Warung Komang, similarly empty. 

Main street in seminyak had 5-10 fancy bars, all pumping music, and all totally empty. Sort of scary. Wonder how long they can tolerate being open without any business. 

Goodbye sun. 

Niels running randomly in the shallows. 

Niels playing. 

Another shot of wayan riding another wave in. 

Wayan, boogie boarding at Kuta on our last night. 

Wayan buried in sand at Kuta beach. Oliver is helping to bury him (dutch family staying at same hotel), Niels is easily recognizable in the background from his expensive salon cut. 

Niels at Dyhana Pura with morning croissant. 

Sadness didn't last long, he found a cool stick on the way back from the beach. 

All wet and sandy. Ready to go back for a shower and new clothes. 

The agony of defeat. Wayan surveying the damage. He lost his balance when the shallow water was moving over his feet. 

Here Wayan finally ready to test himself against a wave. Standing steadfast... 

Here are there first tentative frollics with the waves. Wayan is wary and doesn't get wet. Niels gets his toes wet and runs like hell. 

The boys at the beach before breakfast. Wayan in his new freshly laundered clothes that he'd chosen specially. They've never been at a beach with waves before... 

So we left Kuta, headed back to Seminyak and the quiet comfort of the Dhyana Pura. I was in a lot of pain at the time that I checked in, but what clinched it were the kids toys in front of some rooms near the pool. I had some sort of flu whose primary symptom was a headache and pressume behind my eyes so I could only look down, left/right or up caused big pain and ringing in my ears.

This photo is a view of the beach from in front of our hotel (it is beach front!) This is Sunday, all the people are the baliniese out for sunday morning exercise walk. Lots of walking groups, each has a separate color combo adidas uniform. 

Kuta. We're in Kuta? A trusted source recommended a place in Seminyak, I insisted on seeing some spots in old kuta. Took 2 minutes to decide I never wanted to stay there again, and there are hardly any tourists here. This is traditionally high season, I don't think the economy can support so many empty hotels for too long, so I think Julia and I are witnessing the beginning of a painful decline in bali tourism. Amazing to see so many fancy hotels, discos, bars, etc, all pumping out the rock like usual, but now without the crazed throngs of drunk australians. 

Niels composed this story while I was taking care of him this morning:

I went snorkeling at Bali. I wore face mask and snorkel, and floaty suit and I used my water wings. That was fun. I saw lots of fishies and I ate snack. The fishies were blue, and some were yellow, and some were stripey. I didn’t see a nemo fish. I also saw scuba divers, I waved at them and they did see me. They were right underneath me. They waved at me too. That was fun seeing the fishies, I went with my mom, and I went with wayan, and with my daddy. Wayan had a floatysuit on too. I also saw coral. I saw one coral, it was white, and it was in the ocean. The end. 

Julia at breakfast! 

Back in Ubud, staying at a perfect eric place, ur, well, it is a little upscale, but it’ll do.

Spent a few hours yesterday being very patient with wendy. So far I’ve dived into town and picked where I wanted to stay, wendy follows and doesn’t argue much. So for once I’ll let her find a hotel. She doesn’t know the correct name, doesn’t know where it is, etc. several stops to check the internet for directions, etc. We end up way out of town, price is too high, rooms are too small, tons of mosquitoes. And worst of all? Some other guests are from America. I actually heard one say: “Naw, the Kechak is at night, bra.” Bra? Bra? Like in zoolander? Ewww. We don’t even get to the part where we negotiate about room price. With a big thumb down I finally tell her I’m going to go find a room for the kids, we drive in and find this place.

Dirty narrow path leads past a restaurant, through a narrow arch and into an unkept garden, rooms have marble floors, full marble tile bath. But not so clean, so yes, a little run down. Balcony looks down on a deep gorge that runs through Ubud, the same one that is viewed by Casa Luna. Best part, the place is in the epicenter of Ubud, right across the street from Casa Luna, just down the way from the royal palace and the grocery store. Place shares a pool with the neighboring hotel “Saraswati”, which is swishy and fancy and $60/night. What more does one need? Is a clean bathroom worth $40/night? Ha! I’ll post pictures of the breakfast they brought. Whoa! Full on bali hotel breakfast. Coffee, tea, huge fruit salad, omlette, toast, the works. Julia walked around the place, says that right below us is a room with a large veranda with outdoor seating. No AC, but Ubud isn’t hot so I don’t care. Only thing holding me back from a room move is that I enjoy the garden view, and like being close to the neighboring pool (35 feet away, a door through a high brick wall ornamented with plant growth).

After a quick dip in the pool we dress and head across the street to casa luna. I have the vegetarian nasi campur, which might be the yummiest thing I’ve had in Bali. Funny thing: Wendy asked the waiter what the difference was between the vegetarian and regular nasi campur, of course: “The vegetarian nasi campur has no meat.” Sweet answer, eh? Kids weren’t real hungry, we return early to sleep, then I go with wendy to make an internet deposit. We stop at a few spots. The first is fast but is 1000rp/minute for laptops. $6/hour! No way am I paying that outrageous rate! Second is 300/minute, but is phone dialup AND the modem isn’t working. We settle at Bali3000, 512kbit. 1 hour + small aqua + 18 megs of upload was… 20,000rp ~$2.15. I think they might have screwed up, but I asked them to check and they were sure.

Next morning Wendy wakes us up, she is carrying a black stormcloud of evil fury. Furious, she has had it with this hotel, she couldn’t sleep, the bathroom disturbs her greatly, etc. Fine, go next store. What is the problem? Why tell me? Julia notes later that wendy is again desperately searching for tickets to Singapore. I guess she really doesn’t like it here in Bali. Her ticket to seattle leaves several days after ours, she doesn’t want to be here alone.

So what am I doing now? Well, I was up late doing internet, went to sleep at about 10pm, feeling fatigued. Today I wake up feeling sick. I’m on my back in the room, blankets pulled up, feeling shitty and tired and sleepy, and my head hurts. Julia left me with wayan, we talked about the trip so far, then Julia returned with a screaming Niels, he doesn’t like walking with her. So now I’ve got him poodling around the room, certainly looking for trouble. Having a long running conversation about darth vadar, Anakin, etc. He rolls up a spare rupia note, I ask him if he’s darth vadar, he says no darth vadar only has place mats, referring to his common restaurant practice of rolling up his placemat and pronouncing himself to be darth vadar. Hmm. Ok, we’ve moved back to playing legos, him telling sories about the emperor getting thrown in the oven at the end, mixed with a little Wallace and grommet “Cracking Toast Grommeeet”.

Now he’s acting out a multipart theater involving Anakin, Darth Vadar, the Emperor and Obi Wan, I played the executive assistant head switcher since he only had two lego figurines, and Anakin frequently switched from being good to being bad. After one particularly arduous head-swapping, he composed a story for me, about his snorkeling adventure:

So I’m on my back, laptop propped up on my stomach, typing away. Pretty darn comfortable actually. Wish the hotel had wireless internet so I could surf from here. 

Arriving in Ubud. Kids are ready to get out and swim. 

How come julia won't let me take the kids to school on the bike. All those Balinese parents do... 

Bali Driving. I should have waited until we were about to head-on a motorbike or a truck full of basketted pigs, but this is what you see 99% of the time. 

View of the western "beaches" of candidasa. Note pertemina refinery in distance. 

We pass through candidasa, a living testament to idiocy. This story’s been told a hundred times, but I’ll summarize it here. Once there was a small fishing village called Candidasa. Lots of fruit, lots of fish. A beautiful white sand beach, awesome snorkeling right off shore, and maybe some surf too. So there were a few small bamboo hotels on the beach for backpackers. In the late 70’s some enterprising hoteliers decided candidasa was big time, and built a bunch of concrete buildings. Unfortunately, the concrete bids were contracted out to the locals, who obtained material for the concrete from the coral reef right off shore. Quick easy money, they were paid by the ton. So eventually the reef is broken up and made into hotels. Ok, so no reef anymore, no snorkeling, no fish. Bummer. But then the surf came in and washed away the beach too. Government comes in and builds seawalls, but too late. Today, 30 years later, we have a bunch of hotels with no beach, no coral, no nothing. Then Ketut chimes in that in the ‘90s the state oil monopoly put in a gasoline refinery on the shore a few miles away from candidasa. This being Indonesia, there are frequent spills, so now you wouldn’t want to swim in the water either, it reeks of oil product. Sweet. Civilization rocks. What was surprising to me, I thought that the whole place folded, noone in their right mind would go there, the hotels must have long ago crumbled to dust, but not so. As we drove through candidasa we spotted many restaurants half-filled with tourists. Surprising to us since at the current time there are very few tourists in Bali. Why are they in Candidasa? Do they know something we don’t? They looked like hip backpackers…

Outside of town we’re presented with a view of the waterfront. I snapped a few shots from the car. It looks better than I’d expect, but not by much.

Right after Candidasa we pass the entrance to the AmanKila, and exclu$ive Aman resort. Huh? Is there a discount for oil spill? Must have some other redeeming qualities.