God, what a great hotel Tegal Sari is. When I first put it on my site, no-one else in the reservations business wanted to know about it; it was a walk-in hotel on the outskirts of Ubud town. In fact, it got a mediocre mention in Lonely Planet, one of many reasons why I did not take much stead in their travel guides. Now Tegal Sari is loved by everyone it seems! Tegal Sari, Pondok Sari and Alam Anda I think were proof to me that the information available on most web sites and guides at the time inspired me to do what I did. I remember on a certain udder forum for Bali when I was trying to research a trip and do the north coast road, which the travel guide books had absolutely no info on, the only response I got to my questions about a "mysterious" hotel called Alam Anda was some western guy who had adopted a Balinese name (typical) giving me grief about going there and advertising the fact as then every tourist would go there and spoil it for the real Balinese (as in he then thought he was real Balinese). I used to go walkabout with only a camera, travel bag and laptop; getting onto the Internet then was quite a challenge, an I would have to drive to the top of the nearest mountain (which was noit always easy) to get a mobile signal for my laptop connection. Travelideas was the domain I bought to make my hobby a business, and so I have fond memories of it. I still own the domain but it is now parked onto my new branded charitable ethos site, travelethos.

I am glad you got something from travelideas as it was more love than money. Times change and I can no longer do the walkabouts I used to, so travelideas could never be as it was (more a hotel personal review site with direct bookings), so I came up with the idea of travelethos, to hopefully keep a bespoke edge, plus to continue the goodwill (help) I was giving (remember free rooms for the victims and families of bomb victims; I also donated a lot to some hotel worker families who went home without a job, no social security, broke and with no-one else to turn to, literally). In all honesty, if I were to do the same thing again, I would do it for places like some of the other islands in Thailand, Vietnam, Sulawesi, the Mollacus Islands and yes, East Timor! But Bali and especially the remote areas of Bali will always have a special place in my heart, not least as that is where my wife comes from course. BTW, she has just finally past her driving test here in Portugal and so can now drive the car I bought her (she is so proud of it and keeps saying "Who would have thought.......")

Mark

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There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

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