Greetings from Bali

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Rachael and I have been fortunate to travel to a lot of places. What is interesting, is that some things are the same in Peru as they are in the Dominican as they are in Bali. For instance, today is our first day in Bali (the travel day - literally 24 hours in a plane and airports - doesn't count). In it, we saw the same crazy driving, the same thousands of mopeds / motorcycles, the same people trying to sell us items while we are at stoplights and the same shop vendors that we have seen in countless other countries (Brandy, you would be proud of the bargaining job we did yesterday!).

That is not to say that Bali is like everywhere else - it is just interesting that no matter where you go, some things are universal.

So, what did we do today? We were supposed to have a relaxed first day - go to the beach, eat lunch and then go to a temple at sunset and see a Balinese dance. Well, just our luck: Friday was the first day in a long time that it rained! While we were eating breakfast, it was raining. So, we changed the plans. Today we:

• Went to the Bali Bird park. It was very cool - we are not bird people by nature, but the types and number of birds there was incredible. As an added bonus, a loud Macaw bird tried to bite Rachael on the foot! It bit her sandal.
• After that, we went to visit a Hindu shrine, Gunung Kawi. It was a very old monument carved into a cliff. I wasn't aware that I had to have pants for this shrine, so, I got to wear a Sarong (basically a skirt) much to the delight of Rachael. We have pictures of it that we will post later. We also didn't realize how beautiful the walk would be on the way down to the shrine - it was basically through rice paddies and a wonderful river canyon.
  It was quite the hike there - however it was downhill. We realized this when we had to come back up the hill and many steps.
• We then went to a vegetarian restaurant in Ubud for lunch - great food.
• Down the street in Ubud was a local market. We went there and bargained for a few items and then went back to the villa to change to go to the temple (didn't want to wear a Sarong again).
• The temple (Ulu Watu) was in an incredible setting - basically, on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The other interesting thing about the temple is that it is basically overrun with Monkeys. The monkeys have an annoying habit of stealing tourists' items, such as sunglasses, scarves, etc. We saw a pair of sunglasses and a pen swiped by monkeys while we were there.
• The dance we saw (the Kecak, or Fire, dance) was impressive. It was a chorus of about 40 men chanting and singing while other dancers acted out a story. There was fire involved - any dance (or basically any activity) that involves fire is immediately five times cooler than if it didn't have fire, so this was very impressive.

I would say it was a great first day - we were a little pooped at the end of the day because we are still adjusting to being 13 hours ahead of Houston time. I think we will be better tomorrow.

More to come later!