Pit Stop in KL

Our return back to Macau had us landing in Kuala Lumpur so we planned to stay for a few days to check out the city. KL as it is often called, in Malaysia's capital with approximately 8 million inhabitants.
We found it to be a very cosmopolitan city with people living and visiting there from all over the globe. We were all quite tired from Bali so we probably didn't do the city any justice but some of the interesting points were:
1) The Petronas Twin Towers
2) The Butterfly Park (lots of butterflys and skinks)
3) The shopping (made West Edmonton Mall look like a second rate strip mall)
4) The restaurants; every type of food imaginable from all over the globe

Sea Turtle Sanctuary

A popular place for Danielle and Emily to visit on Gili Meno was the Sea Turtle Sanctuary. This is an undertaking of one of the locals named Carlos. He would regularly go out and remove turtle eggs from nests before poachers or other locals could get at them. The turtles would later hatch and be raised until they were eight months old. At that point, they would be released into the ocean.
Each morning after breakfast, the girls would run down to see Carlos and the turtles and help feed all of them. In between feedings both girls couldn't keep themselves from picking up the youngest ones, "just to have a little look".

Snorkeling Around Gili Meno

One of the memorable experiences at Gili Meno was the snorkeling. The island is surrounded by coral so one can just swim off shore to enjoy the beautiful underwater scenery. One morning we all boarded a glass-bottom boat to explore the coral wall and do some snorkeling. I ventured far and wide amongst the coral being pulled along by the strong current. Jackie and Emily snorkeled near the boat while Danielle stayed in the boat and watched the coral, fish, and turtles through the glass bottom.
The hilight for me was swimming up behind a big green sea turtle (about 2m away) and taking its photo before it swam off. The photos here were taken with a Kodak underwater disposal camera.

Gili Meno

The next part of our holiday had us travel to a small island off the NE coast of Bali called Gili Meno. This island is part of a group of three islands found between Bali and the island of Lombok.
Gili Meno is quite small as we walked around it one day in about three hours. It is a very quiet place as there are very few inhabitants and the only modes of transportation are bicycles and horses with buggies.
The island is known for the great snorkeling within the coral wall that surrounds the island.
It was pure relaxation for us all as we spent our time sunbathing, swimming, reading, and eating fresh food at the small restaurants scattered along the beach.

Swimming with Triton

After leaving Ubud, we headed for an area called Tanjung Benoa. This is a harbor area on the southeast coast of Bali known for its Dolphin cruises. We intended to join an early morning cruise to see some dolphins but we found out about something new called the "Dolphin Experience".
The dolphin experience allowed us some one-on-one interaction with a dolphin (and it's trainer) for a forty-five minute period. Our dolphin was named Triton, a ten year old bottlenose dolphin.
After a five minute boat ride from shore we entered the dolphin enclosure and we then lowered ourselves onto an underwater platform to meet Triton. We found him to be a very friendly and gentle creature. We all received many dolphin kisses and even hugs as Triton would swim up to us and put his head on our shoulders. After a brief tutorial from the trainer, we could instruct Triton to retrieve small pebbles, basketballs, and small hoops. We were also able to get Triton to jump high out of the water and touch a suspended ball.
We took turns rubbing Triton"s tummy, touching his teeth, and even feeling his tongue.
We of course had to feed him bits of tuna after each trick because as the trainer told us "Triton doesn't work for free".
Overall, this was an incredible experience for us all.

Monkey Forest

Another popular attraction in Ubud is the "Monkey Forest". It is a large piece of jungle containing a few temples and hundreds of wild Macaques. It was great fun to observe the monkeys as they ate, played, slept, and even fought amongst one another. Now while these monkeys look cute and cuddly, (most are) they were also very adept at stealing ones water bottle or bag of bananas. Some also had no fear as Emily, Danielle, and I all had monkeys approach us and jump on us looking for a free meal!! No one was hurt rather just surprised at how unafraid the macaques were of all of us.

Visit to Ubud

After a week on the beach, we headed inland to the village of Ubud. This popular tourist site is known for its cultural attributes such as painting, dance, and carving. During out three day visit we saw a Balinese Fire Dance, a volcano, rice terraces, and incredible amounts of stone and wood carvings. We stayed in a lovely hotel that had traditional Balinese architecture as the door to our suite was like something you might find on a castle. We had a lovely large patio as well where they served us breakfast each day. It was definitely a place to relax and enjoy ones surroundings.

Bali Zoo

Another great attraction in Bali was the local zoo. It had a wide range of birds and animals to observe but the best part was that visitors are able to hold or handle a wide variety of them.
Hi everybody. This is Emily. The Bali Zoo was a blast. We got to see a lot of different animals at the Bali Zoo. We got to feed deer and a fruit bat (the biggest bat in the WORLD!). And we got to feed a camel. The funniest thing was an orangutan threw poop at us! And he had really, really good aim. And the orangutan almost got my dad!!! He He. At the front of the restaurant where we were eating lunch me, Danielle and my dad got to hold a very interesting creature. His name was slow lory. He had little padded toes and very big eyes. There's a picture of me with him. He was also quite slow.
by-by

Water Bom

Early on in our holiday, Emily and Danielle learned about a water park in Bali. So before we could do anything else we had to go and have some water fun. There were some crazy water slides including the boomerang (vertical drop), the superbowl (like a centrifuge), and the macaroni. We spent an entire afternoon playing on the slides and floating around the park on the lazy river.

Trip to Bali

On July 27 we traveled to Bali, Indonesia. Everyone was excited to get away from the heat and humidity of Macau to the drier and cooler weather south of the equator. The first thing we did of course was to check out the beach. There are some beautiful beaches in Bali and some of them have amazing surf; if you ever wanted to surf or meet a surfer, this would be the place to go. Our hotel for the first week was right on the beach which allowed us some amazing views while we ate our breakfast each morning.