Leaving via the airport was a task in itself! Once through the terminal's front doors, the entrance area had only one small seating area and an expensive food stall. To check-in at the counters, one must first produce proof of a ticket to pass the security guards. Luckily, John had a pdf on his phone. After check-in, we paid $40 departure tax. ($25 to enter + $20 to exit = $45 for Bali's government. WOW!) From there, we had several more checkpoints before we...

Goa Gajah "Elephant Cave' was a spiritual place of prayer with bathing pools, fountains, rock wall carvings, and a lower meditation area. Descend a few hundred steps to this quiet sanctuary. Many people were meditating and doing yoga. Mount Batur last erupted in 2000. You can see the path of the lava and little villages that either survived or relocated on the active volcano. Lake Batur is the widest, deep crater lake, on the island. Gunung Kwai Sebatu te...

It's the world's most expensive cup of coffee - kopi luwak. In the US, a pound ranges from $100 to $800! Our little 60g jar of ground luwak coffee was $30; straight from the country it was grown. What exactly is it? The process starts with pea berry trees. A little cat like creature, called a luwak, a common palm civet, loves to eat only the best coffee berries. The berries are then digestively transformed. Their poop is collected, roasted, shelled, gro...

This was our first Bali traditional dance show. We were surprised by the 20 men playing traditional instruments, creepy masks, intricate colorful costumes, animals (a weird lion and child monkey), a death scene, cheesy audience-member- dragged-up-for-a -dance moment, and buggy eyed dancing girls. It was so far removed from what we were used to! English pamphlets helped 'explain' the story but let's say we were terribly confused still. We went to a second dan...

Ubud is touted as the cultural center of Bali so we excited to see the handicraft artisan villages with stone carving, silver and gold jewelry, wood carving, painting, and batik. When we got to Ubud, everything seemed to be catering to foreigners - cooking schools, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Polo, sports bars, restaurants with reggae / punk / country live music, spas on every corner, yoga, evening traditional dance performance troupes, etc. Bali men would be squ...