundreds of monkeys live in the wild. The kids loved seeing and feeding the monkeys. You could see them living in families, swimming in ponds, climbing trees, eating, playing, and even some moms carrying their newborn babies. We realized that monkeys really are like people. There are good monkeys that are fun to play with and there are bad monkeys that growl and like to steal hats and sunglasses.

We decided to go surfing on our last full day in Indonesia. We negotiated with several people on the beach until we found two great instructors, five surfboards and two hours of lessons. Within 5 minutes, we were surprised to see Anna "standing up" on the board, riding a wave into shore. Lexi was was up a few minutes later and then Adam. Surprisingly, we were all up on our boards "catching a wave" within 20 minutes. We all joked about "catching a wave" or "riding the big kahuna" while we hummed the "Hawaii Five O" theme song. It was a blast to see the kids at the end of our lesson, riding their surfboards and doing tricks like jumping off their board and doing a "180" while surfing. Maybe snow and water sports in Utah helped us to pick it up faster. We all agreed it would be fun to come back to Bali in the future for a surfing vacation. The water was so warm and perfect waves came every 45 seconds. I guess that is why Bali is known as one of the surfing capitals of the world.

The morning we left, we had a chance to further visit with John Paul and Danielle who owned the villa. They lived next door in a very nice 2 story Bali style home complete with their own lily pad moat (around the house) and large swimming pool. We enjoyed spending some time with them and the chance to get to know them better. John Paul is a photographer by profession and Danielle runs a successful high end clothing business with several boutique stores. They are from France, but spend 9 months of the year living in Bali.

Bali was a difficult place to leave, especially as we knew our vacation was about over. We were so glad we decided to visit and to explore a small piece of Indonesia. I am glad I was able to share our trip with our friends and family and anyone else who received this blog address. I will try to make one more blog update over the next week with my final thoughts and perhaps a picture or two.

DEAL OF THE WEEK: No doubt about it, it was the surfing lessons. Bali offers some great surfing schools and you can pay $75 an hour....or more. We were able to negotiate lessons for five people, the expertise of two private instructors, and five surf boards for the total cost of $54 US. Our instructors were very patient, easy going, and a lot of fun. The total cost was less than the price of one ski pass to Snowbasin! Of course the food and massages and spa services were also very cheap in Indonesia as in other parts of Asia.

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK: It would have been easy to write about the monkey relieving itself on Lexi and Adam, or when I found myself riding a borrowed motorcycle into town dodging flying bats along the way. Instead, I thought I would mention our visit to the beautiful white sand beach on the east side of Bali. This was a private beach near a great restaurant and about a mile from the public beach. After Kristin and I rented our beach chairs (free if you ate lunch at the restaurant), we quickly sat down to rest in our chairs taking in the sun. The kids said they wanted to swim, so they ran into the water to cool down. After a few minutes, Kristin and I noticed that we were suddenly surrounded by Europeans also spending the day at the beach. Well, not sure how many people have ever swam with Europeans, but their culture dictates that it is NOT necessary for the women to wear the top half of their bathing suit. Europeans fully believe that women and men are very equal at the beach. Before we knew it, most of the kids, moms and "grandmas" were sunbathing in a manner that would fully prevent them from getting any tan or sunburn "lines". We told Adam to keep his eyes on the water. Kristin commented how interesting it was as they would continue to play with their kids, swim or eat lunch as if they were fully dressed. No big deal. The group next to us contained about 5 moms and about 12 kids playing the same way you would see a "play group" back home.......with only one exception as Kristin pointed out!

Magnificient Malaysia

Malaysia turned out to be another favorite of ours and a country that really intrigued us. Since this country was not on our original itinerary, we didn't really know what to expect. We found a nice airport, no requirement to purchase a visa, and beautiful landscape with lush trees and forests everywhere. The country definitely has a strong Muslim presence, but again we were treated kindly by everyone. Many people went out of their way to give us directions, show us how to do something or ask us if we needed any help. Almost everyone here speaks English and it appears to be their official business language, which was nice. I think the kids and Kristin and I have all gotten well over any negative stereotyping we might have had regarding people that cover themselves from head to foot in public.

Our hotel was very modern and located in the downtown area which was only about 15 minutes from the airport. The currency here is the "RM" or the Ringet. It's been interesting to use so many different forms of currency on this trip. The nice thing is that it doesn't matter the currency in southeast Asia - you will almost always find that things are cheaper than in the US.

So, what does a person do while in the capital city of Maylasia - called Kuala Lumper? Well, our recommendation is to walk to the nearest bus station where you can purchase a $2 ticket for an hour long bus ride to the "Genting Highlands". It's a great ride as you drive up into the mountains which are also a tropical rain forest. When you arrive, you can buy a ticket to take the longest cable car ride in southeast Asia to an elevation of 6,100 feet. As we were riding to the top, we opened the windows and couldn't believe the sounds of the birds, insects and many "mystery" animals we couldn't see. We did see some monkeys in one of the rivers below. The rain forest is so thick you really can't see the ground when riding over in a cable car. At the top, we exited from our cable car and found a very modern amusement park. Picture "Lagoon" or a six flags at the top of Ben Lomond peak and you will get the idea (for those of you in Utah). We decided to buy tickets and enjoy the amusement park....not something we ever thought we would do in Malaysia.

The rides at the park were fun and it was interesting to have "clouds" move in and out of the park. One minute it was sunny and then the next minute you were literally in a cloud. It even rained once for about 40 minutes. We could tell the local Muslim population thought we were an interesting site. Many of them would smile at us or the parents would point us out to their kids with sidebar conversations. We also caught a handful of people trying to take pictures of us in the park. Kristin and the girls had more pictures taken of them than Adam and I. Kristin and I commented that being a minority has been a great experience for the kids. They are very comfortable now in cities or countries where they are the ones who are different. It was great for us to be on the rides with so many local people all having fun together. It makes you realize how similar we are as people - we all like to get away from our daily routines or the stress of life once in a while to have some fun! Hopefully some of this came through in the pictures posted above.

The next day we took a taxi to the Petronas Towers. I remember hearing about this twin tower building when it was built years ago because it took the title of the worlds tallest building away from the Sears Tower in Chicago. At the time, I remember thinking where in the *&^^(&%! is Kuala Lumper, Malaysia. Now I know! (Apparently Taiwan has the largest building now, but Dubai will take over the record in the next year or two.....) The Petronas building was fun to see as it contains a world class mall inside on the bottom 5 floors. Outside is a large park with a pond and an impressive water feature which reminded me of the Belagio fountains in Las Vegas. We were actually surprised again at how modern the mall was....incredible. Unfortunately, they had signs posted saying no photography allowed inside the building.

The last thing we did was to visit a children's science museum inside the towers. It was an impressive museum with more hands on exhibits than I have ever seen in a museum. We all thought it would take "days" to go through the entire exhibit. The kids could have spent all day inside the museum, but we had to leave after a couple of hours to catch our flight. Of course, the museum was sponsored by who else - Petronas Petroleum. A lot of the museum was explaining all about oil - its importance, many uses, and why they must protect it. Malaysia is so modern and has a nice infrastructure because oil is big business here and oil is money. Petronas is a large corporation which has many oil platforms in the ocean and they also pull oil out of the rock beds found inland. I even noticed a Kuwait bank downtown. It's obvious there is money here...

We wondered why more Americans don't visit Malaysia. Maybe it has something to do with the oil, or maybe the Muslim community. I don't think the Malaysian government does a lot of tourism advertising because they probably don't need tourism revenue like other countries. It probably has more to do with the long flight to get here. I know a couple of locals asked us about the economy in the US, what we thought of Obama and why more Americans don't come to Malaysia. Whatever the case, it is a place we would like to come back and do some "beach" research. We spoke to a couple of locals who said the beaches are absolutely phenomenal.

This was our shortest visit to a country during our trip as we were there less than 48 hours. It will be very memorable and we all said we were glad we added this stop to our itinerary.

DEAL OF THE WEEK: All votes are in and we all agreed that the deal of the week in Malaysia was our trip to the amusement park. We bought five full day passes for the park at a total cost of $40. It was also fun to eat lunch at the amusement park, stop for periodic snacks, water and soda for about $15 that day...a total of $55 for our entire family for the day.

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK: I thought since I was taking the time to write this blog that I could avoid contributing again to funny story of the week. I was out voted again. The story this week took place at the amusement park in Maylasia. We were having a great time, walking or running from ride to ride. After a couple of hours the kids saw a ride that resembled the alpine slide in Park City. We waited about 5 minutes in line and when we were about to get on, they had Anna get on a scale. It was really sad when the guy working the ride shook his head "no" because she didn't make the weight requirement. I felt bad for her because we all know what it is like to be too "small" for a ride. Kristin decided she would wait with Anna and then maybe go on the ride after I took Adam and Lexi. As I was standing there, the guy motioned for "me" to get on the scale. I got on the amusement park "scale" and imagine how I felt when he started shaking his head in a way that said "NO WAY" or "NOT A CHANCE" big guy. He told me I was too "large" for the ride. This has never happened to me in an amusement park. I guess there is a first for everything. You have to remember that the Asian population is much smaller than we are, and the rides are designed for the locals. At least that is what I told myself. Kristin then took Adam and Lexi on the slide as Anna and I went on another ride more suitable for small and large people. I am sure I will be hitting the gym hard when we are home......

Charming Chiang Mai

We took a nice "prop" plane over the mountains from Laos and landed in northern Thailand. Chiang Mai (CM) was a major empire in Thailand for many hundreds of years in the past. Now it has become a great place to vacation and I view it as a city where you can do a lot of outdoor activities. The town is nestled among mountains so we have noticed a nice cool down at nights (70's maybe?). During the day it heats up to about 100 degrees, although Kristin and I both said it doesn't feel that hot. Maybe we are in denial that we will be back in colder conditions later this month.

I titled the blog Charming Chiang Mai not so much because of the city, but because of a great bed and breakfast we discovered by luck and Kristin's investigative eye on the internet. It is owned by a french canadian woman named Annabel and her daughter (Sammy) who is in high school. The name is Dream Catchers (dreamcatchersbnb.com). We fell in love with the place and it was the perfect location for our family to "slow down" a bit. We had some of the most delicious home made meals which took us temporarily out of the "rice and fish world" we have become so accustomed to. We had delicious sandwiches, herb roasted chicken, ribeye steaks, chocolate fudge cake, fresh fruit salads, and the list goes on and on. We were only planning on staying 2 or 3 days, but we were having such a good time we ended up staying an entire week. I felt bad for my Mom who had to leave Dream Catchers mid-way through our stay. We all knew it was hard for her to leave paradise and pampering by Annabel and Sammy.

We spent one afternoon site seeing Chiang Mai. In the center of town is "old town" which has a moat built around the city which was created around a thousand years ago. I guess they can rightfully call this "old town". We saw a few temples and even a small emerald Buddha which was stated as being 2,500 years old - which is nearly as old as the real Buddha himself. While the weather was warm and it didn't rain in Chiang Mai, March probably isn't the best time to come. Everyone is burning their rice fields this month so there is a lot of haze and smoke in the air. It almost looks like a fog or mist. But, you don't notice it as you relax in the swing chair next to the pool next to the elephant waterfall wall. We also had the pleasure of meeting some new friends who checked in about 30 minutes after my mom left. Ernie and Lise were a lot of fun and we enjoyed our conversations with them. Ernie likes baseball, so Adam and I had an instant friend. (By the way, I guess I had my nose so buried in work over the last few years that I didn't notice the Montreal Expos were moved to Washington! How did I miss that???? Ernie filled me in on the "latest" news, lol.) Lise is a great Jazz singer which we didn't know about until they were leaving and she was kind enough to give us a copy of her CD. It sounds awesome. If you want to hear it, then you have to come visit us when we get home....it is really good.

So, you might be asking yourself what a person can do in Chiang Mai if they have $32 burning a hole in their pocket. Well, here is our recommendation. We had a private driver pick us up in a "song touh" (little red truck) just a little before 8 am at our bed and breakfast. He will first take your family to Orchard Gardens where you can look at Orchids and walk into a butterfly farm. Definitely a place to stop and smell the flowers, lol. It only takes about 30 minutes and once your done you will then drive to the next stop which is a "long neck" village. In this tribe, the women will start stretching their necks with rings at the age of 6 and continue into their early 20's. Some of the women have necks that look like they are about a foot long. The longer the neck, the more attractive??? Some of the women also stretch their ears out with earings - long ear tribes. I thought these tribes only existed in Africa, but guess not. After a 30 or 40 minute visit, he will take you for an hour drive into the mountains where you stop to go for an elephant ride. We all enjoyed riding the elephants up into the mountains for about an hour. They would stop once in a while and wrap their trunks around a bamboo tree, ripping out a bamboo "log" and then drag it while you ride. They would use their trunk to rip off a piece and stick it in their mouth. My mom's elephant actually stopped in a little river, filled up his trunk and gave himself and my mom a little bath. After a great ride, we stopped and "dismounted" off our elephants and fed them bananas and sugar cane. We then walked down a path where we came to a river. Our guide told us to get into this cage, but didn't say why. Before you knew it, he yanked on a rope and you were sent sailing across the river on a zipline. In a cage. It was a rush! The cage kind of crashed into the other side against a tree and it seemed a bit dangerous, but it was quick and you didn't have time to think. Our guide then took us to another part of the mountain where we started a nature hike. We stopped about half way up and he fed us warm pad thai noodles wrapped in a banana leaf. I have a picture above of lunch. It was very tasty! After lunch we finished our hike (treacherous at times as we walked 30 yards over fallen trees about 20 yards off the ground) and finally came to a nice waterfall. We swam and played, were splashed by the locals in the cold water, and then hiked back down to the truck. It was now about 3:00 in the afternoon, but our day was not over. He then drove us about 30 minutes until we came to a rushing river with rapids. It was now time to go white water rafting. We got a 5 minute lesson, put on our helmets and started down the river. This was the first time our kids experienced white water rafting, so they had a blast. We hit about 5 decent sized rapids with our boat spinning and sometimes going down the rapids backwards. After about an hour, we stopped and then he said "time for bamboo rafting". So, we hopped on a long bamboo raft (50 ft long?). It reminded me of something that Tom Sawyer would ride down the Mississippi river. Because we had six people in our raft we were about 2 inches below the surface of the water, so needless to say we got a little wet, but if felt good in the heat. When we were done, the kids swam in the river and then we were all driven back to Dream Catchers. All in all, it was a great day and we couldn't believe how much you can do for $32 in Chiang Mai. Sorry for the long paragraph, but it was a long day. :)

Another fun thing to do in Chiang Mai is to visit the local elephant conservation camp. They do an elephant show where elephants move timbers, and they demonstrate how the "mahout" or elephant riders get on and off elephants. We saw three elephants paint a picture by holding a paint brush and only using their trunks. Not sure how they train this, but Adam said that elephants are the second smartest animal in the world next to dolphins. I told him that I never saw a dolphin paint, lol. We also saw our friends Ernie and Lise as they were staying 3 days at the conservatory learning how to be a mahout. This was a dream of Lise's however it seemed Ernie was going along to support her as any good husband would. Ernie said he fell off his elephant that morning, so we hope his back is okay! I'm sure with enough massages in Asia, even a bad back can feel better. Kristin and I have decided to take preventative measures by always looking for a good spa. Anyway, Ii was fun to see our friends from Canada again before we left Chiang Mai.

One last thing I will mention about Chiang Mai was our visit with the tigers and lions. Chiang Mai is the only place in the world where you can go inside a caged area of about 7 grown tigers. The cost is only $9, so who can refuse doing something like this?? Not me.... Well, Kristin had NO DESIRE to step inside the giant cage of overgrown kittens. I could tell she was disappointed in my lack of judgement when I said "Oh, I am in!" in front of the kids. You should have seen her when I told her that both Adam and I were going in...not good. I told Kristin that the reason we pay money on a life insurance policy each month is so we can enjoy activities like this without any worry. She didn't buy it. Anyway, Lexi and Anna had the chance to play with some baby lions which they enjoyed before Adam and I entered the tiger pen. We all thought it was fun and I think Kristin thought it was all "ok" when Adam and I left the cage unharmed. Annabelle told us about someone needing 50 some stitches a few weeks ago. The good news is that they sold that tiger to a zoo. I forgot to mention that we had to sign a waver before we went inside. I didn't read it, but Kristin did and she can tell you what it said if you really want to know.

It was sooooo hard to leave our little "home away from home" at Dream Catchers, however we somehow know that we will come back someday. We said our goodbyes and somehow forced ourselves into our taxi to the airport. We were excited however, because while we didn't have any plans for our last 2 weeks, the day before we purchased tickets to our new destination - Kuala Lumper, Malaysia. We met a family (Atnips) who gave us a couple of fun ideas of things to do while we visit Malaysia. The Atnips lived in Burma before coming to Chiang Mai as he works in the US Consolate. They are a fun family and we enjoyed visiting with them in their home. We also heard from a few people along our trip how much they liked Malaysia and we decided it was a new country that we just had to check out! We also found very reasonable flights on Air Asia to Bali, Indonesia which will be our last stop of our trip before returning home.

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK and DEAL OF THE WEEK: I decided to combine both stories this week as they are related to one another. One day in Chiang Mai (we stayed at another hotel before we found the bed and breakfast) Kristin and my mom were wanting to do a load of laundry. They searched high and low for a coin operated laundry mat, which would have been better than washing in the hotel sink. I tried over and over to tell them they need to "outsource" their laundry which would be more convenient and cheaper than doing it themselves. (This is the same angle I used in my last job when explaining why it was better to outsource call center services.) Anyway, after a day or two they both gave in and agreed to take our laundry down the street. We took almost every stitch of clothing we had for 6 people and dropped it off at the laundry mat. I could tell both my mom and Kristin were nervous as we walked away giving our clothes to complete strangers. They told us the laundry would be done the next day about an hour before we checked out of our hotel. Well.....Adam gave us all of his clothes including "all" his underwear. He decided he would wear a pair of souvenir "Muay Thai" boxing shorts as his underwear. The boxing shorts are quite bulky, have bright colors and are quite the site. They weren't made for underwear to wear under pants. As we were walking down the street the next morning, he stopped looked at us frantically and said with his hands in the air: I Can't Wait To Wear Underwear Again!!! We all started laughing and thought this was pretty funny. I looked at him and said - Congratulations, you just made funny story of the week, dude. Oh, and yes this was deal of the week as we received back the freshest, cleanest, perfectly folded laundry back for the whopping price of $2.10 US. Kristin and my mom tipped the lady like four bucks and when I looked at them like they were crazy, they told me I had no idea how hard laundry was and that she deserved every penny!