Right after we landed we went to Legian, close to the airport, where we found a small hotel to stay until we got the orientation on the island. Legian is a quite busy village with a couple of shops, restaurants and a beautiful dark sanded beach. Ligian was actually quite nice, if there weren't all the over-ambitious dealers who desperately tried to convince us that we would need their sunglasses or T-shirts. They were on every corner in every street and they usually did not accept a simple "no, thank you.". Also when we were walking along the beach everybody insisted in making business with us. We were a bit disappointed about that place when we found out that the only way to get some peace at the beach was by pretending being sleeping.

So we rented a big and loud motorbike and quickly left Legian far behind us. We drove along the coast to the west-most point of the island. On the way we passed a lot of small villages and many picturesque rice fields - a perfect place to go cracy with my new photo camera :-) After a half day drive we arrived in Gilimanuk, where the ferry to Java was.

We had the good idea of taking the motorbike on the ferry and continue our trip to Java. But the police had another plan with us: Right after buying the tickets we were halted by a local police officer to check the motorbike registration. After spending a while on the police station - my Indonesian language skills are not the best - I found out that I had to leave the motorbike there, and I could go back to Anne, who was still waiting in front of the ferry. Now we were confused, and after some peoples warnings about that the police would always try to rip off the traverlers, we also felt a bit uncomfortable with it. We believed, the motorbike was gone. But anyway we continued our trip to Java.

Java, the land of the coffee beans! And the land on which travelers are warmly welcomed: Within seconds we were surrounded, if not even covered, by all these salesmen again (you remember from before...). They must have been waiting for us! If we would only had been successful in making them understand that we neither had money nor we wanted to buy their sunglasses... We run to the public toilets and waited until they disappeared. Well done. After a short walk then outside of the harbour area we met some kids, who came very open and interested to us to have a chat in English. We were quite impressed about how well they could say "Hello! How are you?" and "What's your name?". We replied friendly and asked how they were and what their names were. And they answered: "Give me money! Give me money!". They did not look that poor, and we quite quickly found out that this was the only words they knew in English. They were just programmed by their parents. We packed our things and walked back to the ferry back to Bali (Still with the little "Give me money! Give me money!" roboters tight after us. We were followed step by step.).

Back on Bali we went directly to the police station and we foud out, that the only reason that we had to leave the motorbike there was, that the registration was only valid on Bali and not on Java. They kept it safe in the police station, so it would not get stolen, and we got it right away back. Thanks to the chief, who's English was very good. That was a good deed of the local police. After all they wished us a pleasant trip and the continued into the night along the northern coast line.

We headed towards Lovina to find a place to spend the night. We heared there were a couple of guesthouses and a beautiful waterfall nearby. The ride on the motorbike was very nice, but the nightfall came fast - and the headlight of the motorbike stopped working - a long way before we arrived in Lovina. For a while we were able to follow another motorbike in front of us which produced enough light so we could see the road. We drove through small villages. One of them had a couple of shops and we decided to stop to check if we could fix the headlight. A police man came for help. He was around with his friends and sent some of them out to find the right light bulb for us. Most of the shops were closed, or the right bulb was sold out. When we finally found a replacement, it was already late, and we were in doubt of if we could make it to Lovina before the guesthouses close. So we thankfully accepted the police man's offer to stay in the village at one of his friends who had a couple of rooms to rent out. After dinner with the locals and a drink made of the milk of a cactus, we went to bed and called it a day.

The next moring, just before the sunrise, we were heading southwards across the old vulcano on the island. The ride was very exciting! We stopped at a place where a family of monkeys was sleeping on a rock. Some of the you ones were already up jumping around, while some others slowly started to wake up, blinded by the rising sun. Further up the mountain we passed a waterfall where we took a short rest. On top of the mountain there was a small temple with a teriffic view over the island - a beatiful piece of nature! Then further down we passed the monkey forest, where some local people were offering us peanuts to feed the wild monkeys. For me this was great fun, I just love playing with these little creatures!

Arriving back in Legain, we had to return the motorbike and slowly prepared for the trip to our next destination. Since all airplanes to all in teresting places had already left that for day, we decided to stay one last night in a small but nice hotel close to the airport and then take another chance the day after. It was still quite unclear where we wanted to go, but we finally decided heading for Manado, Sulawesi.

All in all we have enjoyed the stay on Bali and keep it in good memory. The people are in general very friendly, and there are some very nice places on this island. But it seamed to be that the entire island - it is rather small - is being run over by all the package tourists. You can feel it when talking to the locals, and you can see it when driving through some of the so strongly commercialised villages, which have almost given up their old charme and are slowly turning into one giant mass tourism processing organisation. We're now almost sure that we will not go back there again for another holiday, but we are happy to have tried it this time.