Today we headed out to explore the island. The plan was to be out the door by 8 o’clock, so as to get as much accomplished as we could before the heat became too oppressive. However, we were finally able to talk to the kids (a slow Internet here has kept the video chat from working) when they called us at the hotel, so by the time we said goodbye, it was much closer to 8:30.

The itinerary is to visit a few of the villages that specialize in the native crafts (villages there tend to only work on one particular craft, so in our case we will visit a pottery village and a weaving village). Our driver speaks quite good English, and on the way tells us a lot of interesting things about Lombok’s history and culture. He tells us about how the women work all day in the fields and such, while the men mostly sit together and chat. I tell him we have much the same thing back home, but reversed. Perhaps its because we’re in the Northern Hemisphere and everything is backwards, kind of like the toilets flushing counterclockwise.

As might be expected, the villages are quite poor, but the people seem happy, and genuinely welcome tourists and their cameras. In the weaving village, we actually had a guide walk us around and show us how the whole village was preparing for a wedding ceremony. We saw the women preparing to cook a giant pot of coconut rice, and the guide even offered us some of the freshly ground coconut from his sweaty fingers. Unable to think of any polite way to decline, we take a taste and say a silent prayer that we still have some antibiotics back at the hotel.

Walking around the hut where all this preparation is taking place, our next stop is where the five sweaty men are actually preparing the coconut by kneading it with their bare hands to remove the outer skin and break it into smaller pieces. On the off-chance anyone from Sukara village reads this, you may want to think about reversing the order of the tour. Nevertheless, we find a fabric we are reasonably pleased with and are soon headed off with a reminder of our visit to the village (I suspect we’ll have another reminder tonight, but the fabric will last longer).

Our last scheduled stop is the town of Kuta, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to its counterpart on Bali. The Kuta on Lombok sits on a long, white sand beach, which currently is almost completely barren of any development (the only hotel of consequence is a Novotel). During the few hours we spend here, I think we could count the number of people we see on a single hand. It feels totally remote and completely undisturbed. Apparently there are plans for a number of new developments, like Hilton and Ritz-Carlton, as Kuta is quite close to where the new airport is being built, so sadly, in the not too distant future this beach will look like so many others in Bali.

Despite all we saw today, the best part by far has to be the discovery of a street cart selling the pancakes we have longed for since our trip to Malaysia. We haven’t seen them since the market where we first had them in Borneo, but once we described them to the driver, he took us right to the spot. Unfortunately, the spot is about 20 minutes from our hotel, which presents a bit of a problem for future days that I haven’t quite figured out yet (but be sure that I will).

Once back at the hotel, we head over to the gallery we found yesterday to meet with the artist whose works we liked. We also met the co-owner of the shop, who it turns out we had met at an ATM in Ubud just a few days ago. We bought one painting and a set of small wooden carvings, doing some significant damage to the budget. We made as much of it up as we could though by stopping for dinner being served from the back of a pickup truck. The total for two entrees and two drinks – $2.75. Another week of that, and we’ll be back in the chips.

Pretty mellow day today. It started early enough, catching up on some work from the deck outside our room. Once again the Internet leaves a little to be desired, so some things I hoped to accomplish didn’t come to pass, but I kept myself busy nonetheless watching the grounds crew scurry up and down the 60 foot coconut trees with nothing more than a pair of tennis shoes. I debated whether one might fit in our luggage, as I have plenty of need for such tree climbing skills at the cabin, but remembered that space has mostly been taken up now by beads and other such trinkets.

We were excited to find that the hotel has bikes for the guests, and after breakfast we planned on taking them for a ride into the small town down the street. Unfortunately, of the 6 bikes neatly arranged for use, we could find only one that didn’t have flat tires, and with no staff around to help, we abandoned the idea and decided to just walk the half mile or so.

No sooner had we hit the street, than the touts appeared, offering everything from car and boat transportation, to watches, to bookmarks. For the most part, I find if you just say no and keep walking, they quickly tire and leave you alone (or at least turn you over to the next set of touts down the street). Ang, on the other hand, feels bad ignoring them, so has opted for the “maybe later” approach. Surprisingly, they take this an indicator that there is potential for a sale, and soon we are leading a small parade of merchants that refuse to leave our sides for fear one of their competitors might sneak in. I soon feel like poor Sam in Green Eggs and Ham…

Not on the beach
Not on the street
I don’t need flip flops for my feet
I will not buy them here or there
I will not buy them anywhere
Not by the bank
Not by the tree
Please sir, please just let me be

On an up note, while ducking into stores in hopes some other unlucky tourist would draw the attention of our entourage, we found some artworks that we liked. The artist is part owner of the shop and we made arrangements for him to come in and talk with us about his work tomorrow evening. There are a few pieces that we like, so hopefully that will give us some more perspective on which one to go with. We also just like the opportunity to meet the creator when we have the chance as it gives the work more of a story.

We picked up a few snacks for the room fridge and the obligatory Cup o’ Noodles (which actually tastes good here) at the local grocery store. We also found the perfect gift for Joey there, which was totally unexpected. From there, it was back through the horde of vendors to the hotel for some chill time at the pool (which has the coolest statue head with a waterslide coming out the mouth that makes us miss the boys terribly).

Tomorrow we have booked a driver to take us around the island and to a few of the local villages. $35 for nine hours of air conditioned comfort and not having to be with a tour group seems like money well spent.

Off to a new location today, so up at the crack of 8 for some breakfast, and then we’re off. Now I wouldn’t exactly saw that 8 is an unusual time to start the day, particularly for my trusty sidekick, but this morning, even that time came early. About 2 in the morning, we awoke to some load cracking noises. Figuring something had found its way into our room, we switched on the lights to find the offender, only to find a completely empty room.

No sooner had I switched off the lights and secured myself back under the covers, than we heard the same noise again. Back out of bed, lights back on, but still no guilty looking monkey peering back from the corner to explain the commotion.

One more time we hear the noise, but having left a light on, are able to look up in time so see a tile peeling away from the pillar next to the bed and crashing down about two feet from Ang’s head. Falling asleep proved a little difficult after that, and by the time the adrenalin cleared the system, a good couple hours of prime sleeping time had passed.

Nevertheless, we already have reservations at the next hotel, so groggy or not, we’re committed to moving on. After calling around a bit to consider the options, we find our choices limited to a local ferry (5-8 hours to cross on a sketchy boat) or a 25 minute flight (probably on a sketchy plane, so that part may be a wash). Suffice to say we were quickly on the road to the airport, about an hour and a half away.

The flight itself turned out to be be relatively painless. The only real negative was that deoderant isn’t common amongst the locals, so when you cram 80 of them into a long metal tube and apply heat, it provides a bot of a wake up call for the senses. Fortunately, we had barely left the ground when the announcement came that we were landing in Lombok.

Now for those not familiar (as we certainly weren’t before we planned this trip), Lombok is a sister island to Bali, although far less known, and subsequently less travelled. Before the bombings in Bali, Lombok was starting to come into its own, positioned as being like Bali before the tourists took over. And while very small parts of the island have recovered (the Gili Islands, which are just offshore, for example), the main island never has, and the impact has been severe. Based on the number of dark windows at the hotel, I’d be surprised in occupancy was over 40%, despite being on par with anything in Bali and significantly less expensive.

As we arrived fairly late in the day (around 5 o’clock), we didn’t get to see much of what lies beyond the hotel. We did walk down the beach and watched the sunset, but not before the beach merchants sniffed us out for the fresh meat that we were and descended like a horde of locusts, leaving us with a handful of overpriced souvenirs, and a smaller wallet.

The constantly evolving plan is to stay here three nights and then head for Hanoi Tuesday. The next window for that flight is Thursday, which seemed to leave the time in Vietnam a little short. We’re pretty relaxed already here though, so inertia might just keep us here the extra two days.

I never saw it coming. When I separated Ang from her beloved Starwood, I figured she would eventually come around and one day be comfortable picking random places from the Internet, despite the look on her face when she moved into the Diggler Room. But just one day later, I think there will be a little wetness around the eyes when we check out tomorrow to move to our next destination.

As we’ve come to find from our brief time here, there is an incredible story behind this hotel that highlights the kind of unexpected things that can only be found by stepping off the beaten path. Until recently, we’ve learned, this wasn’t even a hotel at all, but a retreat built from scratch by one old Japanese man (whom I’ve come to call Master Ugway, from Kung Fu Panda fame) who set out to build a place where he could bring different cultures together and introduce them to the local village people. At one point, over 80% of the villagers worked on the site, constructing buildings and managing the groups that came to visit for seminars, festivals, and the like.

The fall of the markets hit hard here, as much of the funding for the project came from the owner’s personal portfolio, to the point that the primary mission had to be abandoned and a new one implemented in its place. To make the facility self-sustaining, it was reborn as a hotel, staffed by people from the local village, who would have in it an opportunity to learn new skills and earn higher incomes. Slowly, the word is leaking out, and people are finding the place the same as we did, through positive reviews online. In our short stay, we have met people from Denmark and Victoria with the exact same story of how they came to stay.

We also learned that the story behind the themed rooms is that each one represents a place that the owner has visited and a culture that he wanted to recreate here. And while it has been a unique place to stay in its own right, understanding some of the history only adds to the charm. Indeed, none other that my trusty sidekick raised the question of whether we should stay longer.

After breakfast, and a brief detour involving locking ourself out of our room and having to call a locksmith, we headed back to another part of Ubud to see a few more galleries and, most importantly, find some reliable Internet. We also laid out plans for out next stop, which is going to be Lombok, the next island of consequence from Bali. It is supposedly even more mellow than what we have experienced so far, and we’ll be staying on the beach, so it will be the part of this trip where we can do a whole lot of nothing. The travel plans are still a little up in the air (not sure if we are going by boat of flying), but we’ll figure it out in the morning and get there one way or another.

With most of the plan in order, we headed off to dinner at our hotel (since it seemed far too involved to take the car back to Ubud). The experience, I can safely say, was totally unexpected. One of the staff had told us earlier how the owner, as part of his interest in mixing cultures, sent the cook off to places like India and Thailand, with the result that in an odd little hotel in the middle of nowhere, we had one of the most spectacular meals not only of this trip, but in a very long time (granted most of our meals out these days are at Olive Garden or Red Robin, but still, this was amazing). Had I known what we were in for, I might have agreed to forget about Lombok and spend the rest of the time in Bali right here in the Diggler Room.

Despite our increasing attachment to the Michi (we can’t say enough good things about it, and the kindness of Master Ugway in particular), the wheels are in motion for an early start tomorrow as we head for Lombok. We are also made the decision to day to skip Cambodia and focus only on Bali and Vietnam this trip. We’re loving it here, and in choosing to spend a few extra days to see more of the country, we realize we just can’t fit three countries into one trip. Missing Cambodia is sad, but the good news is that we’re already talking about next year’s trip to Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand.

We said goodbye to Tanah Lot this morning and headed of to Ubud. The drive took a little over an hour, passing through some interesting little villages and nice scenery. One particular thing I’ve noticed here is that they grow rice everywhere. From other stops in Asia, we’ve seen terraced rice fields, but here, there doesn’t seem to be a free acre of space they haven’t put them. It’s one of the harvest seasons, now so a regular sight on the edges of the roads (the few flat spots that haven’t been converted to rice paddies) are big blue tarps covered with rice drying in the sun.

Pulling into the hotel, we quickly realize that we’re not at the Meridien anymore. The description online of this place was that it was “eclectic”, but that doesn’t even come close. Some pictures may help, but these can only provide a taste. Looking around, there doesn’t seem to be a surface that isn’t covered with broken or mirrored tiles, all with no discernible pattern. Each room has a theme, like an Asian version of the Fantasyland Hotel in Edmonton. We started off in the Chinese Room, but they decided to move us to the India Room so we wouldn’t have to hear the construction by the pool (I’m guessing they got a good deal on another load of broken tile, so are clearing a new surface to put it).

Size-wise, it’s hard to complain about the India Room. Its actually a two-stroy, two bedroom apartment, so we’ll only ever really use part of it. Did I mention it was eclectic though? In case I didn’t, here’s a representative shot of the bathroom. Because of all the mirrored tile, I’ve come to affectionately call it the Dirk Diggler room, although that probably applies equally to any of the rooms here. Ang, on the other hand, hasn’t quite made the transition from Starwood mode, but I’m sure with time the Diggler Room will win her over.

After checking in and spending an hour trying to get Internet to work (unsuccessfully, so if you’re reading this it means we hauled the laptop into town and found an Internet cafe), the driver took us the last few miles into Ubud. The town’s reputation as the artistic center of Bali is well-deserved, as street after street is filled with galleries and we spent a good part of the afternoon just browsing through. The styles are mostly Balinese (go figure) which doesn’t really hit home with us, but fun to look at nonetheless.

We closed the day off with a fire dance show at one of the local temples. No matter how many times we see one of these “made for tourists” events and swear we don’t see one again, we always sign up for another everywhere we go. This one consisted of 100 chanting Balinese men grouped around a fire where a handful of very elaborately dressed dancers acted out a story of some sort. It actually made for an interesting 30 minutes, which would have been perfect had the show not been an hour and a half.

The hotel driver picked us up at the gate and whisked us back to the Diggler, where in the absence of Internet, it was time to turn it, secure in the knowledge that the snake head above the bed would keep us safe.

We’re on a single mission today – shopping. The morning was still a little slow as we took full advantage of our last bit of time in the villa to catch up with the kids and soak a bit in the pool. After some breakfast and a quick move of stuff back to our regular room though, its game on.

Our main destination is Kerboakan, where we saw a long string of “factories” making furniture and other outdoor things. It’s about a half hour from the hotel, so we arranged for a metered cab to take us there. After talking to the driver a little, we changed the plan up a little and decided to keep him for the day for 350,000 rupiah (about 32 dollars), figuring it would speed things up a bit and probably not cost that much more than just the ride in and back.

Three hours later, we have a fist full of business cards and a bunch of pictures of some really amazing (and unbelievably cheap) things. For anyone wondering a few months from now why a 20′ x 20′ container is sitting in our driveway, this is where it all started. From teak furniture, to handmade mosaic tiles, to complete, hardwood gazebos, we looked at it all.

From Kerboakan, we headed back down to Kuta to a shopping mall Ang wanted to spend more time in. First though, we broke for dinner at a nice little restaurant on the water. The view was fantastic, and the food probably the best yet. It sat above a beach club that I’m sure gets hopping later in the evening and probably provides for some pretty good people watching on a day we could stay longer (there is a good story about a person I’ve dubbed EuroChad, but no time to tell it today), but with the clock running down on the driver, Ang is off to cram as much shopping as possible in 20 minutes and I need to find a bank.

Dealing with the money here presents an interesting challenge. Currently, a dollar get us about 11,400 rupiah, which, in practice, makes it hard to keep in some context. Prices for everything run in the tens of thousands, so you end up peeling off 50,000 notes like they were singles at the Deja Vu, and pulling a million out of the ATM is just a regular day. I guess its good practice for Vietnam, where a dollar gets 18,000 dong (a lesser man might jump on the cheap joke there, but today I’m sticking to the high road).

Tomorrow we’re headed for Ubud, which is the art and craft center of Bali. We’ve heard good things about it from people that have travelled here, so are looking forward to something a little different. It is also out of the reach of Starwood Hotels, so we’re flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to accommodation. The concierge here was able to get us booked at a place we found online that looked okay and had positive reviews. $50 for the room and breakfast, plus they send a car to pick us up (about an hour drive).

Little to report today, as I don’t think we actually left the hotel room until 5, other than to go for breakfast at (gulp) 11. The downside of the deluxe room is clearly that there is absolutely no reason to leave it. I could easily see slipping in to a comfort zone sequestered inside the walls of this little villa and coming back to reality 23 days later realizing that we never actually saw anything of substance. That kind of experience I can have at a resort in Phoenix, so it’s back to the hovel that was our original room this afternoon, and hopefully some motivation to head back into Kuta.

We did take advantage of the laid back day to catch up on a few things. For me, unfortunately, that meant work. For Ang, some focused time spent on the phone. We have a pretty good setup this trip as in addition to the video chat we use to talk to the kids, we also have an internet phone that let’s us call anyone else. Together, they definitely make the distance seem much smaller.

Our only real activity of the day was an evening walk over to the nearby temple, both to see it at sunset and to wander through the maze of stalls in search of a green coconut – the latter we’d been told is a remedy for many of the ills that come with eating from street carts and drinking beverages of unknown origin (carbonated preferably – after watching Slumdog Millionaire, bottled water also seems a little more suspect). If the unpleasantness of drinking warm coconut water through a straw is any indicator of medicinal quality, we should be good to go – blah.

We did have grand plans for a nice room service dinner on the patio since it would be our last night in this room, but feeling a little worse for wear (green coconuts apparently take some time to work), we just didn’t have the energy to pull it together, which seems pretty pathetic now that I write it. Instead, we settled for a gourmet meal of Cup O’ Noodles that we bought a few days back, not totally missing the irony in sitting in a private compound at a resort half a world away and eating seven cents worth or soup (although we splurged and both had our own cup, to hell with the expense).

Up bright and early again today (not quite as early though so slowly getting used to the local time) so made the decision to take advantage of it and catch the early shuttle to town to search for furniture. Given how hot it yesterday around 2 o’clock, we figured it made sense to get our wandering around done in the morning and be back by the pool before the temperature got really steamy. In theory a good idea, but in practice I still sweat like a 400 pound man running a marathon.

We did have more luck finding a few places, and Ang got her first taste of a shopping mall (so yes, she had to be dragged back to the hotel under duress), so all in all a reasonably successful outing. We also fit in time for the all important one hour massage. $5 well spent. On the drive back, we passed through a big section of shops that appeared to have what we are looking for, so I think we will head back there one more day before we leave.

Back at the hotel we have switched rooms. Given that occupancy isn’t that high right now, we had the opportunity to upgrade to a one bedroom villa for a small up charge. We made the decision to splurge a little bit and take advantage of the upgrade for 2 days. We’ll take a few pictures and post them while we’re here, but suffice to say it is a little over the top. I’m sure it will come back to haunt me as the more places we stay like this, the harder it gets to check Ang into a Motel 6 when we travel at home.

Tomorrow I think we will stick close to the hotel and take advantage of the new digs. I’m tempted to play a round of golf mostly to just say I did. $40 gets a round, cart and a caddy to run into the bushes and find all the balls I’d spray in there, so who knows.

A less than auspicious start to our journey as our plans for an early, and organized, departure collide head on with an alarm clock that doesn’t go off. Fortunately, we wake up not too far behind schedule and hit the road only 30 minutes late. A few hours later, we safely board in Vancouver for Tokyo. It seems no matter where we go in Asia, we always end up going through Japan, but every time to the connections are the best there, and this is no exception. With only a 90 minute layover, we are quickly on our final leg to Bali. All tolled, flying time is about 18 hours. Add in the time to drive to Vancouver and change planes in Tokyo, and door to door, the trip is literally a full day of travel.

Our first five days in Bali are at the Le Meridien in Tanah Lot, which is about an hour north of the main tourist area and next to one of the most important Hindu temples in Bali. The hotel is spectacular, and as with all the places we have stayed on our travels to Asia, a bargain. The room is like a small apartment, missing only a kitchen, which honestly we wouldn’t use anyway. With my internal clock off kilter from the previous day’s travel, I have the chance to walk the grounds at the crack of dawn, long before things get busy and see just how big the place is.

As the day wears on, it becomes clear just how convenient Bali is to Australia, as the place is quickly crawling with Australians. Where, to me, traveling to Bali seems exotic, for those Down Under, it is just a quick trip on a discount airline. It makes me wonder if right now somewhere in Sydney, people are talking about the adventurous trip they are taking to Cabo San Lucas or Cancun. I’ll have to ask if I get the chance.

We spent a good part of the day just lounging by the pool before working up the energy to venture away from the hotel. Our first stop was the temple next door, where we figured we could find a cab into town for cheaper than the car service the hotel offered. As it is the weekend, the temple is very crowded, which is not lost on the local merchants who have set up a long sting of shops selling pretty much any kind of trinket you could imagine, and quite a few you probably couldn’t. Falling squarely in the latter category are wooden bottle openers, carved in the shape of certain male anatomy. I’m not sure what the theory of these are, perhaps they keep people from stealing your beer because no one wants to use the opener.

After a few pictures and a quick snack, we decide to wait a bit and just take the free hotel shuttle into town (free being just the price I was looking for). Its late in the day, but our goal is to find some furniture shops and a good place to eat. That is not to be as we quickly find ourselves wandering aimlessly through streets of mostly closed stores and very few restaurants. I am sure that somewhere here there is an area similar to the night markets in Phuket, but on this night we don’t find it. Many (and I mean many) blocks later, we come across a restaurant that looks crowded, and decide to jump at the chance. By the time the shuttle gets us back to the hotel, it is just a little after 10 pm. No more than five minutes later, I’m drooling on my pillow.

Well, once again it’s that time. Tomorrow we head off for return trip Southeast Asia. And keeping with our general philosophy of not visiting places we have already seen, this year’s itinerary includes some time in Bali, Cambodia, and Vietnam. While all three are high on our list of places to see (which is why they are all planned stops) there is definitely some concern that we are trying to see too much in too little time. Of course, the counter to that is we never know when we’ll get back to Asia, so best to take advantage of the opportunity while we have it.

Other than some general concept of which countries we want to visit, the only plan we have going in is for the first few nights in Bali. After that, we’ll just roll with it and see where circumstances take us. Over the coming days, we’ll do our best to keep this page current with our whereabouts and share the highlights of our travels.

Many thanks in advance to our parents, who in split shifts make sure our kids are in good hands.