When I first went to Pemuteran with a very good friend of mine, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. We had just driven round from Medewi Beach where we had stayed the previous night in some Lumbung style cottage rich with ants and with only the most basic of bathrooms. The Pemuteran area, besides the trucks that roll along the north coast road from the ferry port (to Java) to the ferry port for Lombok, is very quiet. We eventually arrived at Pemuteran proper at which time there were just three...

It seems a former life now, rather than something that happened just a few years ago, but once, for a thankfully not so brief period of my life I managed to go extended walkabout with a laptop with mobile connection and survive.

Having given up on conventional ways of earning a living, something to do with going crazy counting nose hairs on fellow passengers, I managed to do something many people yearn for, I dropped out and went up in the world. Having started my own not so pretty...

Preamble: It is ironic of course I have to decide which was / is my favorite hotel in retrospect, based on my highly political / moralist stand. That is, certain hotels I have stayed at and loved, I can not even consider based on what I now know about or what has transpired with them. One of the first hotels I fell in love with in Bali, Pondok Sari in Pemuteran, which had sun warmed water tank water coming our of bamboo canes for showers (it was not that warm in the morning) changed hands, got over...

I have always loved children and been amazed at how well behaved and happy, yet very cheeky, kids are in Bali and Thailand; especially given how poor they often are. I do not know why I get on so well with children but I do, maybe it is the big kid in me. Now I have two beautiful children of my own, I can appreciate even more the fact kiddies in Bali and Thailand are so lovely, understanding and knowing more about the problems of their everyday lives as I believe I now do.

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For those who worry about credit card fraud, for those who say I can give it but not take it.

http://www.nasty-bali.org/images/pignose.jpg

Seen my profile photo? No, not the little girl; if you can not see it, click the Image URL above. It is called "Pig Nose"; it was created by Bert Vierstra a Dutch"man" living in Lovina in Bali. He added a pigs nose to my photo because he blames me for running over his...