  On the beautiful Island of Bali now... After a very nice flight on Garuda Airlines, I got into Bali at around 9pm. Rather then spend the night at the surfer/party/tourist haven of Kuta, I decided to head straight to the "Culinary and Cultural capital of Bali", Ubud. I love the fact that this island is small enough to get anywhere in an hour...soooo much nicer than those 12hr+ bus/train rides earlier in my trip. Anyway, Ubud is really hyped up in the lonely planet, but I wasnt too impressed. It is a small town filled with honeymooners and japanese tourists (the auzies are surfin their waves...). The place is lined with arts and crafts stores, galleries, and restaraunts. Its a nice place if you are into shopping and getting "authentic" looking souveniers. In fact, I am sure you can get some really nice stuff here, but I hate shopping...never have liked it...I never know what to do. I saw the monkey sanctuary, biked around beautiful rice fields lined with coconut trees, and capped my evening off with some traditional balanese dance.
Bali is more expensive than Thailand and China and my days of $1 meals or less are definetly over...the food is good, but I would rather be in China for the eats. I thought I would spend 2 days in Ubud but quickly realized there is not much that interests me here. So, I am trying something different. I rented a motorbike for 4 days and am going to cruise the island at my own pace, without having to deal with the hassle of tourist groups, price negotiations, and no AC.
The bike is cheap...only $4/day (with insurance)...I picked up a nice little overtheshoulder bag and filled it with a bathing suite, towel ,and toilet paper and cruised away... Just as I got the hang of riding this thing, cruising at 70km/hr, enjoying the blue skies, puffy white clouds, tall green coconut trees, flat rice paddies, locals in batiks, a white dog decides to stroll out into the road.
I couldnt avoid it, I swear...a collision, crash, dog whinning, me trying to figure out what is going on...the dog is ok...in fact he seems much better off than I. I limped off the word not feeling any pain yet because adrenaline was still pumping through me. Before I even got my bike off the road a local shop owner rushed to my aide with a small bottle of iodine.
just a scrape on my left arm, and probably a really big bruise on my left thigh...a couple of nods of disapproval from some locals, but everyone was generally really nice and helpful. When the adrenaline wore off the pain settled in just a bit...and then to add insult to injury I found out I was going in the wrong direction! Hard to do on an island this small... Anyway, got back on my back and sped off towards the east side of the island... 
