drifting_with_dervla Are We There Yet?

Finally getting around to posting about the journey thus far. Taiwan and Singapore were beautiful... let alone ridiculously clean! in Singapore it's illegal to chew gum so i was nervous about having any even though i really wanted some to help with my ear's popping after the long flight. Singapore is such a diverse place.. a great mix of Malay and Indian and so of course the food was amazing! got to Denpasar the other night and spent my first day going around town and ended up going to the local water park with Livvy and Fi, loads of fun! Friday night was insane though... we started out with a nice quiet dinner with a few drinks... but three clubs later and a good sampling of the local spirit Arak and we were all having a rough morning to say the least haha. But the clubs here are great fun, one had an Indonesian body building contest going on, so interesting so see beefed up guys that barely reach my shoulders. The only problem I had is that it seems all the Ozzies treat Bali the same way California kids treat Mexico; so just lots of annoying Ozzies up on the bar hammering out horrible renditions of Madonna songs on the karaoke machine. Hanging with Fi was great fun but she had to fly out to Perth yesterday, so maybe I will try to squeeze in a quick Oz trip while I'm here to check out her neck of the woods.
Yesterday Livvy, Nella, and I went for a good walk about town. Saw all the local shop goods and finally finally finally got to see the Bali beaches! God, so incredible. The softest whitest sand ever and there are public cabanas everywhere so anyone can just walk up and feel like they are getting the 5 star treatment. Oh, and last night DJ gave me a motorcycle ride into town to pick up some cough drops for my throat and it's such a better way to see the city; so today I'm going to see if Selamat (the guy that lives here) can give me a motorbike lesson because apparently everyone that comes to Denpasar ends up leaving with a "Bali Tattoo", which in reality is a huge bruise from falling off the bike the first day.
It's about six thirty in the morning here so I think I'm going to go for a morning walk to see if I can figure out the hood so I can be more independent about going out to the shops for things. My Bahasa [Indonesian] is coming along quite well. I'm glad I studied hard before coming over because the locals treat me a lot better once they realize that I'm trying to blend in instead of just yelling English slowly at them when I want to ask a question like all the tourists here do.
I wish I could be more detailed about the last week of travelling but getting on the computer here is so unappealing when there is so much else to see and do; but I will try to be better about updating this more often so I can be more specific.

always.