It was a looooong travel this time. 17 hours flying - excluding waiting time at airports. Copenhagen -> Istanbul -> Singapore -> Jakarta. Then an overnight stop at a small boutique guesthouse in Jakarta and another couple of hours flight to Denpasar, Bali. Reunited with the sun and immediately greeted with hot humid air +35 c, we already forgot about winter in Europe. Short transport to 'Villa Sambu' - our home for the next week or so. Located in Seminyak - a posh neighbourhood in the south of bali - 'Villa Sambu' showed to be a little piece of heaven. Two separate bedrooms, an outside kitchen and living space with charming balineese wood furniture, a small lush garden with a private pool a little tucked away in a small alley only few hundred meters from the center of Seminyaks main street. The first couple of days we enjoyed the luxury of our new home and did a little exploring of the immediate surroundings by foot. The beach is a few hundred meters from where we live, but a short trip there one of the days showed that it - this time a year - sadly is a bit of a dissapointment as it is filled with trash blowing in ashore with the wind and waves. Day three we decided to rent a couple of scooters to get around some more. I've always been a little withholding on the idea in theese parts of the world, since the traffic can mildly put be described as chaotic. I've never really driven motorbikes, and to start in this kind of traffic with a child on board, hasn't really appealed to me. But really - it is an awfully practical way of getting around - so what the hell....how hard can it be if they're all doing it. So we rented two bikes, drove them out for a spin - patrick first with both kids aboard til' I'd got the hang of it - and what do you know - I had a blast with it. Admitted the traffic is a nightmare. No place for hesitation, you just need to go with the flow.....and remember the traffic is left-sided..... Well it's been a succes with the bikes - so much that we decided to keep them for the whole stay here in Seminyak. We've been driving around a lot exploring the areas around Seminyak and Kuta - the tourist epicenter in Bali. Beaches, nightclubs, streetvendors, cafees, your typical overcrowded tourist trap that once was a backpacker paradise. Patrick was here 20 years-or-so-ago, and recognises nothing. He remembers the beach huts and small low-key bars. Now it's mostly huge posh shopping mall's, Starbucks, McD's and alikes...but so goes evolution in travelling. Kuta is the place most tourist start or end their stay in Bali - and for some, sadly, the only place they juge Bali on. Kuta was btw also the place for the terrorist bombings in 2002. We were little surpriced of the price range here. We expected to meet cheap indonesian prices, but instead were met by prices double the level we expected. Thing is though, that so far we've only really been in the popular travellers areas, so the pricing ofcourse follows. Plus they are hardcore bargainners. I tried a local zumba class at a fitness center - and even there the price had to be negotiated. The manager started out asking for 320 000 IRP ( appr. 160 DKK/22 EUR ). For one zumba class..... I ended up paying 120 000 - still like double the price from home. Anyway it was a fun experience. We've begun to find the small local restaurants though, where the meals are like a third of the price and taste so much better. Great food here, by the way....spicy. One of the days was spent in a waterpark in Kuta - mainly for the kids sake - but us adults enjoyed as well. Tomorrow we're heading up north to Lovina. Some 3 hours drive, but we plan to make some stops on the way, hoping to see the more rural Bali. Ricefields, hillside temples, waterfalls and volcano's. The balineese people are amazingly sweet, smiling, helpful and friendly. Hinduism dominating this island in the otherwise largest muslim country of Indonesia. Laid back people with a sence of humour. Looking forward to seeing more of Bali.