What happened in Bali stays in Bali?

Sorry we didn't get round to blogging in Bali. Somehow we just never quite found the time. But now we're unemployed in Sydney (more of that to follow). We have plenty of time to give you a quick run down.

First off Bali is wonderful, but without Chris's uncle, Jeremy, there is no way we would have seen, learnt and done as much as we did. Jeremy, for those who don't know, spent some time living in Indonesia 10 years ago teaching English and since built a business importing Indo furniture and craft to the UK. It seemed that everywhere we went someone knew 'Jerry' and if they didn't it wasn't long before they were chatting away in Indonesian. We were very much playing second fiddle ('Where is your uncle? Is your uncle coming back soon? When can I talk to your uncle again...?') not that we minded.

We started in the resort of Sanur meeting lots of Jeremy's friends both ex-pats and Indonesians. It was also in Sanur that we first sighted the cultural phenomenon of the Bintang singlet. Bintang is the generic, ubiquitous beer of Bali. Now Australians have a bit of reputation for beer worshipping and they are doing nothing to dispel this impression in Bali. In all the touristy place we went we found whole Aussie families (Mum, Dad, kids, grandparents, babies, dogs...) all wearing matching Bintang singlets. It was clear we weren't in Karantanka any more. The beer was flowing.

With Jeremy driving we hired a car and set off into the centre of the country. We toured through rice fields, mountains and small villages. Every now and then Jeremy would threaten to stop and buy a Durian. Apparently if you can get past the smell, the fruit of Durian is very tasty. Durian smells of stale sick and rotten sick. You have to be pretty committed to get past that smell. We weren't.

In North Bali we got deluged by rain, scammed by a man who described himself as a 'Criminal Romantic' (rapist?) and went snorkelling at a coral reef. The coral reef was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it. We saw all sorts of fishes. Lots of the ones in Finding Nemo.

We also went walking in the national park. No elephants this time and the Balinese tiger died out years ago so no seriously scary encounters with wildlife. In fact few encounters with wildlife at all, for which our guide was most apologetic. However, the wildlife had got the memo and when we arrived back to the carpark a troop of monkeys had set up camp on the roof of the car.