Bali Life

So, this crazy thing happened about a week ago. Actually, it started about two weeks ago with a dinner with our mates Kerrie & Grace, who had just returned from Bali. They cooked us this awesome Balinese inspired feast and we got to drinking and eating and after a lot of wine decided that we needed to go to Bali together over Easter. We were excited and full of dreams about what it would look like, until the next morning when we all sobered up a little and realized that K & G's work schedules weren't really going to let it happen. 

So, we went on our way and kept talking about the time we 'almost' went to Bali. It wasn't until a week later when I was doing a budget for a trip we were going to make up the coast of Western Australia for a couple of shows and some r&r time with a friend. The gigs weirdly enough fell through. We were still planning on going when we had the realization that it was going to cost us as much in car hire and petrol as it would to fly to Bali. 

Crazy, no? 

Everyone else will tell you that of course it costs more to travel Australia than it does to come to Bali. 

So, guess where we are?

Yup, Bali. 

I still can't quite believe it. Here's something about me....pretty much every holiday I have had as an adult (except for one, 12 years ago) gets built around my gigs. That's the way I can travel. I live on an artists earnings for goodness sake so I have always needed to gig in order to make the travel happen. As we sit here in Seminyak in our private villa, with our private pool, eating dinner that was put together by our maid earlier..I can't believe it. This kinda holiday happens to other people. Not to me. 

And I am so in love with this place already. (Having the privacy of our villa, the refreshing pool, the glorious mosquito net around our bed, the food I haven't had to cook and the $1.65 beer I am enjoying  drinking sure helps that love affair). Most of my Aussie friends have been here, while they were coming to Bali 10+ years ago I was saving my money to go to America to tour. A lot of my Aussie mates are quite over the novelty of Bali..but I am just beginning. I am amazed at the dirtiness of the 'sacred' beaches....(as in, beaches you can't swim in because they are deemed sacred by the locals, but they are littered with so much trash it's astounding). I'm amazed that even on the equivalent of $1000 a YEAR earnings, the people seem very happy. I'm amazed that I can get a massage for $7.50 and buy a billabong t-shirt for $3. I'm amazed that the entire fridge of food our maid, Putu, bought for us cost maybe $20. I'm amazed that it only cost us $500 to get here.....to this sweet, sometimes dirty, happy island. 

I feel very blessed. I feel unbelievably thankful that my sweet wife believed that we would get here and her belief and trust that it would all work out, got us here. I feel blessed that I get to share this paradise with her and her Cherokee heritage ever browning skin (even as I sit here still as pale as can be...thanks English heritage skin) and her warm, beautiful smile.  This is our honeymoon. I married her. We sit in paradise. I can't quite believe it. 

Thank you.