Bali is great! I like it way better than Fiji. More civilized and more to do...still a third world country but there's stuff going on, it's not as isolated as our resort in Fiji was!
Our first night I was ready to get back on the plane and fly home...I did not want to be here! No blogging or emails home that night...mom would not have approved. We landed at the airport and the first thing we see is "drugs = death penalty." Good thing we left our heroin and cocaine back in Australia! We met our shuttle driver from the hotel no problem, and he informed us it would be a 40 minute ride to the hotel. We drove down a bunch of narrow, sketchy streets and arrived at hotel 8 minutes later. Who knows. He tried to sell us a couple trips along the way and warned us about not drinking the water and which taxis were safe and to haggle with the vendors. I'm not entirely sure which side of the road they drive on, and I'm pretty sure they don't know either. Kind of like mexico. Except i felt safer driving down the roads in Mexico than I do here...now that's a scary thought! There are scooters EVERYWHERE. I think scooters can drive wherever they want, but cars can only go one way...out of the city? I'm not sure. We've only seen two main roads and they both are one ways in the same direction!
We got to our hotel room and there was a lizard in the bathroom! We called security and asked if that was normal and they said no no we'll be right there!! But then when they got here they laughed at us because the lizard was tiny. I don't want to know what kind of lizard they were thinking of! We insisted they get rid of it but since it was on the ceiling they had to give each other 10 fingers (Balinese people are very short!) and go through all kinds of trouble to catch it. Of course, we woke up the next morning and the lizard was back. So we named her Lizzy (real original) and now we have a pet! She comes and goes as she pleases...sometimes she brings a couple pals...no big deal! She'll be splitting the bill with us at the end, no worries.
Anyways. Everything was better in the daylight as karina described in yesterday's post!
Today we went to Indonesia's "number 1 amusement/theme park," Bali Safari and Marine Park, and had ourselves the perfect day. We went on a jungle safari and saw normal tigers, white tigers, elephants, rhino, Asian deer, lions, brown zebras, normal zebras, storks, water buffalo, orangutans...so many animals! They weren't in cages and came right up next to the safari car!
Then we played with a baby orangutan. I don't think I have to explain that one :) She was so cute running around doing her monkey thing. We also held a huge python...so heavy!
We went on some water slides, did some swimming, had a buffet lunch, watched some animal shows and went to an aquarium (saw piranhas!).
Karina rode and fed a camel! Then we rode and fed an elephant together :-). No rules in Bali (except no drugs)...you weren't supposed to bring your camera but of course we did, and in the middle our guide hopped off and took a photo shoot for us! No need to buy the expensive professional ones!
As we were leaving, we saw a huuuuge spider. Literally about 6 inches long and an inch wide. Creepy!!!
On our drive home (the park was about an hour away), we drive through fields of rice paddys and a couple "cities." Not cities like our cities but still big enough to be considered a city. They have giant statues everywhere. Like almost as big as the Washington monument. Everywhere! People and animals and Buddhist temples and I don't even know what else. The main religion here is Hindu so I'm assuming they're Hindi temples but I could be way wrong. All the entrances to places have dishes on the ground with incense, flowers, coins and a ritz cracker...we've been meaning to ask what the meaning of these dishes are but maybe we'll just google it.
After our day at the park, we got dinner at a delicious restaurant. It was a really nice restaurant...guess how much our meal came to?? $10 for the two of us! Including drinks and a side dish each! My goal for the week is to eat a dish with peanut sauce every day. It's their specialty and it's my favorite...so why not! We walked around some shops and realized we were totally being ripped off by hagglers. The shot glasses we thought we were getting a deal on buying for $2 we're $1 in the store, and all the other things we tried to haggle over we're about $3-$5 less in the stores ($3 goes a long way here!!). So we've smartened up and next time we haggle we will bring our "A" game.
After our long day we decided to have ourselves a relaxing night out. We went to an outdoor restaurant down the street and got 4 drinks, hookah, and a banana split for $20 total! Crazy! There is one main strip of clubs and stores and it's hoppin all night. They don't really understand the concept of Happy hour...it's more like happy night. Happy hour goes from 7pm-3am!! There are no cover charges and there's karaoke, hookah, bars, clubs...everything you can imagine, all within a 10 minute walk from our hotel. The stores stay open late and the streets were still packed when we came home at 1am. Crazy.
Here's what's on the schedule for the rest of the week: lounge by the pool, swim in the ocean (although the beach isn't so great here), do some shopping, visit a monkey forest where the monkeys climb on you and eat bananas out of your hand, visit a volcano, eat lots of delicious food, get a massage...it's gonna be great!
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