last day

We are just sitting around waiting for our driver to take us to the airport! I cant believe the trip is over, it went so quickly. Yesterday and today we just took advantage of our vacation and were extremely lazy. It was very nice . We're anxious and excited to get home and back to real life ( and I think our stomachs would appreciate our normal food!).

the flight home is actually shorter by 2 hours ( hurray!). Hopefully it goes as smoothly as our trip out here. We both decided to not go into work on wednesday so we could have a day to recover/adjust to the time difference.

Here are some observations about Bali:

1) the people here are so nice. As a tourist you never feel unsafe or like you are intruding, they are always friendly and smiling even in the worst traffic.

2) the food here is very vegetarian friendly. I never had trouble finding something delicious and vegetarian on a menu. I wish America was like this!

3) Everybody here smokes. I mean, EVERYBODY. Its funny because the brand of cigarettes here is "L.A cool" and nobody in L.A would ever be caught dead smoking in public!

4) The big american brands here are KFC, McDonalds, and Oreo's. They are very popular and dominate a lot of the advertisements here.

5) Traffic rules are really more of a suggestion here. Almost everybody rides scooters and it can be quite chaotic during rush hour.

6) There are lots of stray/wild dogs that are roaming the streets. The balinese people seem to treat them fine, but they are not domesticated pets.

7) The food here does not have any cheese/dairy in it! We realized this on about day 7-8 when we were just feeling so "blah" and were craving american food. I admit we headed straight to the hard rock cafe and ordered nachos that day. They were delicious. We are ashamed.

8) Nobody here really "tips". Dining at even nice restaurants, there was no tip line and nobody expected or asked for one on any of our excursions/tours.

9) There is extreme poverty here. However, unlike some places where you feel like you're in the slums it just seems like a way of life here. People seem very content and spiritual and somehow that makes the poverty seem not as bad.

10) The pollution seems to be getting bad here. Trash is piling up on beaches/water/streets and there seems to be no concept or concern for keeping things clean. We did see some fires in backyards/sides of streets which lead me to think that the balinese burn their household trash so maybe its just the tourists, but its very sad.

11) The hardest thing about staying in the Villa was the language barrier between us and the staff. It was hard to express to them what we wanted to do or eat because they weren't very well versed in english. It was definitely interesting and I think good to get outside of our comfort zone for a little bit but it was frustrating at times.

12) Nowhere takes USD. We're used to traveling to mexico or the Caribbean where everywhere will accept usd but not here! We had to stop several times to get our money changed which was not hard as there are money changers everywhere.

13) Bali was a great place for our honeymoon. It was the perfect mix of tropical relaxation and exotic cultural exploration. This is the first time i've ever been anywhere this culturally different, and I'm glad I picked Bali. The culture and people here are beautiful and simple and it was enjoyable getting to see that.