Posted by Hunters on 6/11/2005, 3:30 pm JUST BACK REPORT Part 1 INTRO: We just got back from our first visit to Bali and had the time of our lives. Before jumping right into our family’s 12 day experience on Bali, a little background information might be helpful. My wife and I are Americans who are living in Micronesia on a tiny island called Kosrae. We have three children; Zachary (12), Naomi (11), and Wesley (9). We have been saving airline miles for many years and had enough miles saved up for our whole family to fly anywhere in the Asia / Pacific area, where Continental Airlines services. After much research, we settled on Bali for our family vacation. Bali seemed to have so much to offer at reasonable distances and prices. Seeing we are from a tropical island, we had no interest in the ocean and beaches of Bali. I’m sure they are nice, but we needed a change of scenery. We are also not into crowds, so we planned most of our Bali vacation in the Central, Western, and Mountainous parts of Bali. Our travel plans took us to some incredible lodging, activities, and experiences. Before leaving for Bali, I planned a number of family and individual activities for the kids. Each of our children had a special day on Bali, where they got to do something special all by themselves. These activities were kept secret until the day the activity happened. Watching the kid’s reactions to these special activities was the highlight of the trip. Our kids were at the absolutely perfect age for this trip. We are all ready to go back to Bali tomorrow! May 10, 2005 After countless hours of internet searches, lurking around Bali forums, emailing hotels, and wearing out a brand new Lonely Planet guidebook, it was actually time to leave for Bali. We checked in three large bags of luggage, which is actually packing light for us. From a man’s perspective, we appeared to be packed and ready for a tsunami, earthquake, world war, and the possibility of opening our own clothes store on Bali. From a woman’s view point, I’m sure we probably just had the necessities. Sorry, I almost forgot to mention the security measures we used for our luggage. Taking the recommendations from some fine folks on the Bali Travel Forum, we had the most secure and tamperproof bags known to mankind. We started with plastic zip-ties, and then added color coded tamper proof locks, enough plastic wrap to go around the planet twice, bullet proof panels, pepper spray, a Star Trek type force-field, and a NASA approved radar tracking detection system. Just for added security we put it all in a bank type vault with a nasty junk-yard dog keeping guard. There was no way I was going to let fear and paranoia stop our Bali vacation. No cost was too great for peace of mind, including the $10.99 pooper-scooper for the guard dog. I still can’t figure out why the airlines charged us so much for overweight luggage and Green Peace accused us of smuggling three large whales out of Micronesia, in plastic wrap? “Scratching head” Our plane landed just as a large wind and rain storm hit the island. The wind and rain were so strong it appeared that we wouldn’t be leaving. At the first break in the storm, we were on our way to Bali. Our flight is a little longer than that of our Australian friends who vacation in Bali. After about 5 hours and two stops on other islands, we were in Guam for the last leg of our trip to Bali. While at the Guam airport, I just had to buy a Burger King Whopper. After a couple years of Whopper withdrawals I submitted to paying the criminal rate of $5 for one sandwich! Come on now. How can a tight-wad father enjoy a burger when he knows each bite is about a dollar? After a quick run to our gate, we were boarded and headed to Bali. Around six hours and two so-so movies later, we were touching ground again in Bali. The feeling of stepping off the plane in Bali is one in which I will never forget. The blood immediately began to course through our bodies and brought consciousness to our hinder parts that had fallen into a deadly numbness sleep caused by those economy class airline seats. Those who were immersed by the first smells of Bali air or the warm wave of air must having been thinking, “Those Yanks are nuts,” as we stood there massaging our backsides back to life, while mumbling AAAHHHHHH. Our flight was one of those red eye deals that got us in at around 10 PM. Did anyone know what Continental airlines did to tick off every airport in the world at them? If you know please let me know. Seriously, the gates they use seem to be at the absolutely furthest distance from the baggage claim / customs. Their new motto should be, “Have Strong Bladder? Fly Continental!” Maybe those fortunate folks in first class get a free porta-potty when they get off the plane. As we made our way through the cattle corral, Dawn and I had to save our children several times from a stampede of travelers who were in a hurry to go stand and wait in a customs line. I’m telling you, those people who power walk in airports need to learn how to relax or use the bathroom before leaving the plane. Just in case it was the later, we tried to throw subliminal messages at them after scooping up our children. “Make sure to see the WATERFALLS, Check out the WARM WATER beaches, HOT SPRINGS, look at the water fountain,” Hope that poor guy, whose skin turned yellow, made it in time. On the way to the baggage claim we saw a few people sitting in a little McDonalds. Now the Big Mac withdrawals were kicking in. Since we could not figure out a way through the glass wall, we had to settle with drooling at the pictures and pretending our leftover airplane peanuts were real food. Upon departure, I was to discover that this little Micky-D’s also has criminal prices. The owners of those airport restaurants are the ones who should be getting 20 years in prison. On completion of the Bali marathon we arrived at the Immigrations area. Immigration was a breeze. Besides the $125 for our family it was painless and quick. I had to chuckle at the government immigrations guys passing out broachers for tour packages while on the clock. The one I got was all in Japanese. Go figure? With info from the forums, we were prepared for the mob of porters who would meet us at the baggage claim. We had enrolled in extensive Kong Fu courses to prepare our body and minds for any possible pushy porters, hawkers, and drivers. We had no problem at all with these porters. We used our minds instead of our lethal bodies. Just squirt a little water on your kid’s pants and it makes it look like they didn’t make it in time. Man, those porters kept their distance from us! After seeing the guy with the yellow skin, they had probably been grossed out enough for one night. OK, I’m only kidding. Your kids will never speak to you again if you do this. Humm, why didn’t I think of that before? Next it was out the doors to find our hotel driver. There were a bunch of guys all holding signs with names of hotels or guests. Please, don’t let that guy with the Hard Rock Café shirt, orange hair and backwards ball cap be our driver! Fortunately we found our name on a card by one of the many sharp looking hotel drivers in traditional Balinese type suits. When trying to load our luggage in the van, he asks, “What do you have in these bags, whales?” Great, another Green Peace guy. Since he did not have enough room in the truck, we decide to ditch the safe, junk-yard dog, security systems, and 300 pounds of plastic wrap in the parking lot. Hopefully some mate (did I say that right?) got to use it on his way back to Australia. Once the bags were packed it was time for our 1 hour trip to Mas (village near Ubud). When my backside heard we’d be sitting for another hour, it attempted an unsuccessful mutiny. It was firmly put in its place, but complained the whole way there. The first thing that shocked our family was the amount of scooters that were on the roads. It was 11 PM and they were everywhere! There had to be 30 scooters for every one car. Coming from an island with maybe 20 scooters total, we were amazed. The way the scooters and drivers maneuver was another shocker. I’m thinking that NASCAR must be using Bali as a secret training ground for its race car drivers. I tried to figure out the rhyme and reason of Bali road rules but gave up. “Excuse me driver. Can you pull over at the next hospital? I think we just lost my wife when you almost hit those two scooters head-on.” On the other hand, my kids were taking it all in. “Wow cool! Mom, dad, did you see that? I saw a sign with elephants, are there elephants here? (So much for that secret activity. Dumb sign!) Wow, we almost wiped out that scooter, Look, there are three people on that scooter, etc.” All along the way my back side was saying, “Told you we should have walked!” When we arrived at our hotel, the Taman Harmun Cottages, we were allowed to skip registration and go straight to bed. Our room, or better said house, was great for our family. It had 4 downstairs rooms, a room and outdoor deck upstairs, and two bathrooms. After a quick squabble over which kid got which room it was time for our first day to come to an end and to allow our heads with dreams of what our first full day in Bali would be like. Because we slipped into Bali under the cloak of darkness, our first night felt similar to going to bed on Christmas Eve. More to come later
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