It's still not a great map, but it's what I've got available at the moment.
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In January, 2006, I took a trip to Bali. My high school English teacher, Wayne Connaway, has spent a fair amount of time there, and coerced me into going. He's a wonderful person who makes friends wherever he goes, a skill I wish he'd taught instead of English. Since he knows quite a few people in Bali, I figured it was an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. Wayne met me at the airport; on this trip we were being taxied around by two new friends, Putu Jaya and his friend Made whom Wayne was helping to apply for a job on a cruise ship. Getting a job on a cruise ship is a big break for these folks; they earn about ten times what they can earn at home.
The airport is just south of the city of Denpasar, which is at the south end of the island. As soon as we left the airport, it started pouring rain. Buckets. Garbage cans. There was four inches of water running down the streets. We stopped at a money changing place. I gave them three hundred dollar bills and they gave me a cardboard box full of bills in return. As we drove north for two hours, I tried finding places to stuff all the money. As in many developing countries, you need a wheelbarrow for any significant amount of cash. Fortunately, in Bali, you normally don't need a significant amount of cash for anything.
An hour into the ride, the screw fell out of one of the temples on my glasses. An hour after that we rolled into Lovina, pulled up to a "Big" store, the Bali equivalent of Wall-Mart, a 50 x 100 place selling motor bikes and eyewear and I can't remember what else. As we got out of the car, Jaya found the screw to my glasses, and the guy in the store fixed them for me.
I spent my first week in Bali on the north coast, getting familiar with Balinese driving and life in general, and trying to learn a few words of Balinese or Bahasa Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia. Then I wandered around the interior, criss-crossing the island from one end to the other, winding my way up and down the ridges of the volcanoes. I spent a few days on the south eastern coast; then my last few days in the Ubud area, winding down and staring at the biggest arts and crafts display I've ever seen.
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| Lovina | Brahma Asrama Vihara | Menjangan Island | North Coast |
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| Interior Wanderings and Volcanoes |
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| Candi Dasa and the Southeast Coast |
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| Ubud Area, Royal Pita Maha | Tegallalang Area |