Can you believe it, here we go again.

We start our adventure April 27 on our way to Uzbekistan and Turkey with Overseas Adventure Travel.  We spend some days in Istanbul on our own before then going with Oceania on a cruise around the Black Sea.  This trip has cancelled two stops in Ukraine but still holds some new adventures for us.  We will be in touch when possible.

Bali to Home--We are home, the snow is melting, the sky is blue. All is well.

We are in Tokyo, finishing the last days of the blog.  Wishing we could wiggle our noses and be home, but we have a flight to Chicago and then to MSP and once again snow.

We arrived in Bali around noon and took a tour to Ubud, the town where Julia Roberts found love in Eat Love Pray.  We can’t figure out where she found it.  We were let out on the main street in the heat of the day but the quaint city we were expecting was not there. Instead the shops, restaurants and bars that lined the streets reminded us of a Florida community.  We did find a local market, some interesting alleys, Starbucks and the BAWA foundation for animal, mostly dogs, rescue.  They are working hard to change the ancient culture that still includes eating dog meat.

Bali is an island of paintings, wood carvings, batik and jewelry created by skilled artists.  Unfortunately they are spread out in little communities, each with it’s own specialty and no art boutiques that offer a mix of artistic media.  One shouldn’t talk about Bali without talking about traffic.  Imagine NYC traffic with motor scooters thrown in everywhere you look weaving in and out of the lines of traffic.  

Our second tour day was more satisfying as we visited a small temple on our way to Tanah Lot Temple.  Pura Taman Ayun Temple is a Balinese house temples surrounded by water and built in the 18th century.  Tanah Lot was surrounded by the ocean and built in the 16th century.  It was quite spectacular to sit and watch the waves crash as the tide came in.  Some brave souls waded across to the temple and we wondered how long it would be before they would not be able to return.  Between the two temples we stopped at a monkey forest.  Smaller monkeys with no fear of humans, in fact we were told not to bring any thing the monkeys could steal including sunglasses, water bottles and hats.  Every two people has a guide whose job was to protect you from the aggressive monkeys.  Our park’s monkeys were less aggressive than other parks.  We are stopped to see 4-5 huge fruit bats.  WOW.  Sue wanted to hold one but Nancy wouldn’t let her.  Wing span about 4 feet.

The caste system is still in play in Bali but is more relaxed than other places.  There are no untouchables and members of the different castes can have different occupations and be poor or wealthy and have inter-caste marriages.

Factoid:  The island itself is small, fertile and mountainous.  It is just 8 degrees south of the equator.  It is 87x50 miles.  The highest peak is 6500 feet.  

Next stop Semerang in Central Java and a full day trip to Borobudur Temple which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It is the world’s largest Buddhist monument and was constructed between 778 and 856.  It is ten levels high and Buddhists walk around each level before proceeding to the next.  It has over 2 millions cubic feet of carved stone taken from volcanic lava flows with carved stories and teaching on the walls of the first six levels.  The temple was abandoned about a century after it’s completion for no known reason.  Later it was covered by volcanic ash and was only rediscovered, excavated and restored in 1814.

As beautiful as this site is, the highlight of the day was the 1/2 hour train ride through rice fields, villages and towns. People came out to wave, stopped their work in the fields to return waves and smiles.  One must also note that as bad as the traffic was in Bali, it was worse here.  We had a police escort four our four buses and often drove on the opposite side of the road, ran red lights and shaved four hours off the trip.  We were grateful.

Factoid:  Semarang is well known for its coffee plantations.  40% of Java’s population is in Semarang—with their cars and scooters.

Two days at sea before out arrival in Singapore.  As we crossed the equator the captain came on to tell us he would be going in circles so that would end up crossing the equator 6 times on this trip.  We thought he was kidding until we began our right hand circle.  We figure they were bored with the easy transit as we rarely had waves and were often early to our expected ports.  We had fun.  Earlier in the voyage when we crossed the equator for the first time there was a traditional ceremony for kissing the fish and dunking in the pool.  This time we did not have to repeat the process.

Singapore.  As we docked, the Oceania Nautica pulled in next to us.  It was the ship we were on last year at this time going from Bangkok to Dubai.  Our small group disembarked together and took a morning tour around Singapore.  First a riverboat ride into and around the marina gave us a different view for this year’s visit.  A short stop in China town with a visit to a beautiful temple.  We were there last year but this year we found the second room with walls lined with Buddha statuettes in different poses.  Last stop Raffles Long Bar for a Singapore Sling.

We checked in, had lunch and went to bed early for out 2:00 am wake up call.  Off to the airport and on to Tokyo.

A few ship facts:  592 feet long, 93 feet across, with 9 guest decks.  694 passengers and 403 crew.  In our seventeen nights we consumed  in pounds: 2200 of beef, 400 of lamb, 1800 of pork, 3300 of chicken and 1550 of fish, 4000 of potatoes, etc…

Our fellow passengers drank 3500 bottles of wine and for those of us from the midwest there was 500 gallons of milk aboard and 9000 tea bags.  

With that we will say good bye for this trip—We leave for Uzbekistan, Turkey and the Black Sea on April 27…