The Bali Tour: 2005

The Bali Tour will kick off in mid-October with a bbq at my house. I'm hoping to give people such a big hangover at the bbq that they won’t notice the first 4 days of the tour. The tour will last 8 days and we will see some wonderful parts of Bali. This being my first tour I know there will be some kinks to work out and hope everybody comes with a fun attitude. I remember once in Nepal my bus broke down. We were forced to hitch a ride on the roof of another bus for 8 hours. What was a hitch in our plans turned into a great adventure after we pushed the bus to get it started then rode it through lovely scenery. It was one of my most memorable bus rides.

Here's the thing about tourism in Bali. Big tourism has big infrastructure. If you go to Nusa Dua you get a 4-lane highway, big resorts, big swimming pools, big hotels. The further away from the tourist scene you get the smaller the infrastructure gets. Small potholed roads, less traffic, small hotels and guest houses. On my trip we will use the road less travelled. We will stay in small hotels where you might have to share a room. Our vehicles might get stuck in a pothole and you might have to help us get them out. With the right attitude we can all look at this as an adventure.

We are visiting parts of Bali that are more traditional than Kuta. There might be local ceremonies going on while we are there, there might not. I don't control Balinese culture and cannot arrange temple ceremonies for tourists. If I could you would have something like Hawaii where its performance cultures, just for tourists.

An adventure awaits and I'm looking forward to it. Are you coming?