Bali first impressions

On the plane from Darwin to Indonesia I couldn't help my self to re-reading a couple of sentences on the custom declaration form.
The first one being the red stamp saying that the sentence on drug trafficking is the death penalty, the second that bringing weapons bla bla and pornographic material is prohibited.
We arrived at the airport and I asked a porter to help me, before knew it eight of them grabbed our six bags, since this happened before customs and since they were all wearing tags I figured we didn't risk much and let them go ahead, a bit for the folklore and mostly to watch Vals reaction, I have been through that before just had forgotten about it.
So here is Val watching the kids and eight porters holding six bags while I am collecting money from the ATM.
More confusion as we hit the outside of the airport. We got to Denpassar four hours early no driver, unsure about the address we're staying at and traffic traffic, I had forgotten about that too, the traffic regulations are not the same in Asia, are there any rules here? Traffic density is times hundred what we are used to in Belgium I payed off the porters after a bit of confusion concerning the amount of zero's behind the one, I did take a million Rupia out of the cash machine, which amounts to a whole 40€, I took the money out under the eyes of one of the porters prying my wallet for it's content.
I got a driver who was convinced all and everything would fit in his car and after pushing shoving re-arranging we all sat in the back with part of the luggage up front. The trafic in Bali is not quite as bad as what I had seen in Manila but. Driving here is a real challenge. It is not the congestion a much as the hundreds if not thousands of scooters and motorcycles.

A few things that stood out for us are the Budhist Gods statues standing tall a s a five story building.
The beauty of the kids. The stench of the city. No or very little sidewalks, making it very hard if not nearly impossible to walk around, the scooters, getting there seems so much more important then self preservation. Having said that I haven't seen one accident yet. The one thing that takes number one on my account is this, imagine a small scooter dad driving, a two year old in the middle, mum in the back (in the best of cases, mum in the back), everyone safely wearing the by law compulsory helmet but the child.

We visited the touristic area of Seminyak and surroundings and apart from 'the Potatohead' a bar restaurant, with an architectural specificity being that the outside wall has been constructed in coloseum form using only old wooden blinds, we were everything but impressed and are wondering what everyone likes so much about this place.
We keep an open mind and know that we haven't see anything yet.
Ah yes we did treat the kids to the local waterpark, one comment on that one, it is the cleanest highly attended public water park I've ever been too, lots of fun too.

We took a speedboat to Gilly Trawangan where we were supposed to stay for six nights. On the way made a brief stop in Lombok. Both are islands Lombok being the largest and greenest, Gilly being only seven kilometer in circumference. Now I must say we arrived on Gilly after the rain and taking into account that the only means of transportation are pushbike, feet or horse and cart, you can imagine the mud all around.

A step of the boat into the crystal clear water and on our cart we jumped.
I liked the place from the start. It has those remains of how I viewed the world before the big hurricane tore my eyes out and a pair of new ones were needed to live on.
Gilly has this laid back relax, smoke a spliff and be happy kind of feel. I could have wallowed in that ambiance for weeks.
Val on the other hand had a dip. I recognized it because it is exactly what happened to me on Fraser.
I call it the mental shits (not to mention the Balli belly we are all affected by).
One of the key rules we established in the US is that if either of us doesn't feel right somewhere, we move on.
 Gilly got cut down to two nights even though Val started getting out of her negative spiral on the second night we decided to move on.
Back in Bali, we are staying in a little peace haven in the middle of this busy aunts nest.

Deciding to come back turned out to be a good idea, the skies opened up and it nearly hasn't stopped raining since a couple of days. Now there is something to be said about that. At times it rains so hard that you litteraly feel someone is chucking out buckets and buckets of water from up above. The sewers cannot handle it all in the city so everything slows down, but nothing stops. You still see the scooters the car the people walking driving in streams of water. I suppose it is a good time to rephrase De Niro in Taxi Driver, the rain does clean out the shit of the city, only here it might take a few days before the water actually disappears. Before going to bed we did the same we had done in Gilly the night before we left, we looked at the lightning, counted to see how far away the thunder was and looked at the rain poring down. Our shower is open so taking a hot shower in the poring rain was a new concept for me!
It was raining so hard this morning the noise of the falling water woke me up.
I am looking forward to see the family in a few days, I am happy to re-taste Asia, I had forgotten and was shocked again how the money god has power here, and I am again overwhelmed by the kindness of people.
Oh by the way, did I already mentioned chlorinated hair?