With this being the most last minute decision to fly ever, we booked our flight to Bali yesterday, to fly over today. We thought, after checking train schedules, that it might be better to continue up into China, and skip Bali altogether, but we then realized there were no trains to Shanghai for another 18 days (probably because of the world expo), even though there were prior tickets 9 days away just a fw hours earlier. A long story short, we ended up choosing Bali in the end anyway, and we’ll have to figure out the next plan later. Sigh. I like plans. Now.

At the airport this morning we were lucky enough to run into a good friend’s brother/family friend, who lives in HK. He made us aware that you need to get a visa for Indo when you get into the airport, and they only take US funds, not HK dollars, which we were lucky enough to be lent to us for that purpose. We also grabbed a ride from the airport with a friend of his to our hotel. Too bad we arrived in rush hour. It was quite nuts. Like a combo between Mexico (speedbumps, construction) and Thailand (scooters, honking, people squatting on the roadside). I really can’t remember much from my first trip to Bali in 1995.

After battling rush hour from the back seat, we checked into our lovely oceanside hotel (waves heard crashing from balcony with view) called Legong Keraton (booked on Asiarooms.com). I was pleased to see people surfing right out front, alhough I’m not sure they are the size or type for me. We’ll have to watch tomorrow. The pool looks nice otherwise. I must admit I still like the idea of surfing… after that it scares me.

For dinner we hit up the place next door for some Indo-style dishes with a nice cold beer to relax. Once again we might be lucky to stay up past 9. What travel geeks, maybe tomorrow.