I've been in Bali since May 27 and am leaving this afternoon for Singapore. I have mixed feelings about this place.

On the one hand, Bali is beautiful - here are some beach shots I took:





And each morning the shop-owners put out these little squares of flower and incense in front of their shops to hope for a good day:

Sadly, Bali also has been the target of terrorist attacks - here is the memorial from the 2002 bomb blast that killed 202 people:

But the food is divine!!

And my hostel (US$8 per night) had a nice garden in the front:




Overall Bali is great - cheap food, cheap accommodation, and a lovely landscape. However, the annoying part is that the people tend to harass you to buy stuff all the time. For example, while I was relaxing at the beach in my chair, different people would come up to me every 5 minutes asking if I wanted to buy kites, tattoos, wooden carvings, pedicures, manicures, massage, etc. - after a while it got really annoying and I just started ignoring them.

And Bali has to be the most touristy place I've ever been - literally everything revolves around tourists and all of the shops are geared towards them. They even have a Dunkin' Donuts here (3rd country in Asia that I've seen one in besides South Korea and Thailand).

Interestingly enough, while Westerners eat with forks, knives, etc. and Chinese (and others) use chopsticks, Indonesians don't use anything - they use their hands.

I also accomplished a goal of mine during this trip that I have been wanting to do for a while - I received my PADI certification in Open Water SCUBA diving. I went on 4 dives, including the shipwreck of the USS Liberty in Tulamben - http://www.mimpi.com/mimpi-tulamben-underwater.html

Good stuff - now on to the next country!