It is hard to believe that it has almost been a year since we left our home and our friends and family in Nevada and California. So much has happened.  We have seen so much, met so many wonderful people, and experienced so many other lives.  The most memorable thing has been those special people we have met along the way, total strangers, who have opened the homes and hearts to us and become our friends.  Our understanding of true friendship has forever changed.

It has been quite a few weeks since we've gotten off a postcard and a lot has happened.   The big news is that we're decided to stay in Bali for a year We have quickly fallen in love with this magical place.

Last month we traveled to Hong Kong to meet up with some new friends, Giles and Heather, that we met will in Phuket, Thailand.  They were gracious hosts and we stayed in their beautiful condo on Hong Kong Island overlooking the bay.  The trip was more of a supply run then a sightseeing tour, as we needed to stock up on a lot of essentials (like computer and photographic gear) that you can't get in Indonesia.

A few weeks ago, a cyberspace friend of ours, Ann Thompson and her husband and father, dropped by while visiting from Vancouver.  We had them over for dinner and shared our travel experiences.

Tracy, Sherry's sister, and her son Wyatt arrived on June 26 and we all had a great time.   In addition to enjoying the beaches here in Sanur and in Kuta, we went up to Ubud in the hills above Denpasar.  Ubud is the artistic center of Bali and home of numerous galleries and good museums.  We stayed in  some beautiful bungalows overlooking a lush river valley.  Last week we went scuba diving on the north coast and saw some of the native Balinese dances.

On 4th of July weekend, we decided to have "4th of July Tex-Mex Party".  We invited all of our new friends and had it catered my a local Tex-Mex restaurant.   Throughout our trip we have always been in search of Mexican restaurants (that's a book all to itself).   As a prelude, a few days before the party, we took our entire house staff and their families to the restaurant that catered the party.  It was the first time that they had Mexican food and had in a restaurant.  The party was a big hit and we even had a little fireworks.

We have been taking Indonesian language lesson as well as cultural lessons. The language is relatively simple and has no tenses, plurals or verb conjugations.  A lot of it is contextual.  The word "jam" can mean clock, watch, time or hour.  The Balinese are constantly having ceremonies.  Ceremonies for the full moon, for the local town temple, for the personal temples, for the opening of a business, for births, weddings, deaths, for the good spirits and the evil sprits.  Each ceremony involves beautiful costumes and elaborate offerings of food and flowers. Every day our help finds time during the day to get dressed up and place offerings around the house, in the yard, on the house temple and in our car. I'm sure that the later has saved our lives several times so far.  People even calmly walk out into the middle of busy intersections and place offerings on the pavement, sprinkle holy water on it three times, and say a prayer while cars are passing inches from them.  Then the get up and walk back to the sidewalk oblivious to the careening cars and the fact that their offering gets immediately smashed and scattered into a million pieces.  The Balinese believe that the spirits immediately take the essence of the offering, so the material fate of it is of no importance.  They also give offerings to the evil spirits as they must be appeased in order to keep the proper balance between good and evil.  We awoke one morning to find our new puppy and rabbit both dressed up in Balinese costumes and being blessed before a huge pile of delicious and beautiful offerings.

Of all of the places that we have visited, the Balinese have been the most successful at preserving their culture in spite of the onslaught  of tourists.  Unlike other places were the ancient culture only exists in hotel stage shows, the Balinese live their culture each day and it is real.

Sherry has started painting again and is really enjoying it.  The kids are currently on summer break, but start back up again at a new school in August.  Piper has been effected most by our decision to stay and was homesick for her friends and family.   We decided to let her return home with Tracy last weekend so that she can visit for three weeks.  It worked out fine because our good friend Janet, who spent the holidays with us in Switzerland, will be returning with Piper to spend a couple of weeks with us.  It will be a big change from the last time we saw her in the Swiss Alps. In addition to getting back to my stock trading, I am also collecting all of our trip notes together into a book.  It will be as much about the family dynamics as the travels themselves.  We also are setting about organizing the thousands of pictures that we have taken.

The political situation in Indonesia has quieted down since Suharto stepped down, but no one believes that the final chapter has been written.  The increasing poverty brought about by the financial crisis, corruption and mis-management of the country is likely to result in trouble down the line.  In spite of this dark cloud on the horizon, Bali continues to be a safe haven from the chaos in Jakarta and many people have recently moved from Jakarta to escape the troubles.  The big fear of the Balinese is that there will be more problems in Jakarta which will scare away more tourist and hurt the economy even more.
 

I have just completed making major revisions and updates to the website.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

The trip is not stopping here.  We plan to continue traveling to Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, China and Japan.

Thank you all for following us this far

- Ken, Sherry, Piper and Skyler

              
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