On the beach in Kuta

We didn't see much of Kuta our first night.  After stumbling off the plane, handing money and passports over to any number of government officials and then taking the first taxi we saw pretty much did us in.

We arrived at our hotel to find an air conditioned palace, with beautiful wood carvings adorning most surfaces and tropical flowers covering every inch of the gardens and walls.  Our time in paradise was not to last...at $45 a night, we were definitely going to have to scale back the quality of our accomodations!

We set out the next morning looking for the beach, but ended up lost, which worked out better.  We found ourselves wandering through a residential area, stopping for a break just as school let out for the day.  We are so not beach girls, it was way more fun getting off the tourist track and seeing what Bali is really like.  We did finally find a beach, 20ft from our hotel in the opposite direction, and we spent a grand total of 45 minutes relaxing.

Our first conscious night we celebrated our arrival with a semi-fancy dinner, and found our first Made (Mah-day).  More on Mades later.  He sold us on a tour to the mountains leaving early the next morning.  We went back to the hotel, packed up our knapsacks and enjoyed our last air-conditioned night for a while.

Our second Made arrived the next morning, bright and early and shocked at the amount of luggage we were carrying for a day trip.  When we explained our plan to him, basically, drop us off anywhere that is nice at the end of the tour, he was pretty amused.  He promised to find us a good place to stay.

A stop at a Batik manufacturing workshop was our first real introduction to Balinese tourism and the high pressure sale.  EVERYONE has something to sell, if they don't they have something for free which will LEAD to something for sale.  We walked away with a sarong each and a stern directive to spend less money and not be so easily sucked in!

Balinese dance was our next stop, and the incredible costumes impressed us.  it was also our first real introduction to Hindu legends, and the curiosity continues.  The dance we saw involved the Barong and Rangda, and people we've met since have been impressed by our ability to identify the characters  correctly almost every time.

Our travels then took us through Ubud where we decided to stay.  Made promised that we would get a good price at his friend's homestay.