Hey all Went to Bali about 2 weeks ago for the long weekend, one of the great things about living in this country is how easy it is to travel and how cheap it is. Going to Bali for 2 days may sound strange but when it only takes an hour and a half and the plane ticket costs $50 you would be crazy to stay in Jakarta for a long weekend. We left on Friday afternoon at about 1:00 heading for the airport, little did we know there was a big labor union demonstration with about 2000 people on the streets so you can imagine the traffic problem that it caused. We arrived at the airport at about 3:45 (the trip to the airport usually takes about 45mins) and our plane was leaving at 4. After a quick run through Soekano Hatta domestic terminal we were settled into our Airbus A300 sardine can with very little room to move and when the guy 3 rows back farted I was honestly considering jumping out the escape hatch. We arrived in Bali on time (which was a surprise) and checked into our hotel at about 7. We wandered down to the local restaurant strip on Legian beach where we ordered some food and beer. The Thai red curry looked pretty good and I felt like some spicy food so I went with that. When it arrived I could see the chili radiating from the top of the bowl and the waiter probably should’ve been wearing a hazmat suit. The first taste confirmed my suspicions; this was one bloody hot curry and combine that with 4 or 5 Bintangs and its not going to be pretty in the morning. After a beautiful meal we retired to the hotel for the evening. The next morning we were sitting at breakfast enjoying the clean air when nuclear Armageddon broke out in my stomach and I had to race back to the room before another Chernobyl incident occurred. After the fall out had dissipated Claire returned to the room and we set off to rent a motorcycle. I went down the street to see my old friend at the rental place, he remembered me from last time and set me up with a small scooter style bike. After getting a map and some bribe money in case the police pulled us over, we set off trying to get to the volcano in the center of the island. Following the map looked pretty easy there was only one street that led to the map so off we went on our way. But this is Indonesia and what the map says and what the streets do are completely different, we found ourselves traveling through a small village in the middle of a beautiful countryside surrounded by rice paddies and chickens. Directly in front of us was the huge site of the volcano getting closer, so we thought we were on the right track. Shortly after we lost site of the volcano and found ourselves on a main road, I was getting tired so I stopped for a rest and asked for directions. The people out in this area of Bali don’t see westerners too often so they were a little scared when they saw me. After getting some vague directions that I barely understood we set off again it didn’t take long before it became clear the directions were wrong or I misunderstood, the road turned around again and we were lost. We rode for a few more hours until the volcano appeared again in front of us. It looked really close and I was getting exited, we could see that the volcano was just across the field. But then the road turned around and started heading away. Being the optimist I was convinced that the road would turn around and take us back up the mountainside. After another hour of riding I conceded defeat and we stopped for lunch in the middle of nowhere. We started heading back for the hotel after lunch and predicted it was about 3 or 4 hours ride, we wanted to be back before dark because when the sun goes down it is extremely hard to navigate. We were about 1 hour out of town when suddenly the bike started sliding all over the road, we had a flat tire, it was getting dark, the shops were all closing for the day and we had no way of getting home. I pushed the bike up the street for about 200 meters before we found a mechanic that was still open. It turned out that we had 2 punctures so we sat in a small Indonesian stall for about an hour while our tire was fixed. When it was done and we asked how much it was we were so surprised when the guy told us 10 000 rupiah (about $1) we couldn’t leave it at that. We gave him 50 000 and set off very thankful that we didn’t have to sleep on the side of the road. As we were coming through the village on the way home we came across a huge crowd of people in the street. This has happened before, last time when I was riding, all of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a pilgrimage. This time was different; there were people with huge bamboo sticks walking out of the crowd and heaps of cheering and dancing. We were the only white faces in the crowd so we were getting a few funny looks, eventually the leader of the village came up to us and told us what was happening. It was a festival they have every 6 months where they make this huge bamboo pyramid and someone climbs to the top. After the guy is at the top, the people at the bottom jump around shaking the pyramid up and down. The guy at the top has to hang on and try not to get impaled by the huge bamboo spears. I’m not sure what the outcome was because we had to turn the corner and so once again we were lost. We eventually found our way home and the rest of our holiday was spent in restaurants and bars, after our experience with the tire we didn’t want to leave the comfort of the city. The next day we headed back to Jakarta with a heavy heart Bali is one of those places that you could stay forever.