We're here!!! We arrived Monday at midnight. Our entry to the country was ,the easiest EVER, and that includes entering Detroit via the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor. In less than an hour, we obtained our visas, hit the ATM, got our bags, went through immigration and customs, took a taxi to our hotel, and were lounging on our clean, comfortable beds with 2 pillows each( a luxury we rarely had in India).
Breakfast buffet is included in the price of our room, and it was dandy. There was an egg station, fruit, grilled tomatoes, meats, and pasta(?). Like India, they also serve baked beans. Hmmmmmm.... We skipped that, but I did see another tourist eating them, spread on toast. I guess we all need our complex carbs, one way or another.

We picked up a handful of tourist brochures at the airport. Prices look pretty amazing. One tour offers a two-hour spa treatment, transportation, fire dance at a temple, and seaside grilled fish meal for about $35.00 US. You can rent a private AC car and English-speaking driver for about $40.00 US per day. There's plenty to think about and I'm pretty sure whatever we want to do will fit out budget. But today, we have one thing to do: walk on the beach. Something tells me that we'll accomplish that with NO problem.

Mission accomplished yesterday...beach walking was a success. Today was more ambitious and quite amazing. We took a Balinese cooking class, and it was fantastic. We began at 6:20 am at the market in Jimbaran. Our teacher, Heinz, shared a wealth of information with us, including an easy technique for hypnotizing a chicken. Did you know that you can predict what color egg a chicken will lay by looking at the color of her ears? We didn't know for sure that a chicken even HAD ears. And that was just the beginning.

We tasted exotic vegetables and fruits, and had some fresh spices that we had only had a dried powders before. Heinz is Swiss and studied French cooking as a young man. He has worked as a chef in Europe, Australia, and Singapore before coming to Bali over 20 years ago. He said he fell for Balinese food and women, and stuck around, learning local culture as well as the local food. We learned about everyday life in a typical home, then cooked and ate all day. Wait until you see what we can do with a little corn, coconut, sugar, and salt. It is beyond delicious. Sadly, we both now have a real taste for coconut cream. There are worse addictions.

Hinduism is the religion of 90% of the people here, and their temples are everywhere. Curiously enough, many of the statues at these temples are draped in black and white checked fabric. Heinz explained that the cloth represents karma. The white is perfection, the black stands for evil, and the gray is the every-day world where we live our lives.

People leave offerings everywhere. They are at the shrines and temples, but are also on the streets, in doorways, in front of gas stations, and perched on fences. They typically consist of small folded palm leaf baskets holding flowers, food, leaves, and even the occasional cigarette. They are finished off with a stick of burning incense so the smoke can carry the prayers up to the gods.

The trip so far has been terrific. We'll let you know how things continue after we meet up with the tour group. Gail and I both have plenty of experience traveling independently. Not so much with a group. I like to think that we can adapt. We'll see!