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 Bali, Indonesia, December 16


Well firstly, I have to tell you about the show last night - I went with people we’d had dinner with, and it was billed as ‘Comedy with Col Cameron’.  The blurb about him said that he is an Australian veteran performer having worked the stage for over 25 years. Says he is the ultimate professional, an expert at entertaining, has published two books on stand up comedy and has released a CD called ‘all at sea’.  He was also introduced as being from Melbourne! Well, that’s when the proverbial hit the fan - if he’s that good then why did most of us leave the theatre? He was a total shocker!!  Worst entertainer I’ve ever seen. 

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I can talk about today.  We cruised into Benoa Port, Bali, at noon.  Was really pretty coming in past all the pleasure craft out there, hundreds of people in speedboats, saucers, flying objects, colourful umbrellas on boats etc.  There doesn’t appear to be any control on where these small pleasure craft can go, at one point I thought they’d certainly run into our ship.  

We did have a tour which left the port at 3.30. Was called  ‘A Tribal Dinner and Kecak Dance’. Six buses departed for this tour, first stop was at a silver and gold jewellery workshop and showroom.  A waste of 40 minutes as no-one bought anything but that wasn’t without persuasion from the many assistants who followed us around.  Then we went to the Bird Park - was actually a beautiful park and there were lots of exotic and local birds there.  After about 10 minutes I was drowning from the humidity and couldn’t wait to get to some aircon but that didn’t happen.  After the walk we had dinner at the open air restaurant, it was a buffet and very nice.  Following that we walked a short distance to a small amphi-theatre where we watched a cultural show.  The guide said it was a similar story to Romeo and Juliet but I couldn’t see any similarity in the hour of dance and chanting we saw.  Having said that it was very well done. 

We’re here overnight and so tonight the ship dinner was a buffet on the pool deck with music and dancing to follow. We got back to the ship at 8.30 so decided to wander up to level 11 to get a well earned drink and see what was happening. We missed out on a suckling pig, and all kinds of yummy BBQ foods but no worries there as we’d already eaten. 

The Regent Symphony Orchestra moved onto the pool deck at nine and all the singers from the troupe sang individually as did the cruise director and his wife.  Quite a party night.  We watched for a couple of hours and enjoyed the music and other sights!  

We are right in the flight path here - hope the airport has a curfew as every plane comes right over our suite.  First one I saw was a Jetstar so guess they’ll be here for a couple of days with their record

As you will all know Bali is a Province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands.  It’s the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia with  87% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species, especially fish and turtles.  Over 500 reef building coral species can be found here. 

Speaking of coral, I went to the lecture this morning which was ‘Coral Reefs of the South Pacific.  The expert, marine biologist George Losey, talked about how the relationship between a tiny plant and animal produces massive and important coral reefs.  

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