Bali was a stop on the trip I had not visited previously. It definitely met my expectations! First, you can see from the photo below that the place we stayed was, literally, the lap of luxury. Sharon agreed too!
One interesting things about Bali, is you get the beaches and resorts and also some tropical jungle terrain, up in Ubud. We took a day trip to Ubud, where we stopped at one crafts store after another. It did not take us long to figure out our driver was getting a cut of the action. Nonetheless, cool stuff was procured. We ate lunch at the lovely Maya Ubud Resort (http://www.mayaubud.com/) . This is another Steve and Janet pick, and you can see why.
In Ubud, there is also a monkey forest. Immediately upon entering, we met a gentleman who is (I am not kidding about this) a monkey whisperer. He clearly knew a lot more about monkeys than we did, because we saw him breaking up a near monkey incident with a tourist who was harassing the poor animal. He showed us some very cute baby monkeys, and then the fun began! He gave me some food to feed the monkeys. You can see what happens next…
I can now say I have had a monkey not just on my back, but on my head! I’m really glad we met the whisperer guy, because a woman I met here in Vietnam claims she was bitten by a monkey at this exact same place. She did not have to get any shots and everything turned out fine, which was good to hear.
Bali is a beautiful place, but a few things about it were sad. People are poor and everyone has their hand out, similar to other resort areas where tourism is the main source of income. Moreover, the Bali bombings several years back have hurt the local people very badly. Folks were generally surprised to learn we were Americans, and explained that Americans no longer go to Bali. I didn’t visit there, but Brad Borgard tells me there is a mall just up the road which has completely shut down.
Bali is a great place to relax and enjoy the world of luxury. And we did!
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