Bali Hai

Our arrival in Bail was slightly complicated by the fact the one big holiday of the year, Nyepi, was set to begin about one hour after our arrival. For this New Year's celebration the town shuts down. As we couldn't travel too far we settled on Kuta for our first few nights. We were a little reluctant as this is where the Bali bombings occurred in 2003 but so far so good.

After much wandering about we found a nice place, with a pool, where we could settle in before everything shut down.





When the celebration does start you are expected to be quiet (as Nyepi means Quiet Day), not use electricity, and not leave the hotel area. It turned out to be a rainy day which was good for just sitting around and reading. The only challenge came at dinner time as the restaurant was set to close early (5 pm) and didn't have enough food to feed everyone. After placing an order that never arrived, Michael went down to the restaurant and got them to make us a plate of scrambled eggs after they'd closed. While not exactly what we were wanting, we were happy just to have food.

The next day we were able to get out and walk about but many of the stores were still closed. Kuta is full of tiny little streets with this interesting combination of colonial and Hindu culture. It is not uncommon to see beautiful and ornate entryways surrounded by overgrown flowers and gardens. So while the city itself is a bit touristy, it's also quite charming.







Our plan is to move north tomorrow into the hills a bit - this is of course assuming some travel place will be open so we can buy a ticket out of here.