Goodbye Bali

We can't believe that in a few hours we will be taking to the night skies and heading to the second continent. Africa: ready or not, here we come!

It's been a hectic ride SEA and you will be missed. We are loaded down with memories of your heat, food, beaches, temples, people, and cheap everything. You have made an excellent beginning to our travels. It's sad to say that we are about a third of the way done with the trip! Our last few days in Bali has been spent with my Balinese family temple site-seeing and celebrating the Super-moon. Below are a few photos of some of the sites we checked out:

Check out James in tradition Balinese Style!

Goa Gojah: Elephant Cave

Holy Springs

Candi (one of the oldest monuments in Bali)

Caves that monks used to live in at a Buddhist site

Mount Agung

Gecko love, and a few more photos.

So evidently, you should not confess your love of strange, gravity defying, barking lizards over a romantic candle lit dinner.  The gecko above your wife may take it as an invitation to join and drop from the ceiling onto your wife's head.  Don't worry, no one was seriously injured.

Just for those who are nervous, the photos below involve no Gecko love.  I promise.

After a week straight of yoga in Ubud, it was time to head back to the beach.  This time, on the island of Nusa Lembogan.  You can see the highlights below, including kayaking through a mangrove forest, plenty of time just the two of us alone on a cliff lined beach, and other spectacular views from the coastline (including watching the set set over Bali).  The biggest adventure of all, however, was probably learning to get around on our rented motorbike!

A few more photos

Since we got this working, here are a few photos from Amed. Beautiful, beautiful area. We both wished we had an underwater camera for the snorkeling was just amazing. You would swim off the beach maybe 15 yards, and there were all these massive bodies of coral and fish! So many fish, so many colors! I think I've converted James into an avid snorkeler too!

And really, who can't love that cat??
P.S. We hope Jack had a very happy birthday in Ireland and left some Guinness for the Irish!

A short explaination

So the video keeps crashing the site every time we upload it, so you'll just have to wait for James to figure that one out. Those are photos from last week, us with the monkeys, the beach trip, and mainly the Agoh-Agoh celebrations. A short explanation: Agoh-Agoh is a Balinese holiday when they try to call forth all the demons to Bali. They do this buy creating large demon statues and parading them around the towns' streets with loud music and fire. Why you might ask would they want to call the demons here? Well, the idea is that the following day, everyone hides insides without using electricity, eating, or talking and 'hide' from the demons that have now come to Bali. The demons see that Bali is quiet and abandoned, nothing fun here to haunt or torment, so they leave the island alone for another year. This is the Balinese New Year celebration. It's quiet spectacular to see the Agoh-Agoh celebration and the followed by the quiet, seclusion day of Nyepi.

We had a marvelous time up in Amed. We stayed 10 yards away from the beach in a wonderful little bungalow that we had to ourselves. Now, we're back in Ubud for the weekend, finishing our Yoga classes and enjoying the last few sites here. More pictures soon.

Hoping this works

I

We've tried. . .

To post photos and videos twice but with no success. We are heading up to Amed, a small fishing village in the north west corner of Bali today. We won't have internet for the several days we are up there. When we return to Ubud  on Thursday we will try again.  You'll just have to wait.

Bali - Revisted

We're still alive and well after our first week in Bali. It's been a hectic week and I'm not sure where it's really gone. 7 Yoga classes in 6 days for me might have something to do with it. (James kept up nicely completely 4 in the 6 days *and he was feeling under the weather for the first few days here!)

Highlights from this week was visiting Bedulu, where I studied abroad and meeting with all my previous teachers and the current students. We didn't get to visit my family, but hopefully will later on. We went to the monkey forest sanctuary, where James fed them bananas and they climbed on both of us. Yesterday, we did a sunset tour of two temples, one on the water on the west coast of Bali. Lots of swimming, eating (bananas), and jalan-jalan (walking) around exploring Ubud.

Tonight was Agoh-Agoh and tomorrow in Nyepi. It's the Balinese New Year celebrations. Pretty spectacular stuff.  Further details and pictures on Sunday. Tomorrow is a day of seclusion, silence, and fasting. Just wanted to give you all a quick update.

P.s. I can't believe I didn't get any remarks (I mean sympathy) regarding my bug bites! Isn't anyone reading this stuff??