2014 Bali, Indonesia Scenes & Wildlife

A little further along the Spa track and looking back down the river towards the Riverside Cafe.

Although there was some wildlife down this area, most of it has been covered in previous pictures here, but this blue Dragonfly was something different to add to our picture gallery.

Continuing along the valley trail, you really felt back to nature with beautiful scenes almost at every turn of the track.

Finally, we reached an area closer to the hotel complex where steps again became the norm, and we again began to climb the valley side.

OK, what goes up, often comes down again, so the track again began to drop away. This area seemed to be covered in a white layer, which looked like a snow-fall, but in the 30's C??

The white layer turned out to be cotton-wool type structures embedded with small seeds, and looking up we found the cause of it all.

The towering Kapok tree we were near produced the answer as it was raining seeds on the light breeze, so just like snow-flakes, the white pieces of the down was falling all around us. We realised then that we were now close to the hotel pool above, and around the next bend we came to the upward steps to take us back to the central complex.

Yes, more and more steps,often at the 1 in 1 slope, which took a lot of negotiating. However, with all sorts if interesting things to look at, there were plenty of stops on the way.

OK, half of the way up now we were nearing the height of the top of the Kapok Trees we had passed previously.

The final stages of the climb back to the hotel, arriving behind the open-air performance area.

Always a chance to try tropical fruit, and we'll try anything. Bali was particularly nice with the choice of fresh fruit for a breakfast platter. Clockwise from the left are Passion Fruit, Mangosteen, Salak, Banana, Pineapple Slices, Watermelon, and Guava. Perhaps the best flavour comes from the Mangosteen, but a new fruit for us was the Salak, which was crunchy and tasted of sweet and sharp at the same time. it was easy to get hooked on these, and needed great restraint to limit your intake. Notably some guests would swoop on the Mangosteens when available, taking whole platefulls of them and quickly depleting the supply, but sadly preventing other guests from trying them if they were not so quick.

This is an Oriental fruit which wasn't around when we first visited Bali, but it does originate from Indonesia and is now widespread throughout the region. The popular name for it is because the thin papery skin looks and feels like a snake skin.

This was the Buffet area for Fruit, and Wayan was always busy keeping stocks of the local fruit available for guests. if you were lucky you could sometimes find the more popular fruits hidden in the bottom of the baskets, and he would deftly take the skins off for you.

Well, all good things come to an end, and we began the long trip homeward bound being driven south through Ubud to the Airport. The area these days is somewhat different from when we came here in 1986, and much more developed with shops everywhere.

Along the main road around Denpasar, the traffic is now very busy, but there are stll the crowds of small Motorcycle riders everywhere. In the Far East we've seen all sorts of things carried on Motorcycles, including whole families (with children), Pigs, Calves, ducks, chickens and many other things. The one to the left of this picture was carrying a full surfboard slung alongside the young couple riding.