Roads in Bali

The title is a play on the old movie title, The Road to Bali, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (1952). I don't recall ever seeing the movie, but it's probably the first place I've heard of the island.
I am sure that the Bali today is unrecognizable from the Bali of 1952. That's probably a shame, but is true of most places in the world today, undoubtedly. I enjoyed the time there (7 days), and kept busy doing different activities every day, but felt a sadness for what was assuredly a paradise in days past...
The people of Bali are very friendly, and always greet you with a smile. You can get by with English there, which is a good thing, because speaking Balinese would be no easy task! Most of the tourists I saw there were European - who all communicated with the locals using English. I don't recall seeing or meeting other Americans there although I'm sure they were around...
So about the roads - almost all the roads on the island are very skinny 2 lane roads (sometimes the line down the middle is just a suggestion, as 2 cars going in opposite directions can't really pass without one car pulling off to the side). Most locals use motorbikes. And I'm talking a lot of them! Sometimes all you see is a sea of motorbikes coming your way. Many tourists rent motorbikes, but I am not that crazy. The way they wind around traffic and zip through cars you can't figure out how they don't get run over all the time. One guy told me the only place he's seen it worse is in India. Well, cross that country off my list (it was never on it, actually). I got around by renting a driver at a cost of around $40/day. It's a big island, but not THAT big, and sometimes it would take a long time to go a short distance because of the traffic. Thank God for A/C. So, if you can forget about the traffic, good times!! I visited something like 7 different beaches. The water is incredibly warm. The surf was from very mild to some pretty good sized waves. A hotel guy told me there is good scuba-diving there, but after doing a little diving in Vietnam last year , I think I decided my diving days are over...
My favorite beach was probably Dreamland Beach - very beautiful setting with nice surf.
Visited 4 Hindu temples (Hinduism is the major religion there). Unless I'm missing something, the Hindu temples were not much to see. They do their worshiping outside (given the weather, it makes sense), so there are not elaborate indoor temples or ornate decorations. Some stone monuments on the outside guide worshipers to the area of meditation (basically a large rectangular tiled area which may or may not have a roof over it - but either way is open on the sides). Tourists are not allowed in that area. Saw one religious enactment at sunset at one temple which was interesting but went on for an hour!
Saw lots of monkeys (look but don't touch!), posed with a large fruit bat (I didn't know some bats get so large and are fairly heavy), rode a Sumatran elephant (they have a very nice elephant refuge there).
Other stuff - rode a banana boat, went parasailing, and took a 2 hour white water rafting trip which was much better than I expected!
All in all, a very relaxing trip, and, as with most vacations, just when you're getting into the swing of it, it's ending... It is hot there (90's), only got a little bit of rain one time. Stayed out of the sun as much as possible because I hate getting sunburned... The hotel swimming pool was of the infiniti variety and very nice!
So now I'm back in Xi'an, and tomorrow we return to school. Tuesday is a prep day, and Wednesday classes resume with the students. It's a downhill ride from here!

The Monkey Cometh

The mountains and scenery in Yangshuo (just south of Guilin) are really incredible. I haven't seen anything like it before and I'm not sure if there's anywhere else in the world with topography like that. Truly a gem! The area is full of caves, too, and the Chinese do a magical job of lighting up the caverns and stalagmites so that it looks very cool. Also visited an organic tea plantation, and an isolated village where they paint scenery on fans (a dying art - most of the fans you see now are machine printed). Took a short bamboo raft trip down the Dragon River and narrowly missed getting thrown overboard in the Class 5 rapids (ha,ha). It was cold there, too, but not as cold as Xi'an. It rained the first day, but after that just cloudy or partly sunny. It is not prime tourist season down there now, so it was nice not to have huge crowds (although the trees and bushes were not flowering which is also a big attraction). All in all, a nice, short, 4 day trip!

And now, it's off to Bali for 7-8 days. Weather there looks warm, maybe a bit cloudy with showers, but that's ok! More later...