Bali, Indonesia - Relocating to the Rice Fields

Taro Village
This is my second visit to Bali, the first time we stayed in Ubud, a small town at the foot of Mt. Batur that has grown a lot in the past 5 years.  Now there are yoga centers and holistic healing spas filled with digital nomads.  The general sense of woo in Ubud makes me glad we picked a small village thirty minutes further uphill.  In those short thirty minutes, the temperature drops ten degrees, the sun retreats behind the clouds and the city sounds die away to nothing.

Bali, Indonesia - Race Report

Gran Fondo New York - Bali Edition
A lot has changed in cycling over the past thirty years, most notably the invention of the "fondo."  It's a race but if you don't want to treat it as such, you can take your time and enjoy.  It was the answer to the overly stressful race scene and it worked.  Fondo participation is through the roof because they attract both serious and casual racers.  Like most, this event has a long and medium route - what they call a gran fondo and a medio fondo.  We started lining up at 5:30 am in our corrals.  The VIPs at the front, the gran fondo riders (of which I was one) and finally the medio fondo riders.  We watched the sun rise and chatted for an hour before the race began.

Bali, Indonesia - Escape

First of Two Locations
Bali is just a two hour flight from Singapore and in the low season you can find some great deals.  I bet it's even cheaper with the slowdown in travel at the moment though we'd book this long before the WuFlu outbreak.  I have a bike race on Sunday, up the side of a large volcano and back (more on that later) so we built a mini-vacation around it.